Feminist perspectives on sex work as care work

Jenny Künkel and Kathrin Schrader have published a book on feminist perspectives on sex work. Various articles shed light on the political, legal and social situation of sex workers. In addition, sex workers report on how they campaign politically for their rights and recognition as care workers. One article by Stephanie Klee is entitled "Care Revolution & Prostitution". Jette Hausotter (Care Revolution Berlin) spoke to her and the editors about sex work, care work and feminism - also in light of the coronavirus crisis.Question: Why a book about sex work and feminism? What do you want to achieve with it?Stephanie: Long before I started sex work, I saw myself as a feminist and also campaigned for our rights. I wrote my thesis as a social worker on the topic "Does prostitution make you free? A comparative analysis of female prostitution from a feminist and Marxist perspective". So it was always natural for me to see myself as a feminist sex worker and to campaign among feminists to stand up for the rights of sex workers and demand respect for the work and the decision to do this work.Kathrin: As a social worker, I worked a lot in areas specific to women and for a long time I thought that I was doing good feminist social work. At the time, however, I didn't question my perspective that I had to liberate people from certain life situations. Of course, it was also about changing exploitative conditions, but I had to go through a few loops to understand that help only works if the voices of those we as social workers believe we have to save are also heard. Sex workers are just one example among many. The book is intended to help create visibility and show that certain experiences and bodies of knowledge are not taken into account, even by feminist academia.Jenny: Exactly, the range was important. The abolitionist demand to abolish prostitution by banning demand is often seen as THE feminist view. Sex workers, who would be forced underground as a result, don't feel represented. Conversely, non-sex worker activists often think they have to condemn sex work in order to be feminist. As academics who are in solidarity with sex workers, we wanted to show that there are other feminist perspectives: for example, intersectional feminisms that address ethnicity and class alongside gender. These make it clear that power in location-bound, labour-intensive trades such as sex work arises primarily from migration regimes, (female) poverty and poor social security, as well as from stigma, non-application of labour law and drug criminalisation. The perspective thus shows that both the criminal law demanded by abolitionists and the regulatory law established by conservative moralists fail to address the problems.Question: Sex work is care work. Initiatives by sex workers have been represented in the Care Revolution network from the very beginning. What are the similarities and differences between sex work and other areas of care work?Stephanie: Sexuality is - for most people - part of important reproductive work. Especially in today's society with enormous stress at work, the double burden of professional and private life, more and more singles, senior citizens who live in isolation or in the narrow structure of homes, as well as a general social coldness, there is a need for sex work in order to be able to fulfil the different needs for which there is nothing comparable in the private sphere.Jenny: One difference is: Sex is the only time a different word is used for the activity, as soon as there is remuneration. This is why a normative-ethical part of care activism finds it difficult to recognise sex work as care. The ethical perspective values marginalised care work as important and demands better remuneration on this basis (e.g. in terms of income or parental allowance). Ultimately, the argument is that the activity is good per se. The conditions of capitalist gainful employment are largely ignored. However, prostitution is by definition market-based. This also makes many leftists and feminists uncomfortable. I understand that. Criticising marketisation is important. But many people focus their unconscious unease about capitalism and the marketisation of more and more areas of society on a rejection of the only activity that is given a different name if it is market-based. They find Hartz IV, for example, just about okay, but sex work must not be "reasonable" work in this system.Kathrin: Sex workers demand money for something that "decent" women should actually do for free. Sex workers deconstruct the romantic notions of a natural connection between love and sex, which are, however, only a forced corset and an illusion, and they are severely penalised for this. Wiping away people's excrement is a heroic deed that is poorly paid, if at all, but at least it is socially recognised. Wiping away ejaculation, on the other hand, is prostitution and therefore despicable. I would go further and not just refer to the body. In a therapeutic setting, psychologists have to penetrate the darkest and most intimate areas of their patients, bring them out and work on them. Of course, this only happens on a psychological level and not materially, which is why they are celebrated in modern times; working on the self in the form of therapy or psychoanalysis is considered good form in bourgeois circles. Doesn't the same thing happen in such sessions? Why is one essential and paid for by health insurance, while the other is ostracised? This also has something to do with our hostility towards the body, the separation of body and mind, at the end of the day, doesn't it? We can't prevent people from digesting and excreting their food, from getting old and sick, but we can regulate and discipline their sexuality, including in psychotherapy.Jenny: In reversing this stigma, many sex workers, as well as many of the book authors, rightly demand that their work be recognised just as much as other work. The ethical care work discourse, with its logic of valorisation, offers an argument in favour of this. This is understandable and correct. However, such an ethical care labour perspective is not enough. The book therefore complements voices that demand that not only sex work be recognised as (care) work, but also (care) work as exploitation. From an analytical-capitalism-critical perspective, a central commonality between sex work and other care work becomes apparent: these are personal services that cannot be rationalised to the same extent as the production of goods. This results in constant wage pressure in the care sector - as long as we do not change our way of doing business. This commonality offers starting points for solidarity-based struggles.Question: What is the political significance of looking at prostitution from the point of view of care work? Especially if we look at both sides of all care work, the human care for and for each other as well as the exploitation that also takes place on a massive scale in care work. What demands arise from this?Kathrin: The feminist movement could be much stronger if it didn't allow itself to be divided and didn't divide itself into good and bad women*.Stephanie: If reproductive work such as closeness, intimacy, sexuality and security is also considered when talking about care work and this need is recognised, sex work must also be included. I have always admired the fact that the Care Revolution included sex work from the outset, even if this was not always uncontroversial. When it comes to solidarity in the care sector, I am concerned with the common ground, the lowest common denominator. Sex work must not be excluded here!Jenny: The care labour perspective highlights a systemic problem. Reproductive labour is considered unproductive and unprofitable under capitalism. In the course of neoliberalisation, social infrastructures were dismantled and subordinated to the logic of efficiency. Migrants in particular who have been pushed out of social security systems therefore work in the informal care sector under poor working conditions, e.g. in home care or on the streets. We therefore need better social security for workers and sufficient funding for social infrastructure and must question the logic of profit and growth.Question: And vice versa: What experiences and strategies from the sex work industry could be of interest to other groups in the network? I am thinking here, for example, of trade union organising approaches or solidarity alliances of feminists from sex work, science and social work.Jenny: Care activists can learn from the sex work discourse not to celebrate family, reproduction and care uncritically. Some demands in the name of care are aimed at supporting privileged carers instead of changing the system: for example, better pay for maternity nurses is justified by the children who are important for pensions, instead of demanding outpatient hospital aftercare for everyone in a spirit of solidarity. Or there are calls for more money (only) for maternity wards instead of the abolition of neoliberal flat rates per case. The care discourse should not tie in with conservative family discourses. Motherhood, family and caring for children are normatively valorised in the modern Western world. This not only shows that valorisation is not a panacea - on the contrary, social valorisation often serves as a substitute for payment. Rather, it also shows that more privileged care workers whose care work is biopolitically desirable (e.g. that of parents within a pension system based primarily on employee contributions rather than taxes and redistribution from rich to poor) must fight in solidarity with and for the less privileged. And we need different social structures, not just a bigger slice of the cake for the few. Otherwise there will only be crumbs left for sex workers, for example, who are seen by conservatives as the opposite of motherhood, family and care.Stephanie: For me, too, political engagement as a sex worker is primarily about structural issues, laws, discrimination and a lack of respect. We can inspire each other here, learn from each other's methods, take to the streets together and take political action - including on the issues of a basic income, values and a change in society. We sex workers can learn from other groups to campaign for better working conditions and professionalisation and how we can network better and activate ourselves in terms of trade union politics.Kathrin: Feminist scientists and social workers are not affected by stigma and are often more secure than sex workers, so positions of power should be used to improve the conditions of those who are many times more vulnerable.Question: To relate this to a very current problem: The sex work industry has been massively affected by the corona crisis. Prostitution has been banned. What impact is thishaving?Kathrin: Sex workers are currently suffering extreme losses of income. The coronavirus prevention measures are having an existential impact on the most vulnerable among them. This vulnerability of all of us should be a reason for solidarity and not for further exclusion.Stephanie: The current situation in the prostitution industry is very similar to the catering industry, bars, discos and theatres. Brothels also had to close overnight and are now faced with the question of whether they will survive the time until they reopen with the ongoing costs for rent, electricity, telephone, advertising and staff costs. The situation is just as difficult for the many self-employed sex workers. They now have no income, have generally not accumulated any reserves and still have to eat and drink and keep a roof over their heads. Of course, we assume that all state systems and the additional rescue packages that have been set up will also apply to us. We are solo self-employed and entrepreneurs just like the others. However, we have to worry about the sex workers who were already living from hand to mouth, working irregularly, don't have their own flat and live in pensions, perhaps use drugs or have already fallen through so many cracks for other reasons and can no longer return to their home countries. They now need quick, unbureaucratic and low-threshold money for food and drink and emergency accommodation - in every city.Question: Apart from the coronavirus crisis, what needs to change most urgently - legally, politically and socially - so that sex workers can work and live well? What alliances would you like to see within the care movement?Stephanie: The most important thing is a correction of the existing laws. All special laws should be abolished, especially the so-called Prostitutes Protection Act with its compulsory health counselling, compulsory registration, permanent monitoring and control, the lack of protection for brothels, the nonsensical requirements for brothels and the risk of their closure. Instead of this criminalisation, prostitution must be integrated like any other trade, e.g. in commercial and building law. Sex workers and brothel operators need the same rights as other workers and businesses. But we also need a broad social discourse to finally move away from the clichés, myths and stigmas and towards a realistic view of sex work. In both areas, I would like to see a closer alliance with the individual groups in the Care Revolution.Jenny: Exactly! In addition, low-conditions income alternatives (e.g. a basic income) could make it possible to say "no" to poor working conditions. Paperless people and drug users could benefit from legalisation.Thank you very much for the interview!Reviewed book: Jenny Künkel, Kathrin Schrader (eds.) 2019: Sexarbeit - Feministische Perspektiven. Unrast publishing house.