2005 Programme Session 3

Session 3: Sex Work
Chair: Nicholas Rumens

Men and Male Sexuality: Upper Secondary Pupils’ Talk About the Film ‘Lilya4ever’
Anna Sparrman
Department of Child Studies, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

This paper explores how gender mixed groups of Upper Secondary Pupils (16-18 years of age) after viewing the Swedish film Lilya 4-ever talk about sex trafficking. The film Lilya 4-ever is directed by Lukas Moodysson who became internationally famous with his film Show me love concerning lesbian love between two young girls.
An initiative to show the film Lilya 4-ever during school hours was taken by the Swedish government in July 2003. The aim of the School-Cinema program was to promote equality issues as well work towards knowledge about and gradually decline in sex trade. After viewing the film a video ethnographic study was undertaken in six Upper Secondary classes during teacher lead follow-up discussions. Drawing on critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992), subject-positioning (Davies & Harré, 1990; Walkerdine, 1986, 1997) and theories of visual culture (Mirzoeff, 1998, 2002; Mitchell, 2002) analysis demonstrate how pupils talk about close-up scenes of sexual abuse. A direct and indirect sexual vocabulary was used in the classroom discussions and economic issues such as access and demand was recurrent topics. This present paper however, more explicitly explores how pupils talk about men and male sexuality. The investigation shows that men are talked about as threats, disgusting, perverts and hate is expressed towards them. Likewise are the pupils defining male sexuality as an uncontrollable biologic urge, laughable, as an incurable disease as well as very powerful. A homogeneous and discouraging image of men and male sexuality stand out through the talk about the film.

Agency, Resistance and Remapping Prostitute Identity: A Queer Diasporic Reading of Mira Nair¡'s India Cabaret
Bidisha Banerjee
Department of English, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

India Cabaret is Mira Nair's documentary about the lives of cabaret dancers and prostitutes at a seedy nightclub called Meghraj in Bombay. In my analysis I wish to focus on the queer subtext of the film and demonstrate the working class woman's body as the site for resistance to patriarchy, class oppression and heterosexuality. While heterosexuality is constantly at the forefront of the women's lives, I suggest that the homoerotic bond that even tends to the homosexual between the women, allows them to escape the tawdriness of their lives to a large extent and to seek comfort and a safe haven in each other's company. The women's bodies thus function in two very different ways as spectacularized objects during the dance scenes and as mediums of conveying homoerotic desire in the scenes depicting the women interacting with each other. While the former is strictly performative and an act, the latter is more meaningful and gives them a sense of community and belonging that is denied them in their daily lives due to the harsh ostracism faced by the women in society. Through the dual function of the body as represented in the film, I want to posit a new feminist framework which accounts for a corresponding duality in their experience that portrays them as both exploited and having a certain agency. I thus problematize the simple binarism of exploited victim and liberated woman as theorized in both radical and pro-sex feminist paradigms.

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Defining Sex Work
Linda Cusick
Institute for Applied Social and Health Research, University of Paisley, Paisley, United Kingdom

When one person touches another and money changes hands, how shall we interpret this? To answer this question, we need to know whether either party interprets the touching as sexual. We also need to know about consent and whether payment is a condition of that consent. Sex work occurs where one party considers the experience as sexual, another considers the experience as work and both recognise the other’s perspective. Narrow definitions of sex have however tended to narrow definitions of sex work. At the same time prostitution has been re-branded as sex work to reject stigma labels and a new taboo has emerged against discussing variety in commercial sex. Failure to differentiate sex work experience has in the past allowed sex work to be conflated with sexual abuse, slavery and trafficking. In the confusion, vulnerable sex markets have become entangled with the mutually reinforcing aspects of organised crime and problematic drug use. This paper defines sex work as a first step in differentiating it from its associated harms and abuses.

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2nd Global Conference Wednesday 30th November - Saturday 3rd December 2005 Vienna, Austria Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Session 3: Sex Work Chair: Nicholas Rumens Men and Male Sexuality: Upper Secondary Pupils’ Talk About the Film ‘Lilya4ever’ Anna Sparrman Department of Child Studies, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden This paper explores how gender mixed groups of Upper Secondary Pupils (16-18 years of age) after viewing the Swedish film Lilya 4-ever talk about sex trafficking. The film Lilya 4-ever is directed by Lukas Moodysson who became internationally famous with his film Show me love concerning lesbian love between two young girls. An initiative to show the film Lilya 4-ever during school hours was taken by the Swedish government in July 2003. The aim of the School-Cinema program was to promote equality issues as well work towards knowledge about and gradually decline in sex trade. After viewing the film a video ethnographic study was undertaken in six Upper Secondary classes during teacher lead follow-up discussions. Drawing on critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992), subject-positioning (Davies & Harré, 1990; Walkerdine, 1986, 1997) and theories of visual culture (Mirzoeff, 1998, 2002; Mitchell, 2002) analysis demonstrate how pupils talk about close-up scenes of sexual abuse. A direct and indirect sexual vocabulary was used in the classroom discussions and economic issues such as access and demand was recurrent topics. This present paper however, more explicitly explores how pupils talk about men and male sexuality. The investigation shows that men are talked about as threats, disgusting, perverts and hate is expressed towards them. Likewise are the pupils defining male sexuality as an uncontrollable biologic urge, laughable, as an incurable disease as well as very powerful. A homogeneous and discouraging image of men and male sexuality stand out through the talk about the film. Agency, Resistance and Remapping Prostitute Identity: A Queer Diasporic Reading of Mira Nair¡'s India Cabaret Bidisha Banerjee Department of English, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong India Cabaret is Mira Nair's documentary about the lives of cabaret dancers and prostitutes at a seedy nightclub called Meghraj in Bombay. In my analysis I wish to focus on the queer subtext of the film and demonstrate the working class woman's body as the site for resistance to patriarchy, class oppression and heterosexuality. While heterosexuality is constantly at the forefront of the women's lives, I suggest that the homoerotic bond that even tends to the homosexual between the women, allows them to escape the tawdriness of their lives to a large extent and to seek comfort and a safe haven in each other's company. The women's bodies thus function in two very different ways as spectacularized objects during the dance scenes and as mediums of conveying homoerotic desire in the scenes depicting the women interacting with each other. While the former is strictly performative and an act, the latter is more meaningful and gives them a sense of community and belonging that is denied them in their daily lives due to the harsh ostracism faced by the women in society. Through the dual function of the body as represented in the film, I want to posit a new feminist framework which accounts for a corresponding duality in their experience that portrays them as both exploited and having a certain agency. I thus problematize the simple binarism of exploited victim and liberated woman as theorized in both radical and pro-sex feminist paradigms. Download Conference Paper - Defining Sex Work Linda Cusick Institute for Applied Social and Health Research, University of Paisley, Paisley, United Kingdom When one person touches another and money changes hands, how shall we interpret this? To answer this question, we need to know whether either party interprets the touching as sexual. We also need to know about consent and whether payment is a condition of that consent. Sex work occurs where one party considers the experience as sexual, another considers the experience as work and both recognise the other’s perspective. Narrow definitions of sex have however tended to narrow definitions of sex work. At the same time prostitution has been re-branded as sex work to reject stigma labels and a new taboo has emerged against discussing variety in commercial sex. Failure to differentiate sex work experience has in the past allowed sex work to be conflated with sexual abuse, slavery and trafficking. In the confusion, vulnerable sex markets have become entangled with the mutually reinforcing aspects of organised crime and problematic drug use. This paper defines sex work as a first step in differentiating it from its associated harms and abuses. Download Conference Paper -
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