The Whore’s Imaginary & Sex Working Economies of Space

• In Event: Surveillance Sex: Carcerality and Representation in Sex Worker Archives

Abstract

Drawing on Melissa Gira Grant's concept of the "Prostitute Imaginary," my paper, The Whore's Imaginary & Sex Working Economies of Space, explores how sex workers both navigate and transform various spaces—physical, virtual, and conceptual—while confronting societal stigma, criminalization, and surveillance. The "Prostitute Imaginary," as Gira Grant defines it in Playing The Whore (p. 17, 2014), represents "the cultural fantasies we hold about sex work and who performs it." Gira Grant's term can be read in dialogue with Benedict Anderson's concept of "imagined communities" (Anderson, 1983), though Gira Grant's term projects these imagined communities onto criminalized and stigmatized workers. My analysis, which examines the spatial dynamics and imaginaries of sex work through a Marxist and queer theoretical lens, focuses on public and so-called private spaces. Through autoethnographic observations and theoretical analysis, I examine how sex workers navigate both public and "limited-intimate" spaces—a term I introduce to replace the concept of private space in an era of pervasive surveillance and sousveillance.

Sousveillance recognizes that no "completely private" space exists for criminalized populations; here, I work with Nicholas Mirzoeff's framework of visuality and counter-visuality. I also argue that sex workers actively "queer" space through their labor practices, challenging heteronormative and state-sanctioned relationships while creating temporary but renewable sites of transgression. I distinguish between institutionalized "queer spaces" and actively "queered spaces," emphasizing how the latter requires continuous performance and resistance to maintain its transformative character. Building on Aaron Betsky's work, specifically Queer Space: Architecture and Same Sex Desire, which describes queer spaces as "an invisible network, a code of behavior or ritualized language of gestures that traces the activities and places of everyday life, creating only momentary spaces of union..." (p. 43, 1997), I particularly focus on how digital platforms (social networking, adult services advertising sites, etc.) simultaneously offer new possibilities for community and autonomy while exposing sex workers to novel forms of persecution and displacement. I conclude by advocating for a confrontation between the "Prostitute Imaginary"—society's stigmatizing fantasies about sex work—and the "sex worker's imaginary," which encompasses workers' own spatial practices and revolutionary visions. This theoretical framework is presented as essential for understanding and ultimately abolishing the criminalization of survival work. Recognizing sex workers' labor and spatial practices is crucial for imagining and creating more equitable working worlds.

Author

• Brit E Schulte, University of Texas at Austin