Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Ambivalent Professionalisation and Autonomy in Workers’ Collective Projects: The Cases of Sex Worker Peer Educators in Germany and Sexual Assistants in Switzerland

Garofalo Geymonat, Giulia LU and Macioti, P.G. (2016) In Sociological Research Online 21(4).
Abstract
Drawing on participant methodologies this article examines two cases of workers’ self-organised projects oriented to improving the quality of sex work and to ‘professionalisation’. The first case is a group of sexual assistants for people with disabilities, who have organised meetings and training for sexual assistants in a medium-sized city in Switzerland. The second is a group of peer sex worker educators offering workshops to people who sell sex in various industry sectors in a large German city. We argue that these activist interventions may represent a resource for identifying crucial aspects of work-quality and professionalisation in sex work and for making sense of some apparent contradictions of sex workers’ organising. Indeed,... (More)
Drawing on participant methodologies this article examines two cases of workers’ self-organised projects oriented to improving the quality of sex work and to ‘professionalisation’. The first case is a group of sexual assistants for people with disabilities, who have organised meetings and training for sexual assistants in a medium-sized city in Switzerland. The second is a group of peer sex worker educators offering workshops to people who sell sex in various industry sectors in a large German city. We argue that these activist interventions may represent a resource for identifying crucial aspects of work-quality and professionalisation in sex work and for making sense of some apparent contradictions of sex workers’ organising. Indeed, through ongoing conversations and recommendations about working practices and ethics, our participants develop situated views of what is better sex work and they originally engage with key conceptual areas, such as consent, autonomy, standardisation, income and professional identity. They do so by comparing a variety of experiences in sex industries, as well as discussing similarities with other jobs such as body work, care work, and psychotherapy. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Sex Work, Sexual Assistance, Sex Workers Organisations, Germany, Switzerland, Quality of Work
in
Sociological Research Online
volume
21
issue
4
publisher
SAGE Publications
external identifiers
  • scopus:85014677903
ISSN
1360-7804
DOI
10.5153/sro.4146
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
9716cd39-ba43-41d5-9ad3-9ca109377a12
date added to LUP
2019-06-18 08:25:42
date last changed
2022-01-31 21:57:32
@article{9716cd39-ba43-41d5-9ad3-9ca109377a12,
  abstract     = {{Drawing on participant methodologies this article examines two cases of workers’ self-organised projects oriented to improving the quality of sex work and to ‘professionalisation’. The first case is a group of sexual assistants for people with disabilities, who have organised meetings and training for sexual assistants in a medium-sized city in Switzerland. The second is a group of peer sex worker educators offering workshops to people who sell sex in various industry sectors in a large German city. We argue that these activist interventions may represent a resource for identifying crucial aspects of work-quality and professionalisation in sex work and for making sense of some apparent contradictions of sex workers’ organising. Indeed, through ongoing conversations and recommendations about working practices and ethics, our participants develop situated views of what is better sex work and they originally engage with key conceptual areas, such as consent, autonomy, standardisation, income and professional identity. They do so by comparing a variety of experiences in sex industries, as well as discussing similarities with other jobs such as body work, care work, and psychotherapy.}},
  author       = {{Garofalo Geymonat, Giulia and Macioti, P.G.}},
  issn         = {{1360-7804}},
  keywords     = {{Sex Work; Sexual Assistance; Sex Workers Organisations; Germany; Switzerland; Quality of Work}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{11}},
  number       = {{4}},
  publisher    = {{SAGE Publications}},
  series       = {{Sociological Research Online}},
  title        = {{Ambivalent Professionalisation and Autonomy in Workers’ Collective Projects: The Cases of Sex Worker Peer Educators in Germany and Sexual Assistants in Switzerland}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.5153/sro.4146}},
  doi          = {{10.5153/sro.4146}},
  volume       = {{21}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}