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Emotion work and the management of stigma in female sex workers’ long-term intimate relationships

journal contribution
posted on 2023-11-06, 02:22 authored by H Murphy, Priscilla Dunk-West, J Chonody
Very little empirical work examines female sex workers’ experiences in sociological detail, particularly within an Australian context. Drawing from a small-scale sample of female sex workers in South Australia, our findings suggest that sex workers’ ongoing negotiations within private relationships represent ‘emotion work’, as described by Hochschild, which was understood as limiting the effect of stigma. Taking the lead from social scripts associated with women’s traditional roles and associated ‘feeling rules’, participants mediated their personal lives as distinct from their professional lives to navigate their way through the complex interplay between identities. This emotion work was manifest in the negotiation of intimacy. Other factors such as partner jealousy, which emerge from dual engagement in intimate and work-related sexual behaviours, were also mediated. These findings point to a broader appreciation of emotion work as dually agential and structured and undertaken by sex workers in both their home and work spheres.

History

Journal

Journal of Sociology

Volume

51

Pagination

1103-1116

ISSN

1440-7833

eISSN

1741-2978

Language

English

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Issue

4

Publisher

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD

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