The (Moral) Regulation of Moroccan Sexual Economies: Sex Work, Social Change and Households ‘Inside Out’

• In Event: 343 - Section on Sociology of Sexualities Paper Session. Sexual Commerce and Intimate Markets (co-sponsored with Section on Sex and Gender)

Abstract

In this paper, I examine illicit sexual economies in Morocco as unlikely vehicles for performing and communicating social critique by poor and working-class women. In contrast to AIDS prevention programs that emphasized women’s risks as ‘female sex workers,’ my interlocutors – middle aged, working class women in the sex trade – used the phrase ‘I fend for myself’ to highlight their vulnerability as heads of households who were denied the resources and support required for social reproduction, and therefore took it upon themselves to cobble together multiple forms of precarious labor. The phrase ‘I fend for myself’ served as a hybrid moral descriptor that valorized women’s sexual labor, blending a neoliberal ethic of flexibility and entrepreneurship with a fierce commitment to traditional projects of social reproduction. In this sense, my interlocutors’ lives and everyday practices indexed Morocco’s shifting moral geography and, in some ways, challenged hegemonic configurations of appropriate female conduct. However, they also critiqued the liberalization of sexual markets and the spread of unfettered sexual demand. Their expressed nostalgia for the regulated exchanges embedded in the ideal-typical patriarchal household – where their virginity and sexual labor were exchanged for entitlements – raises important questions about citizenship and the place of vulnerable women in contemporary Morocco. By focusing on emic concepts and seeking to understand the inherent logic and force of these women’s words and actions, this paper illuminates a novel perspective on the complex moral interplay among sex, gender, and vulnerability in contemporary Morocco.

Author

• Anne Marie Montgomery, Columbia University