Labouring in the Sex Industry: A Conversation with Sex Workers on Consent and Exploitation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

INTRODUCTION: There are some good ideas here but some re-organization of them is required in order to “hook in” the reader, especially ones new to the area. A transition between the first and second paragraphs would help. For example, a transition pointing out that sex workers are not listened to or believed and that this can have serious consequences such as the PCEPA. The idea is to move more quickly to your claim that there is a neglected area of research that you plan to address: understanding the definitions of consent and exploitation as experienced by sex workers.

Lines 29-32 (that currently provide the introduction/transition to the 2nd paragraph) do not seem to work here. Perhaps it could be built into the first paragraph before the However in line 24.

In line 22 you refer to sex work as a “new” occupation.  Clarify why you think it is “new”.

LITERATURE REVIEW: Although I am not familiar with the most recent literature on consent and exploitation, I know enough to be satisfied with the literature review. It covers a wide range of material and both sides of the debate are presented.

Lines 76-77: Was the consent obtained without the fear of violence or induced by fraud or threat? [Note: I can answer YES to the first part but if we are to have consent, I must answer NO to the second part. This question needs to be clarified. One way is to insert ‘or without being’ induced by fraud or threat?] 

Some key references in the literature review are missing from the list of references (see below).

RESEARCH DESIGN: Consent and exploitation are hotly debated topics, especially by sex worker activists, prohibitionists, and academic scholars. Unfortunately, we rarely hear from ordinary sex workers about these issues. The exploratory design of this research is most appropriate since it allows the author to focus on a neglected dimension in sex work research: how sex workers define exploitation and consent and the relationship these issues have to their health and safety (lines 58-63).

METHODOLOGY: More details will greatly enhance the value of the paper.  Given the challenge of COVID-19, describe what you did to organize them safely. Clarify how/where the interviews were conducted (in-person, by phone, or by Skype). If by phone or Skype describe how was consent handled? Identify how the interviews were recorded/transcribed and how long they lasted on average. Clarify how many were interviewed.  On lines 226 & 227 12 are identified yet, I found 13 named interviewees in the RESULTS section (Ava, Nikko B, Cora, Elizabeth, Kaya, Marie, Veronique, Rose Suffie, Charlotte, Angie, Nina & Diane).

RESULTS: The results are well organized, clearly presented, and do not rely on quotes from a limited number of the interviewees. The reader “hears” from all of them. In addition, the reader is given an opportunity to “listen” to the answers provided by the sex workers who are interviewed. As mentioned above, this is important work and one of the only pieces I have read where sex workers are discussing/defining their notions of consent and exploitation in detail. 

DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: The discussion and conclusions build on the results. However, they could be strengthened by highlighting the specific ways in which the various elements of the interviewees’ definitions and experiences challenge/undermine the notions of those who are not listening to them. That is, point out what you learned by listening to and believing sex workers and how what they are saying about exploitation and consent is the same or different from the definitions provided in the literature review.

I agree with the author that having “one’s voice listened to and validated is the first step toward…the erasure of legal discrimination” (lines 641&642).  And it is certainly clear from the results that many are not listening to—or believing—sex workers when they speak. At what point do we stop listening and/or believing? Why does this happen?  If we are to more forward to the next step, these questions also need answers. Perhaps these are questions for another paper.

Line 658: Replace Anonymity with Confidentiality. From what I understand these inter views were not anonymous.

COPY EDITING: The paper needs a thorough copy editing. I offer some examples by line number just to provide you with an idea of what I mean. Sometimes it is as adding an s, or a comma, or an ed, or removing an s etc.

Line 47: Written under the guise of protecting women and neighbourhoods, sex workers, activists, Canadian…

Footnote 2: Services that include "all sexual services that offer direct contact with a client"

Line 93: culturally considered abusive?

Line 94: Remove ‘, and the astute reader’. Later, …

Line 104: The capacity to choose, to negotiate rests on many variables,

Line 106: Galbally appears with 2 ls here and with one l elsewhere.

Line 127: transforms women into things to use, abuse, and throw away.

These are just a few of the many such examples that need to be corrected.  I will leave you to locate the rest.

REFERENCES:

Authors missing from the list of references:

Saye 2015

Valverde 2018

Peng 2005

Lowman 2005

Dahrendorf 1968

Garsa 2019

MacKinnon & Dworkin 1985

MacKinnon 1987

Kim 2018

Corvino 2019

Miklos2019

Mo 2018

Cusick 2006

Maynard & Stuart 2018

Wijers 2015

Taylor, 1994

Lewis et al 2015

Laite 2006

 

Authors in the list of references but not in the body of the text:

Augustin 2002

Barry et al 1984

Benoit et al 2018

Carpenter 1992

Carrier 2005

Dworkin 1974 & 1981

Engle 2016

Hartman & Honneth 2006

Sheldrick 2004

Author Response

The introduction and the method section have been redone completely

Reviewer 2 Report

This article attempts to disentangle the concepts of “consent” and “exploitation” as they pertain to sex workers in Canada. It does so by drawing on interviews with 10 sex workers, who comprise varied sex work positions. I appreciate the author’s effort to delve further into this complex debate, and find the varied perspectives from sex workers about how they understand these concepts interesting.

In my view, the paper must more thoroughly address the following issues to be publishable and advance the literature on this topic:

1. I was surprised the author didn’t more fully engage with the “sex wars” debate (see Chapkis 1997 and others) that has persisted across decades and which focus squarely on consent and exploitation by developing camps – exploitation versus empowerment. Although the author does incorporate some of the key theorists who articulate the ‘exploitation” view, such as Barry and McKinnon, this has been a major theme in the sex work literature. This needs to be done to better situate within the sex work literature.
2. The author glosses over the very important role of the law in shaping these debates. Although gaining perspective on how sex workers grapple with consent and exploitation is useful, they are very much constrained by legal systems and/or organizational rules. There is not enough effort to situate and highlight the law as it influences our general ideas about exploitation and consent, as well as individual notions of them as well. The structure versus agency questions needs to be better situated front and center throughout this article as it pertains to this debate.
3. Related to laws, a huge factor that has shaped how one understands both concepts is trafficking laws, such as the Palermo Protocol (and others in Canada), that define exploitation, coercion and more. This can limit the agency of individuals to self determine exploitation and consent given the law intervenes to potentially enact criminal punishment unto those who fall under its purview. For example, is someone is under 18 and engage in sex work, they are considered a trafficking victim, and therefore exploited. It is difficult to disentangle individual agency from these omnipresent and powerful legal codes that in turn shape social and cultural understandings. Although sex trafficking and prostitution are increasingly conflated, and I understand this is problematic to do so, one cannot arrive at a clearer understanding of these concepts in isolation from laws. I urge the author to review pertinent laws, discuss how they influence these debates, and complicate the argument.
4. The quotes and findings are interesting given they demonstrate women’s choices, subjective boundary-making and agency. I think the polymorphous paradigm (see Weitzer), which argues the working conditions and other structural arrangements dictate to a large degree the overall experience of working in prostitution, captures these findings quite nicely. Therefore, the author should incorporate this concept and then note how these findings advance this paradigm or depart from it in unique ways.
5. Given what already exists in the literature on this topic, the author needs to more clearly detail how precisely this article advances this “sex wars” debate or pushes it in a novel direction.

Good luck!

 

Author Response

I did re-work the entire introduction to address the fact that I intentionally bypass the sex wars.

It is further discussed in the method section.

Thank you for these comments.  

Reviewer 3 Report

Introduction:

1. More clarity in the introduction section on where this research is conducted will be helpful. This information earlier on will reduce ambiguity around the context that has been well explained by the author.

Lit Review:

1. This section is well developed

Methods and Results

1. Was there an institutional review committee that approved this research?
2. The authors say: "The data presented here were collected at the height of COVID-19, a situation that made in- person interviews too challenging to organise safely" – what was done to address this? Were interviews done online?
3.  I am not sure why the research assistants' names are included here? if they are not co-authors, is this a manner of acknowledging their contribution?
4. How exactly did sex workers approach the author?
5. Where were the interviews done? This is unclear as there is mention of COVID related issues; it will be useful to clarify.
6. There is no information on how data was analyzed.
7. This is a qualitative study, but the approach that was used is missing here.
8. Were participants given a pseudonym? Or did they choose a name for themselves?
9. What were the demographic details of the sex workers who were interviewed. This will help build a context for the paper.
10. Where is the location of the interviews, what is the context in which these interviews have taken place?
11. What were the emerging themes for analysis?
12. The discussion is well done, and I like the conclusion as well.
13. I strongly recommend that the author adds information about the research methods, the rigor of this qualitative study, and how data was analyzed.
14. It does seem from the narrative that the author has several years of contact, interactions with sex workers. How did this relate to reflexivity in the context of this study?
15. The study was conducted in Canada, and this should be mentioned in the abstract and the introduction more clearly
16. I also think the context of COVID needs to be more fully explained here.

Abstract:

1. Sex work is not a new occupation. Change or delete the word new as its misleading
2. The abstract language is exactly the language in the first paragraph of the paper; this can be edited so that it's not exactly the same

Author Response

I removed new in the abstract - sex work is an occupation that belongs to the service industry.

I have re-worked the entire method section, which of course was far from acceptable. I did not need approval because these conversations were not done within conventional academic research. All of them are friends from the industry and fellow activists. Of course, I informed them of the goal of these conversations.

 

Thank you very much for your comments.