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Abstract

In this article, the authors explore the place-based experiences of sex workers and how these experiences intersect with the juridical realm of sex work. The article begins with an overview of the model informing Canadian legislation, how these laws influence spatial practices, and the impact of these practices on the lives of sex workers. Drawing on findings from a visual research study where 15 sex workers used photography and art to explore their lived experiences, the authors describe how sex work places are shaped by their juridical contexts, influencing experiences of power and privilege, collaboration, identity, stigma, autonomy, safety and support services. These findings highlight that place is a critical factor shaping participants’ overall experiences in the sex industry and contributes to the disparate realities of sex work in the Canadian context. Participant photographs are also described in this article, as these visual representations further communicate the role of place as experienced and understood by sex workers. Recommendations include legislative considerations, inclusive service delivery practices as identified by participants, and a call for further research that examines place-based experiences of sex work on an international scale.

Keywords

sex work place-based experiences law supports

Introduction

Sex work operates across physical contexts, including homes, streets, studios and online settings. The meaning that sex workers construct in relationship with these different workplaces is critical; it plays a central role in their everyday lives and experiences. Yet, a paucity of research exists exploring the experiences of sex workers through a place-based lens (Grittner and Sitter, 2020). To address this need, the authors describe selected findings from a larger study where sex workers living and working in a Canadian province used photography and art to explore their experiences. This article begins with an overview of the model informing Canadian legislation, how these laws guide sex work’s spatial practices, and how this context manifests in the place-experiences of sex workers. Drawing on findings from a visual research study where 15 sex workers used photography and art to explore their lived experiences, the authors describe how sex work places are shaped by their juridical contexts, influencing experiences of power and privilege, collaboration, identity, stigma, autonomy and safety. These findings highlight that place shapes participants’ overall experiences in the sex industry. Understanding the multiplicity of sex work experiences and their relationship to place in the Canadian regulatory landscape, recommendations include legislative considerations, inclusive service delivery practices as identified by participants, and a call for further research that examines place-based experiences of sex work on an international scale.

Place theory

The concept of place emerged within 1970s humanist geography scholarship (Relph, 1976; Tuan, 1974) that emphasized a phenomenological approach to the world, whereby “to be human is to be ‘in place’” (Cresswell, 2004: 23). From the late 1980s onwards, cultural and radical geographers (Cresswell, 1996; Harvey, 1996; Massey, 1994) connected place with critical theory, recognizing place as a site where socio-structural power – for example legal systems, municipal bylaws and dominant ideas surrounding gender and sexuality – is intertwined with everyday life.

Today, research informed by place theory is burgeoning across disciplines, including anthropology (Low and Lawrence-Zúñiga, 2003), human geography (Cresswell, 2004), architecture (Dovey, 2010), sociology (Gieryn, 2000) and health (Sunderland et al., 2012). While place theory is multi-dimensional, fundamentally it looks to understand the relationship between the physical world and human experience (Agnew, 1987; Kemp, 2010). Place theory is a means of explicating the socio-spatial dialectic, recognizing that ‘in place … Person and environment interpenetrate, functioning … As mutually constituting entities. People make places; places also make people’ (Kemp, 2010: 117). According to Cresswell (2004), place is lived space.

Memories and lived experiences are intertwined with the material world, creating individual place experiences. Indeed, notions of place converge individual subjectivities with socio-political structures and histories. Place emerges when a physical location holds meaning, and is named, identified, and interpreted by an individual or group (Gieryn, 2000). Place counters the dominant understanding in social science research that positions the built environment as an immutable and passive backdrop to everyday life, understanding that all of human existence is spatial (Soja, 2013), including our emotions, memories, histories, interactions and identities.

Located within place theory are two interconnected elements: place attachment and place identity. These features of place are particularly germane to explain the relationship between sex workers and their workplaces. Place attachment tells us that through time, familiarity and community rootedness, persons’ mental and physical wellness is supported (Lewicka, 2011). Closely related is place identity, whereby an ‘emplaced sense of meaning related to our individual and collective concept of ourselves’ (Sousa et al., 2019: 965 entwine and emerge from everyday interactions with the physical world (Proshansky, 1978). Through their everyday interactions with their workplaces, sex workers negotiate their identity, community belonging and empowerment.

Broadening sex work research to understand how the marginalized place of sex work within Canada’s juridical context shapes experiences of power and privilege, collaboration, identity, stigma, autonomy and safety is a novel and necessary avenue for sex work research. It is also needed, as currently there is little research considering the role and impact of place in the experiences of sex work, despite scholarship understanding that the physical world influences vulnerable populations’ experiences of marginalization, identity and agency (Grittner, 2019 Kemp, 2010; Meth, 2003).

Canadian legislative context and sex work

Globally, five legislative models guide how governments address the sex industry: full criminalization, partial criminalization, the Nordic model, legalization and decriminalization. Full criminalization deems all exchanges of sexual services as criminal activity, whereby everyone in the sex industry – clients, managers and workers – is criminalized (Mac, 2016). Partial criminalization identifies buying and selling as illegal, excepting government-licensed brothels. The Nordic model – also known as neo-abolitionism – posits sex work as inherently violent but deploys policies that decriminalize soliciting sex for the exchange of services, goods or payment. The Nordic Model is interpreted differently in the countries that have adopted this approach. However, those procuring, facilitating or supporting sex work by advertising or managing can be charged or jailed (Barnett and Casvant, 2014). Legalization regulates the purchasing and selling of sexual services, while decriminalized regimes classify sex work as work, leading to more accountable bosses, workers’ rights and sex worker involvement in policy-making (Mac, 2016).

These models influence respective policies in their geographical area and the ways in which laws are taken up and implemented. Subsequently, they have a direct impact in shaping the experience of place for sex workers. For instance, the decriminalization model involves the removal of laws that punitively target the sex industry (Mac, 2016). Through this model, sex workers have better working conditions, with policies directly aimed at supporting sex worker’s health, human rights and occupational safety (Dunn, van der Meulen, O’Campo and Muntaner, 2013). New Zealand is an example of the decriminalized sex work. In this country, sex work is guided by a labour-based human rights framework that ‘entitled [workers] to protection from employers, clients and agents of the state’ (Dunn et al., 2013: 188).

In comparison, the Nordic model seeks to end demand by criminalizing the purchase of sexual services. Canada’s current legislation is based on the Nordic model. Bill C-36, Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, was implemented in response to the ruling of Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford (2013). Until 2013, living off the avails of sex work, communication for the purposes of sex work in public, and operating a bawdy house were criminalized (Ahmed, 2021). While the current legislation aims to target the clients by criminalizing the purchase of sexual services, the laws are extremely problematic. For instance, while the definition of ‘common bawdy house’ has changed, the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) note the following:

While sections 197 and 210 no longer criminalize keeping a prostitution house, whether keeping a prostitution house is possible given other restrictions in Bill C-36 is questionable. It appears unlikely that many prostitutes could benefit from this change without relying on those who would be captured by the material benefit offence under section 286.2. (2014, p. 10)

These current laws make sex work unsafe and limit sex workers’ abilities to safely live off their income, as it is a crime to receive material benefit from a sex worker (Benoit et al., 2016). While no offence occurs within a ‘legitimate living arrangement’, this term is not clearly defined and discretion rests with prosecutors and judges, leaving room for personal values to influence the application of law (Ontario Women’s Justice Network, 2016). Researchers in Vancouver, BC, found that sex workers experience discrimination from landlords, many of whom refuse to rent to sex workers, partially due to the legal ambiguity and semi-criminalization of sex work within Canada (Lazarus et al., 2011). While the research conducted by Lazarus et al. (2011) occurred prior to Bill C036, the findings are still relevant as under the new legislation, a landlord ‘would be guilty of receiving material benefit from the sale of sexual services’ (CBA, 2014, 16).

Legislation informed by the Nordic model is a key mechanism through which socio-structural power shapes sex work places, generating unique spatial manifestations that entangle with experience and meaning within sex workers’ lives (Grittner and Sitter, 2020 Van Meir, 2017). Law enforcement spatially displaces sex workers outside of certain areas, and strategically locates them in others in an effort to maintain patriarchal and capitalist power structures (Duncan, 1996; Hubbard and Sanders, 2003). According to De Corteau (1984), laws are inscribed on bodies. Sex workers’ bodies and the spaces they occupy become sites of surveillance to the state and local authorities that can be monitored and marked for deviance. In Canada, one way municipalities regulate sex work is through business licensing bylaws. For instance, according to van der Meulen and Durisin (2008), bylaws are a common means for Canadian municipalities to control the sex industry by allowing cities to limit the visibility and number of massage parlours. Municipalities can set zoning and determine who is eligible for business licencing and permits of indoor locations in which sex work can take place (van der Meulen and Valverde, 2013). With little regulatory oversight of massage parlour industry operations, workers must still rely on individual owners to ensure their rights are upheld. Studios are also often located in marginalized areas, away from residential neighbourhoods, where ‘adjacent parking lots and businesses [are] empty at night and [have] little pedestrian traffic, poor lighting, and limited access to public transit’ (van der Meulen and Durisin, 2008: 298) posing safety risks for sex workers. Spatially displacing sex workers to these spaces limits their safety. Further, as federal laws criminalize licensed indoor sex work, massage parlour managers hide traces of sex work activities by reducing workers’ access to safe sex supplies. Farley (2004) notes that sex workers in these spaces are discouraged to complain about violence as they are “fired for these protests, even after being raped” (p. 1101). While Farley’s (2004) scholarship is ideologically opposed to sex work, this argument draws upon documented media reports that include a stripper being fired for reporting being raped by a club patron (Sward, 2000, as cited in Farley, 2004) and a Nevada brothel worker who sued the establishment after the manager failed to call the police after she was assaulted by a client (Associated Press, 2004, as cited in, Farley, 2004). This spatial isolation poses safety risks for sex workers, as Krüsi et al. (2016) found that bylaws, municipal policing strategies and neighbourhood associations push sex workers into isolated industrial zones, a spatial occupation associated with higher levels of violence.

Under Canadian law, sex workers are prohibited from communicating in public to sell sexual services (Ontario Women’s Justice Network, 2016). These laws frame sex work as a community danger requiring spatial isolation, criminalizing negotiations over sexual services ‘in a public place that is or is next to parks, schools, religious institutions or places where children can reasonably be expected to be present’ (Department of Justice, 2018). This legal context prevents a safe means for outdoor workers to screen their clients as well as restricting the location of sex work. Outdoor workers are unable to communicate with clients prior to transactions and have little say in the services they perform (Warnock and Wheen, 2012). Existing research shows that outdoor sex work has much higher risks than indoor sex work (Jeffrey and Sullivan, 2009; Krüsi et al., 2012) and that sex workers experience significantly higher levels of violence working outdoors (Goodyear and Cusick, 2007; Prior and Hubbard, 2013; Krüsi et al., 2012).

Sex workers resist state imposed spatial isolation and associated experiences of violence and fear by attempting to create safe workplaces, employing tactics to ‘minimize detection, arrest, and violence’ (Williams, 2014: 659). In outdoor locations, this includes taking deliberate routes past security cameras or working in pairs (Williams, 2014), as well as using Apps to let fellow workers know when doing outcalls (Hannem, 2016). While these approaches increase sex workers’ safety and control over their workplaces, they also place the responsibility on sex workers to navigate the dangers promulgated by Canada’s current criminal code.

Arts-Based Methods, Sex Work and Place

This study was conducted in a Canadian province where sex workers face escalating levels of violence. Prior to conducting this research as part of a larger project, only one study had examined adult sex work in the province’s capital; the present study included both rural and urban areas across the province.

Previous research calls for visual and arts-based approaches to sex work scholarship (Grittner and Sitter, 2020; Desyllas, 2013). Participant photography combining both individual interviews (Desyllas, 2013) and group discussions (Barlow and Hurlock, 2013) was identified as ideal. Previous exemplars included Desyllas’ (2013) research with sex workers in Oregon using participant-photography and individual interviews to document and describe their lives, needs, and aspirations, while former sex workers in Western Canada used photography and film in group-based settings to explore their lived experiences in the sex trade where their images illustrated histories, intersecting identities, and resilience (Barlow and Hurlock, 2013). Both examples adapted the photovoice methodology, where participants used imagery to explore and critically reflect on their social worlds, enacting Paulo Freire’s (1970) concepts of critical consciousness and privileging knowledge acquired through life experiences.

Arts-based research methods are particularly salient ways of discerning the role of place in everyday life. Place-methods require means of understanding both concrete dimensions of the world, such as the physical form and materiality of the environment, and then connecting these with more abstract dimensions of experience such as emotions, memories, and senses (Cele, 2006). Trell and Van Hoven (2010) advise that participant-photography allows participants to connect the concrete elements of their environments with social processes and personal meaning. Experiences of identity and everyday life can be challenging to communicate in words, but arts-based and visual methods offer contemplative space for reflection (Gauntlett and Holzwarth, 2006), connecting the abstract and sometimes elusive experience of place.

Method

This research was conducted in partnership with a women’s centre with affiliated locations throughout the province. Recruitment involved purposive sampling through the women’s centres, social media and community posters. A total of 15 adults involved in sex work who self-identified as women, transgender or non-binary individuals participated in the study. Participants included individuals 18–50 years in age, with various experiences living and working in cities, small towns, and rural communities. Participants held a range of current and previous experiences of both indoor and outdoor sex work. Several participants identified as Indigenous and racialized, and all participants’ time in the industry ranged from 6 months–30 years.

Data collection and analysis. Data collection included interviews, meeting notes, photographs and arts-based collages. The visual analysis was guided by critical framing (Sitter, 2015), and considered the transitive function of visual images by considering how a series of interconnected creative processes contribute to investigating a topic. This form of analysis examines the social, political and historical realities through participant discussions and representations of visual imagery (Sitter, 2015). Through this process, core themes are identified and further explored using the collected data.

For this study, participants were asked to take photographs about their life experiences as a person who engages in sex work and participate in one individual interview and two group meetings. Where participants did not attend group meetings but wanted to provide feedback, researchers met with them individually. Interviews lasted 45–60 min, where participants shared and discussed their photographs. As a form of photo-elicitation, different layers of meaning can be discovered through this method. The interview is anchored in an image, where participants elicit insights that are not necessarily clear in the photographs without this narrative context from the participant (i.e., the photographer) (Glaw et al., 2017). After the interviews, researchers conducted preliminary analysis identified emergent themes. Group meetings were approximately 3 hours each, where participants shared and explored their chosen photographs in relation to the emergent themes. Participants discussed, analysed and edited these themes through art-based exercises, further enacting member checking. Participants also provided direction for exhibition locations and creating visual panels and discussed social media distribution of an online exhibit. Participants were provided with honorariums for their time, and food was provided at the group meetings.

In the second stage of the analysis, the process recognizes that a participant’s interpretation has the most important visual meaning (Stanczak, 2007). However, when large amounts of data are present, the researcher provides the capability to undertake ‘the overall analysis and interpret the data within the context of the other data and overall theoretical frame’ (Guillemin and Drew, 2010: 184). Building on the emergent themes of Phase 1, in this stage, the researchers analysed the visual representations and the accompanied narratives describing the images within historical, juridical and socio-political context of where the research took place. This approach supports visual and narrative-based data collection techniques (Guillemin and Drew, 2010; Stanczak, 2007) and allows for triangulation between different sources, including the multimodal of imagery and narrative, which affords deeper understandings on a topic (Glaw et al., 2017). In this phase of analysis one of the core themes that emerged concerning sex work was the intersection of law and place-based experiences. In this article, we focus on the sub-themes of power and privilege, collaboration, identity, stigma, autonomy, safety and support services. Findings indicate that the meanings and experiences participants ascribe to their places of sex work is a critical factor in their overall experience in the sex industry. To ensure the anonymity of the participants, we share descriptions of the photographs in lieu of the images themselves. We recognize there are multiple ways to engage with knowledges and use text as the main form to communicate these findings with consideration in respecting confidentiality of several participants.

Findings

Sex work occurs across a spectrum of physical environments, which scholarship traditionally separates into outdoor (street-based) and indoor sex work (Weitzer, 2009). Outdoor sex work primarily involves recruiting clients on the street and providing services in areas that include cars, alleys, parking lots, industrial areas and parks. Indoor locations include brothels, massage parlours, hotels, and private residences, which are typically managed independently by the sex worker or by third parties such as parlour owners or escort agencies. This research study also includes workplace co-operatives, which is a unique contribution within the literature. Most participants had experience in more than one setting and located their work across the continuum of sex work. The findings illustrate how these different material environments are connected to experiences of collaboration, identity, stigma, autonomy and safety among sex workers. Their experiences of agency and power were closely tied to both the meaning they attributed to their workplaces as well as the form of their work environments; in other words, their place of sex work.

Place, power and privilege

Power and privilege are intertwined with place (Dovey, 2010). In this project, some participants identified the privilege they had to make choices impacting their safety and autonomy in their work environments, while others recognized their lack of power. Participant’s accounts emphasized the relationship between power and privilege and their workplaces. Several participants explained that the ability to screen clients often comes with a level of economic privilege. Participants without regular access to the Internet or a smartphone were unable to screen clients consistently, which is particularly problematic for sex workers labouring in outdoor environments or working independently indoors.

Participants situated power in the false division of ‘sex work versus exploitation.’ One participant asserted this binary emerged from diminished understanding about the complexity of industry experiences:

I feel like in academia a lot, they draw this line between what they call sex work and what they call exploitation…I feel like they brush that kind of thing off by saying ‘well that’s not really sex work, that’s exploitation.’ But that’s not really, it’s not so black and white, you know? And then like when they try to do that by saying, ‘well I’m not talking about exploitation I’m only talking about sex work,’ they end up talking about such a small segment of sex workers that they’re not really talking about sex work at all anymore.

Implying that all people involved in sex work have a choice is inaccurate. Ignoring the structural influences also silences the voices of many sex workers: ‘There’s survival sex work which is often street work. But even survival sex work is not a freely made choice and I think that’s something that we kind of miss over a lot. That, you know, survival sex work is a choice, but it is not a fully or freely made choice’. Diminished power and choice mean that often the place of survival sex work is rife with isolation, lack of safety and violence (Krüsi et al., 2016). Working in survival sex work, the street environment is constant material reinforcement of diminished autonomy and constraint.

A participant also explained how the disparate experiences in sex work should not be dismissed, and not all sex work is empowering:

… have you heard of sex negative, sex positive feminism? So, sex positive feminism is this idea that sex is good and if it’s not good it’s not sex. Whereas sex negative feminism acknowledges that in a patriarchy sometimes sex isn’t good. And I think there needs to be that same analysis applied to sex work where sometimes, some people might find sex work empowering, but some people don’t, and sometimes sex work isn’t empowering, but it’s still sex work.

This analysis supports the understanding that persons working in the sex industry do so along a continuum of choice, agency and power, impacting their ability to negotiate income, hours of work, client screening, service provision, and work environment (Bettio et al., 2017). Sex workers’ place-based experience of their work is inextricably tied to their perceived agency. Participants who described their involvement in the industry as ‘survival sex work’ shared stories of having limited control surrounding their workplace. If place cultivates our understanding of self (Proshansky et al., 1983), the street locations of survival sex work for the participants in this study reverberate with subordination.

Fostering collaboration through place

Participants discussed the significance of collaboration and peer-support in their workplaces, emphasizing the importance of physical environments that allow for collective work. Working collectively increased participants’ overall wellbeing and sense of social inclusion, a means of countering the experience of stigma and community-exile that is a common feature associated with working in the sex industry (Duke et al. 2018). Some participants shared that working in places that fostered connection and opportunities to debrief with other sex workers supported positive mental health. Massage parlours provided opportunities for connection, as ‘they were more structured, and a bit more social’. Another participant explained:

The only thing I miss from leaving the studio was having that place where you all did the same job and people could understand your life struggles and stuff like that, because I mean it’s really difficult to talk about your sex work every day with people who don’t do it. It’s just not the same.

One individual described how she purposefully created a collaborative workspace when she ran a massage parlour:

So when I ran this massage studio it was also a safe place. So like even if you weren’t working, you could come in and use the wi-fi, get a shower, you know you just want to chill out on the couch and hang out that’s cool. It’s a warm space.

Connection with others possessing relatable lived experience was critical for many participants:

Most of my friends at this point are also participants of [name of program] and we help each other out as much as possible. If we’re going on calls, we text each other and let them know exactly where we’re going to be.

Participants involved in cooperative settings expressed a strong connection to their workplaces, reflecting place attachment. Feeling emotionally attached to a specific location and material environment serves a fundamental human need to belong, this feeling of attachment and belonging is necessary to develop a positive sense of self (Lewicka, 2011). When environments support social connectivity, individuals experience increased physical and mental wellness (Tartaglia, 2013).

These descriptions of collaborative sex work environments echo a feminist structure where power is shared; these workplaces are operated and run by sex workers. They described these structures as non-hierarchical, ‘it’s very much a team… it’s like a parallel structure where no one has more power than the other, we just have different roles’. One participant acknowledged that compared to a studio their cooperative model requires more work to advertise, as well as more time to meet, organize, and discuss the space, but she thinks it has more benefits, ‘It’s a little bit more work but I mean its way better. I wouldn’t go back to work for someone else’. Working in environments that facilitate collaboration allow workers to feel supported by members of their community, countering social isolation and cultivating belonging.

While participants identified the benefits of working collaboratively, Canada’s current laws limit legal options for sex workers to create collaborative work environments. Canadian laws do not protect participants working in cooperative models, as ‘part of the Canadian law is that you’re not allowed to materially benefit from someone else’s sex work. So that means if my friend and I are working together…that is a real issue’. A participant’s photograph highlights the importance of collaboration and peer support under Canada’s challenging Nordic regime: ‘Whore’ is spray painted on the front window of a massage studio in sparkly lavender spray paint. The window is framed with curtains and displays the business hours in a glowing red schedule against the darkness outside, a closed sign dangles adjacent and the bottom portion of the window is frosted. An interior light shines behind the glass. In this photograph, the tension between operating in Canada’s Nordic regime, sex work stigma, and sex workers’ desire for collaboration and community coalesces in place. This participant positions the collective interior workplace as a key strategy of resistance in countering the stigma and violence sex workers experience throughout Canadian society.

Identity

Place was connected to aspects of participants’ identities, specifically pride in their work as well as control over their sex worker identity. Place theory asserts that an individual’s physical context interplays with identity formation, advising that ‘all aspects of identity will, to greater or lesser extent, have place-related implications’ (Twigger-Ross and Uzzel, 1996: 206 206). Specifically, several individuals described how having a workplace separate from other aspects of their life allowed them control over their identity:

I think certain parts of my life need spaces to exist by themselves, like where I climb is a different space, where I run is a different space and I don’t bring, I don’t bring every part of my life into those spaces like when I’m here I’m just a sex worker, I’m just there to make the clients happy and I make sure I’m safe but I mean I’m just there to please the client and the space is there to please the client.

Many participants explained that human nature is complex and having a separate workplace supported healthy identity-related boundaries:

I can’t work at my house, I have a daughter and I have a normal life, I teach yoga…we just needed safe place where we could you know, entertain people and this place is perfect because it has like, a, we have a bedroom, we have a massage room, we have a kitchen. Like sometimes, I know one of my clients he’ll bring dinner and we’ll eat dinner, like a date you know, and one day I cooked dinner for him and yeah, it’s just really cool it’s like our clubhouse.

As this participant shares, the work location, functionality, and supported activities is a core strategy for managing identity within the sex trade, offering the participant decision-making over client interactions and a personalized approach to her work. “Clubhouse” denotes a community of belonging for the both the workers and their clients. Together, a small group of women created a separate workspace outside of their homes. One participant explained how anonymity was an important factor in choosing their location:

I just said ‘why don’t we make a place that’s totally anonymous and not publicized,’ like the address will never be found, we meet with people in public before we even give them the address…we got this apartment, we got it painted…I had a bunch of art and mirrors and stuff so I decorated it and yeah it just kind of came together.

A photograph of a participant’s workplace reveals a deep red accent wall with a shade-covered window in the centre. The room is lit with a table tamp and candles and on the walls are framed art and a mirror: a material atmosphere carefully constructed and imbued with pride. When describing this apartment, this participant shares the energy and time that went into creating a space that was warm and cared for: ‘I was so proud of all the decorating and when we finally, it was a lot of work to get it all put together. I was just really proud of it’.

Several other individuals also identified the importance of creating a welcoming work environment that they took pride in:

Sex work isn’t strictly like beds and massage tables and lingerie, it’s also the environment that you welcome your clientele in, and you want to make a nice space for them. Like a home, kind of like a comfort, home, pretty… aesthetics are important.

One participant illustrates her strategy for cultivating dignity for both herself and her clients through a carefully curated tea service positioned in front of a sunlit window with a plant perched on the sill. A silver tray holds two glass teacups hanging from a cast iron holder, a silver tea pot, a covered serving dish and a Bluetooth music speaker. Together, these stories of the intention that surround creating desired atmospheres in sex workplaces supports Twigger-Ross and Uzzell’s (1996) theorizing that place identity is implicated in self-esteem and self-efficacy. Individuals evaluate both themselves and their environments in relationship to how well their needs and self-perception are positively encouraged. For many participants in this research, their workplaces are ‘identity-relevant projects’ (Dixon & Durrheim, 2004:458), carefully conceptualized and crafted to reflect how they see themselves and their work.

Stigma

Within their stories, participants identified the geographic context of sex workplaces as a protective factor against sex work stigma. One participant described how her home-based workplace in a city centre provides anonymity for her clients:

When someone contacts a sex worker, especially if they’re doing in-calls, and they’re coming to visit you, where you’re located is a really big deal…I live in a very populated business area… so when people come to visit me they can say they are pretty much anywhere else but with me.

Controlling disclosure for both sex workers and their clients is a stigma resistance strategy intertwined with the geographic location of place. A different individual shared a photo of an empty and generic coffee shop, filled with lounge chairs and small groups of tables. For this participant, the coffee shop represented the risk of being outed as a sex worker if she ran into a client in public.

One participant thought the larger city she was in was a better place to work in the sex industry as the anonymous nature of urban environments providing a protective barrier against stigma:

If you want to do sex work, this is a pretty good place to do it. I feel like smaller places, I come from a small town, I would never do it there. I don’t know it’s just so, people have really tight judgements in small places and they pretty much know everybody who does the sex work and they’re like social outcasts.

Another participant echoed similar issues with stigma and privacy in small towns, but her experience showed that urban anonymity came at the cost of community support. She experienced more connection with peers in smaller communities than in her current city:

In this [city] it’s dog-eat-dog…I have never seen anything like it anywhere I’ve practiced sex work. Here in [city], not only is it not like that but when you meet another sex worker it’s like there’s some unspoken bond that you don’t like each other, and you can’t like each other. And I find here there aren’t many sex workers because when someone else finds out there’s another person as a sex worker they automatically feel like they need to expose them… but in [name of rural community] it was very, very different. I had a roommate who was a sex worker. We actually made friends with people we met online, we passed clients off to them and they passed back. And before you know it, we sat around having drinks together. And there is none of that comradery in the city. At least in my experience. I can’t speak to other cities, but for this one it doesn’t exist.

Workers in this study elucidated the benefits and challenges of both rural and urban environments in shaping their place-based experiences of sex work. Working in an urban or rural environment impacted their experiences of stigma and ability to control employment disclosure within the sex industry.

Autonomy

Autonomy, control, and decision-making were critical aspects in how participants described their place-based experiences; having a positive sense of self and place-identity, as well as attachment to place, is connected with empowerment (Strzelecka et al., 2017). Many participants working from home and in shared indoor environments described having control over significant aspects of their work. One individual cited autonomy as a factor in her decision to work independently from her home:

Autonomy, that one is kind of a little more broad but it’s just like the ability to make decisions for yourself… being your own boss means that you are actually your own boss, and that you can make decisions for yourself about your own money and about your business, and you can decide to work with someone or to hire someone.

Participants who worked independently indoors – whether in their homes or at a collective – also explained their workspace provided autonomy when it came to choosing clients. One participant works with a group of women in a shared space they rent. She prefers her current experience to previously working at a massage parlour.

This way you can pick the people you want to see, and if you don’t want to see somebody, you don’t have to. At the studio, you had to see everybody, if they wanted to see you, you had to see them.

Participants who worked in massage parlours also said they had choice in their schedules. One individual described how she liked the flexibility of the studio and not having to deal with securing clients:

Working out of a studio is safer…I have to pay for a room fee or whatever to work there, but I just feel like it’s worth it. I just feel like it’s not as safe like to get a hotel room…if I were independent then I don’t know I just feel like it wouldn’t be as easy. And I’d have to like screen all the calls and emails and stuff myself, and I just don’t want to be bothered with that.

Several participants who worked in massage parlours identified that they had choice in their schedules and felt it was safer than working on the street or doing outcalls. Illustrated in these stories is the importance of indoor workplaces in sex workers cultivating personal agency over their schedules, clients, and earnings.

Safety

Safety and fear of the unknown was a theme connected to a number of place-based experiences: ‘I have also found myself in situations where I find myself in these dark places, like buildings and places where I don’t even know where I’m at’. Several participants identified settings where they experienced lack of control, no safety or security, and no power. These situations varied widely depending on the participant and the workspace environment they described.

Outdoor environments were often associated with fear, isolation and darkness. A participant who worked alone and outdoors explained there was limited time to screen clients and ‘new clients are probably the scariest because you don’t know’. Working outdoors, alone, at night further compounds threats to safety: ‘So you have the cover of darkness to protect you from being caught, but the darkness also can protect you from being saved if something goes wrong’. Another individual shared a similar experience with outdoor work, ‘you end up in the hills somewhere and you’re not sure where you are, so if something happens…you don’t know how you’re going to get back, they can pretty much dump you somewhere and you’re screwed’. Several participants with experience working outdoors took various photographs to show and describe their experiences. Working in the industry for 3 years, one participant could not work out of her home, so she worked outdoors. She took a series of photographs of parking lots and roads, with dark, haunting shadows contrasting against pavement. This participant shared the background to her photograph of an empty parking lot at night, partially illuminated by a streetlight and located next to greenspace swallowed by shadows:

This would be your typical place to park, right? So you know, parking lots, a typical place…some of the guys, they want to go more into the bush, you know? And that’s just, that just kind of freaks me out, but this is just, I was walking by here the other night, and I’m like ‘this would be a place that somebody would take me’, right?..but typically night time is the car date time. There’s nobody, nobody around to save you or help you.

Other images of outdoor work held similar tones: one participant shared a picture of the woods taken at night with dark, ominous shadows on tree stumps and explained ‘I found myself always ending up in the woods, like doing the work…like basically it’s kind of dangerous and that’s kind of where people like to take you, just so they don’t get caught’. Most participants explained that the current laws do not protect these threats to safety posed by outdoor sex work places:

When it comes to safety, if you get beaten up you are less likely to go to the police and say ‘hey, these are the details surrounding me being assaulted…’ if you were assaulted at any other type of job, you would have no fear of going to the police station right away.

Several participants indicated that solitary indoor work also incited fear and risk. One participant illustrated the danger of working alone in indoor environments, sharing her story of being sexually assaulted while working out of her home. She did not contact the police due to the pervasive stigma associated with sex work. Ultimately, she moved out of her apartment because of the assault:

My experience totally proves what I keep saying over and over and over in my head again, the laws here [are] useless to sex workers. I was raped and I would not go to the police because of the stigma. I did not want to go there, and they go ‘how did that guy know where you lived?’ Or ‘how did they know that guy?‘…I had to leave my apartment because I didn’t feel safe there anymore and I wouldn’t go to the police, just because I didn’t want them to look at me differently, you know what I mean?

Participants working out of their own homes had to balance a higher level of control over their work with increased safety risks. As a means of navigating safety, one participant would always let their clients know that someone else was in the house at all times, ‘I work from home, but I’m never alone. Someone is always there for safety, and I tell clients’.

Several workers experienced less fear working collaboratively. Participants across the province who had worked in shared spaces indicated these were the safest arrangements they had experienced: ‘I feel like this [studio] work is a lot safer. And I feel like maybe there is less stigma of like working on the street or out of a hotel or whatever’. In massage parlours, other participants explained that workers created safe places by always having two women working in the building at the same time and having condoms available. These narratives surrounding outdoor environments and working alone indoors reveal the importance of place in shaping sex worker’s experiences of fear and safety. Claiming and creating indoor workplaces that facilitate collaboration and agency stand in contrast as a powerful place-based strategy to generate safety.

Support services

A place-based lens illuminates the multiplicity of experiences among labourers in the sex industry and the impact of ideology on their workplace experiences. A place-based lens recognizes the heterogeneity within sex workers’ meanings associated with their workplaces. It calls for support services for sex workers to be equally diverse while concomitantly recognizing the importance of place in support delivery. Needing to disrupt power that ties support services to ideological compliance, such as abstinence from substances or a commitment to exit the sex industry, is a key finding from a place-based perspective. One participant explained that she tried multiple times to secure supports but was unsuccessful: ‘it wasn’t for a lack of trying. I did try supports. I reached out and was turned away because I was a drug user, because of this or that…yea, so it was difficult. I had to do it on my own’. Other access barriers to support include age restriction (over 30+), children and abstinence. Holistic service delivery that moves organizations beyond ideological stances is required. This would include ending the common practice of restricting support programme services to individuals wishing to exit the sex industry. As noted by one participant:

There is such a tension between that, we want to get people out, and we want to support people who are in it. Like, I feel like most organizations don’t walk that line very well…even if those organizations would just work together more closely, that would be good.

A place-based approach shifts the discussion away from the innate tension between the charity model and a ‘work-is-work’ positionality to one that addresses spatial justice based on the needs of sex workers and meeting them where they are at.

The opportunity to work collaboratively and participate in peer support networks was a key theme concerning place. This finding also applied to support services, as many participants identified the critical importance of human connection with face-to-face delivery and 24/7 access ‘it would be better to see people that you know, face-to-face…’ A place-based approach to service delivery would involve creating environments where people with shared experiences can connect, such as a peer-run support service:

More peer-run support groups, because it goes back to understanding each other. I’ve lost a lot of family and friends being in the trade, because nobody understands exactly, so I can’t go up and talk to somebody and hold everything in…but yeah it would be nice to have people who understand and actually talk to you, instead of just professionals who don’t have that expertise.

Place-informed service delivery: Place-informed service delivery would ensure services are interconnected to create accessibility and the ability to offer a full range of resources. One participant described what this should look like with healthcare:

Healthcare could be a great resource, I know a lot of healthcare clinics around [name of location] it’s like a wellness center, where they have physicians, their nurses, their pharmacy all in the same building and they could have maybe a bit more of a support counselling group space.

This description highlights the need to revisit service provision and delivery connected with sex workers; revisioning support agencies as environments inclusive for all sex workers, with resources to support autonomy, agency, choice and identity. Within Canada’s current regulatory regime, support agencies are key dimensions of the place of sex work; as another participant observed, support services must ensure sex workers ‘get whatever support they need to keep them safe while they’re working’. A place-centred approach recognizes the importance of access to dignified housing and work environments, autonomy, peer supports and ending the spatial isolation imposed by Canada’s criminal code and municipal bylaws.

Discussion

This article described the place-based experiences of sex workers living in one Canadian province. The meaning ascribed to their experiences of collaboration, identity, stigma, autonomy, safety were closely tethered to their level of power and privilege, their workplaces, and how they navigated Canada’s current juridical landscape. The legislation fundamentally shapes place-based experiences, particularly related to safety. The findings indicate that while autonomy and choice play an essential role in creating safe workplaces, the legal ambiguity of the Nordic model fails to support sex workers in their place of work, and the responsibility is unjustly assigned to sex workers. Findings support the need to create place-based interventions to attend to work environments and supports services for sex workers. The opportunity to create indoor workplaces such as massage parlours and co-operative models that facilitate collaboration can be a powerful place-based strategy to generate safety. This requires clear legislation that delineates the right to work in a safe environment. Currently, workers must simply rely on individual owners to ensure their rights are supported. Further, creating support services that are accessible, supportive and welcoming requires inclusive practices embedded in a harm-reduction approach and environment. A client-centred approach means that sex workers are treated as the experts in their own lives; recognizing that they know what is best for them and their workplaces.

These research findings also support van der Meulen and Durisin’s (2008) recommendations that a labour-rights discourse must permeate legislation concerning sexual labour. Legal changes are required that respond to the place-based needs of sex workers, respecting autonomy, choice and decision-making while facilitating safety. Canadian laws and policies must be informed by the voices of sex workers across the continuum of sex work that can speak to the diversity of their place-based experiences.

There were limitations to the study. The participants included individuals who self-identified as women, trans or non-binary individuals and did not include experiences from individuals who self-identified as men. While there were different social locations regarding age, race, sexual orientation and class, this was not expanded on in depth. It is worth noting that while the interview guide included questions certain questions that addressed intersectionalities, responses were limited or not given. The researchers were also cognizant of striking a balance of exploring the layered meanings related to participant images through open-ended questions and respecting how participants chose to respond and focus on certain areas. Life stage experiences and the axes of intersectionalities are needed in future research with specific consideration to the relationship related to place and legislation.

While this research contributes to growing sex work scholarship, further research is needed to understand place-based experiences within the sex industry. Exploring place-based experiences across legislative models and global contexts would provide further insight into the place-based experiences of sex workers, which in turn would inform support service creation and delivery across diverse place settings. As this research demonstrates, participants have multidimensional experiences in their workplaces, understanding the diversity of place-based needs among sex workers is one avenue for recognizing multiplicity, fluidity and texture among a population that has been largely treated as monolithic in their needs and experiences.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SHRC IDG 430-2016-0058).

ORCID iD

KC Sitter

Kathleen C. Sitter is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. She is currently working across a range of projects that involve multi-sensory engagement and human rights. Her work in the areas of sexual health, health and the arts, and participatory health research includes over 150 screenings, theatre performances, and of creative outputs.

Alison L. Grittner is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. Previously educated in architecture, fine arts, and history, her transdisciplinary scholarship involves working alongside vulnerable communities to understand, reimagine, and reconstruct everyday environments towards equity, empowerment, and dignity. Her award-winning praxis focuses on developing community-based knowledge of socio-spatial inequity and translating that awareness into action and intervention via the built environment.

Taryn Fritz is a Doctorate of Education student in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. She works as a sessional Instructor in the Department of English at MacEwan University. Her current research and writings are about mapping high school English Language Arts curriculums to understand the link between gendered and racialized spaces with student experience and curriculum discourse.

Amy C. Burke is a registered social worker in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada and has been involved in participatory arts-based research relating to the topics of accessibility, sex work and breast cancer care.

Emily Ophus is a community-based counsellor, educator, and consultant. Emily holds a Bachelor of Social Work degree from the University of Manitoba and a Master of Social Work from the University of Calgary.

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Exploring the role of place in sex work through participant photography

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Place theory

Canadian legislative context and sex work

Arts-Based Methods, Sex Work and Place

Method

Findings

Place, power and privilege

Fostering collaboration through place

Identity

Stigma

Autonomy

Safety

Support services

Discussion

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

References