McKeever, N. orcid.org/0000-0002-0799-1623 (2025) Is Sex Work Inherently Gendered? Hypatia. ISSN 0887-5367
Abstract
Sex work is highly gendered, with 80 percent of sex workers being female, and the vast majority of buyers of sex being male. It is often taken for granted that this is how it is, and implicit in much of the debate around sex work is the assumption that it is inherently gendered. In this paper, I question this assumption, drawing on sociological research to challenge arguments which purport that it is inconceivable that women would ever want to pay for sex, or that sex work would exist under conditions of gender equality. I argue that gendered sexual norms likely are a significant reason for why sex work is so gendered, but sex work would probably continue to exist under conditions of gender equality, due to the diversity in motivations people have for buying and selling sex. Acknowledging that sex work is not inherently gendered is important for (at least) two reasons. First, it is probable that the gendered nature of sex work contributes to the stigma and bad treatment that sex workers, particularly female ones, face. Secondly, if sex work is not inherently gendered, this will have implications for how we should think about it, morally, practically, and legally.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 26 Mar 2024 10:51 |
Last Modified: | 28 Jan 2025 14:44 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/hyp.2024.56 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:210863 |