Jane Scoular
Biographic Data
| ID | 239224 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jane Scoular |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jane |
| FAMILY NAME | Scoular |
| SIGNATURE | SCOULAR J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Strathclyde |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6686-6494 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 285 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Living the law: An ecological analysis of NGO responses to sex work governance
This article analyses the criminalisation of sex work as an ecological system of governance, sustained not only through statutory law but also through institutional mandates, funding logics, and cultural ideologies. Drawing on interviews with NGO practitioners in the United Kingdom and United States, and using ecological systems theory, we show how criminalisation operates through networked institutional relations. NGOs, as meso-level actors, med…
How crime-based legal regimes shape sexual harm: Sex work, consent and vulnerability
Crime-based and carceral legal regimes shape sexual harm by structuring how consent is negotiated, enforced and recognized. Using a social harm framework, this study examines sex work not as an exceptional case but as a critical site for analysing how crime-based governance operates through the interaction of sex work law and sexual violence law to structure vulnerability and access to justice. Drawing on survey data from 483 sex workers and form…
Sex workers’ experiences of criminal justice in the United Kingdom: Improving responses to sexual violence and harms
While there is no attempt here to connect commercial sex with violence intrinsically, types of harms and violence are often experienced by those working in the sex industry. Yet, sex workers often have negative perceptions and experiences of the criminal justice systems that should exist to help protect and deliver justice to all victims/survivors. The following analyses come from a mixed-methods, cross-national study exploring sexual violations …
Troubling Decriminalization
In the context of a fiercely polarized battle on the correct legal response to prostitution, sex workers and their advocates often advance decriminalization as a policy that can protect rights and provide improved health and safety for those involved in the sex industry. And yet this policy, after an initial implementation in New South Wales in 1995, has failed to gain much legislative support in jurisdictions outside Australia and New Zealand. T…
Beyond the Gaze and Well Beyond Wolfenden: The Practices and Rationalities of Regulating and Policing Sex Work in the Digital Age
Drawing on the largest study of the United Kingdom online market in sexual labour to date, this article examines the legal and regulatory consequences as aspects of sex work increasingly take place within an online environment. Our research shows that while governmental policy has not kept abreast of these changes, the application of current laws (which have, since the 1950s, focused on public nuisance and, more recently, trafficking and modern s…
Risking safety and rights: Online Sex Work, Crimes and 'Blended Safety Repertoires
It has been well established that those working in the sex industry are at various risks of violence and crime depending on where they sell sex and the environments in which they work. What sociological research has failed to address is how crime and safety have been affected by the dynamic changing nature of sex work given the dominance of the internet and digital technologies, including the development of new markets such as webcamming. This pa…
Internet Sex Work
Behind the screen: Commercial sex, digital spaces and working online
Exploration of how sex workers interaction with digital and online technology. • Examine the shift to online sex work and importance of the internet. • Discuss marketing strategies, the use of social media and personal websites to build brands. • The impact of reviews on sex workers and their practice. • Highlight some of the harms and dangers sex workers face using the internet as well as the benefits it affords
The Subject of Prostitution: Sex work, Law and Social Theory
The Subject of Prostitution offers a distinctive analysis of the links between prostitution and social theory in order to advance a critical analysis of the relationship of law to sex work. Using the lens of social theory to disrupt fixed meanings the book provides an advanced analytical framework through which to understand the complexity and contingencies of sex work in late modernity. The book analyses contemporary citizenship discourse and th…
A critical account of a ‘creeping neo-abolitionism’: Regulating prostitution in England and Wales
An increasingly dominant neo-abolitionist perspective on the issue of prostitution is currently taking hold across Europe. Pioneered in Sweden, this approach considers prostitution as inherently oppressive and seeks to tackle the dynamics of supply and demand by criminalizing purchasers and offering support to sellers who are regarded as victims. Against recent calls from both the European Parliament and an All Party Parliamentary Group on prosti…
Saving Fallen Women Now? Critical Perspectives on Engagement and Support Orders and their Policy of Forced Welfarism
The UK seems set to follow the increasingly abolitionist trend that is taking hold in Europe in response to the issue of prostitution. While some argue that an abolitionist approach signals a serious attempt to tackle the injustices and gendered aspects of commercial sex, we are less optimistic. Drawing upon the findings of the first study to evaluate Engagement and Support Orders, we argue that any focus on women's needs is distorted by the cont…
Qué transa con la ley? Por qué y de qué forma es relevante el derecho para la regulación del trabajo sexual
Abusing Vulnerability? Contemporary Law and Policy Responses to Sex Work in the UK
What's Law Got To Do With it? How and Why Law Matters in the Regulation of Sex Work
Drawing on recent empirical work that considers the relationship between different legal approaches to the ‘problem’ of prostitution, this article argues that the frequently drawn distinction between apparently diametrically opposed positions, such as prohibitionism and legalization, is certainly less significant than is often assumed and may, in fact, be illusory. This lack of distinction raises serious questions as to law's role in regulating s…
Introduction: The Changing Social and Legal Context of Sexual Commerce: Why Regulation Matters
Legal Geographies—Controlling Sexually Oriented Businesses: Law, Licensing, and the Geographies of a Controversial Land Use
In this article, we explore both a neglected geography (the location of sexually oriented business) and a neglected instrument of sociospatial control (premises licensing). Arguing the former is increasingly shaped by the latter, we suggest that licensing provides a flexible means by which the state is able to reconcile the growing demand for "adult entertainment" with concerns about community standards, urban aesthetics, public safety, and prope…
The Subject of Prostitution: Sex Work, Law and Social Theory
The Subject of Prostitution offers a distinctive analysis of the links between prostitution and social theory in order to advance a critical analysis of the relationship of law to sex work. Using the lens of social theory to disrupt fixed meanings the book provides an advanced analytical framework through which to understand the complexity and contingencies of sex work in late modernity. The book analyses contemporary citizenship discourse and th…
Living with the Other: Street sex work, contingent communities and degrees of tolerance
There is substantial literature on how fears of Other populations are prompting the increased surveillance and regulation of public spaces at the heart of Western cities. Yet, in contrast to the consumer-oriented spaces of the city centre, there has been relatively little attention devoted to the quality of the street spaces in residential neighbourhoods beyond the central city. In this article, we explore how media representations of sex workers…
Regulating sex work in the EU: Prostitute women and the new spaces of exclusion
Contemporary prostitution policy within the European Union has coalesced around the view that female prostitution is rarely voluntary, and often a consequence of sex trafficking. Responding, different nation-states have, however, adopted antithetical legal positions based on prohibition (Sweden), abolition (UK) or legalisation (Netherlands). Despite the apparently sharp differences between these positions, in this article we argue that there is n…
Away from prying eyes? The urban geographies of `adult entertainment
Most towns and cities in the UK and USA possess a number of venues offering sexually orientated entertainment in the form of exotic dance, striptease or lap dancing. Traditionally subject to moral and legal censure, the majority of these sex-related businesses have tended to be situated in marginal urban spaces. As such, their increasing visibility in more mainstream spaces of urban nightlife raises important questions about the sexual and gender…
Regulating Prostitution: Social Inclusion, Responsibilization and the Politics of Prostitution Reform
Following Matthews' (2005) recent examination of prostitution's changing regulatory framework, we offer a critical account of the move from ‘enforcement’ (punishment) to ‘multi-agency’ (regulatory) responses as, in part, a consequence of new forms of governance. We focus on the increasing salience of exiting—a move favoured by Matthews as signalling a renewed welfare approach, but one which, when viewed in the wider context of ‘progressive govern…
Joanna Phoenix & Sarah Oerton Illicit and Illegal: Sex, Regulation and Social Control. (Cullompten : Willan, 2005 232pp, £17.99pb)
Signalling an important contribution to the field, Phoenix and Oerton’s ‘Illicit and Illegal: Sex, Regulation and Social Control’ offers a critical account of contemporary efforts to regulate sex. The book begins with the paradox that cannot have escaped the attention of many readers in the field: that the apparent increase in freedom, choice, and diversity in sexual matters is conversely and simultaneously matched by a ‘proliferation of laws, po…
Current developments
A comprehensive review of law and policy in relation to prostitution has recently begun in the UK, marking the first major re-examination of the issue since the Wolfenden Report in the 1950s ('Sex law to get major overhaul' The Guardian, December 30th 2003). A Home Office consultation paper on the subject was due to be published in the summer of 2004. In Scotland, an expert panel has already been meeting to review the law in the light of the issu…
The 'subject' of prostitution: Interpreting the discursive, symbolic and material position of sex/work in feminist theory
Prostitution is often viewed in feminist theory as the sine qua non of the female condition under patriarchy. Frequently cited as 'the absolute embodiment of patriarchal male privilege' (Kesler, 2002: 19), the highly gendered nature of commercial sex appears to offer a graphic example of male domination, exercised through the medium of sexuality. This construction is, however, as convincing as it is problematic. By reviewing the work of Shelia Je…
Regulating sex work in the EU: Prostitute women and the new spaces of exclusion
Contemporary prostitution policy within the European Union has coalesced around the view that female prostitution is rarely voluntary, and often a consequence of sex trafficking. Responding, different nation-states have, however, adopted antithetical legal positions based on prohibition (Sweden), abolition (UK) or legalisation (Netherlands). Despite the apparently sharp differences between these positions, in this article we argue that there is n…
Regulating Prostitution: Social Inclusion, Responsibilization and the Politics of Prostitution Reform
Following Matthews' (2005) recent examination of prostitution's changing regulatory framework, we offer a critical account of the move from ‘enforcement’ (punishment) to ‘multi-agency’ (regulatory) responses as, in part, a consequence of new forms of governance. We focus on the increasing salience of exiting—a move favoured by Matthews as signalling a renewed welfare approach, but one which, when viewed in the wider context of ‘progressive govern…
Risking safety and rights: Online Sex Work, Crimes and 'Blended Safety Repertoires
It has been well established that those working in the sex industry are at various risks of violence and crime depending on where they sell sex and the environments in which they work. What sociological research has failed to address is how crime and safety have been affected by the dynamic changing nature of sex work given the dominance of the internet and digital technologies, including the development of new markets such as webcamming. This pa…
Away from prying eyes? The urban geographies of `adult entertainment
Most towns and cities in the UK and USA possess a number of venues offering sexually orientated entertainment in the form of exotic dance, striptease or lap dancing. Traditionally subject to moral and legal censure, the majority of these sex-related businesses have tended to be situated in marginal urban spaces. As such, their increasing visibility in more mainstream spaces of urban nightlife raises important questions about the sexual and gender…
Legal Geographies—Controlling Sexually Oriented Businesses: Law, Licensing, and the Geographies of a Controversial Land Use
In this article, we explore both a neglected geography (the location of sexually oriented business) and a neglected instrument of sociospatial control (premises licensing). Arguing the former is increasingly shaped by the latter, we suggest that licensing provides a flexible means by which the state is able to reconcile the growing demand for "adult entertainment" with concerns about community standards, urban aesthetics, public safety, and prope…
Abusing Vulnerability? Contemporary Law and Policy Responses to Sex Work in the UK
Current developments
A comprehensive review of law and policy in relation to prostitution has recently begun in the UK, marking the first major re-examination of the issue since the Wolfenden Report in the 1950s ('Sex law to get major overhaul' The Guardian, December 30th 2003). A Home Office consultation paper on the subject was due to be published in the summer of 2004. In Scotland, an expert panel has already been meeting to review the law in the light of the issu…
The 'subject' of prostitution: Interpreting the discursive, symbolic and material position of sex/work in feminist theory
Prostitution is often viewed in feminist theory as the sine qua non of the female condition under patriarchy. Frequently cited as 'the absolute embodiment of patriarchal male privilege' (Kesler, 2002: 19), the highly gendered nature of commercial sex appears to offer a graphic example of male domination, exercised through the medium of sexuality. This construction is, however, as convincing as it is problematic. By reviewing the work of Shelia Je…
Behind the screen: Commercial sex, digital spaces and working online
Exploration of how sex workers interaction with digital and online technology. • Examine the shift to online sex work and importance of the internet. • Discuss marketing strategies, the use of social media and personal websites to build brands. • The impact of reviews on sex workers and their practice. • Highlight some of the harms and dangers sex workers face using the internet as well as the benefits it affords
What's Law Got To Do With it? How and Why Law Matters in the Regulation of Sex Work
Drawing on recent empirical work that considers the relationship between different legal approaches to the ‘problem’ of prostitution, this article argues that the frequently drawn distinction between apparently diametrically opposed positions, such as prohibitionism and legalization, is certainly less significant than is often assumed and may, in fact, be illusory. This lack of distinction raises serious questions as to law's role in regulating s…
Living with the Other: Street sex work, contingent communities and degrees of tolerance
There is substantial literature on how fears of Other populations are prompting the increased surveillance and regulation of public spaces at the heart of Western cities. Yet, in contrast to the consumer-oriented spaces of the city centre, there has been relatively little attention devoted to the quality of the street spaces in residential neighbourhoods beyond the central city. In this article, we explore how media representations of sex workers…
A critical account of a ‘creeping neo-abolitionism’: Regulating prostitution in England and Wales
An increasingly dominant neo-abolitionist perspective on the issue of prostitution is currently taking hold across Europe. Pioneered in Sweden, this approach considers prostitution as inherently oppressive and seeks to tackle the dynamics of supply and demand by criminalizing purchasers and offering support to sellers who are regarded as victims. Against recent calls from both the European Parliament and an All Party Parliamentary Group on prosti…
Beyond the Gaze and Well Beyond Wolfenden: The Practices and Rationalities of Regulating and Policing Sex Work in the Digital Age
Drawing on the largest study of the United Kingdom online market in sexual labour to date, this article examines the legal and regulatory consequences as aspects of sex work increasingly take place within an online environment. Our research shows that while governmental policy has not kept abreast of these changes, the application of current laws (which have, since the 1950s, focused on public nuisance and, more recently, trafficking and modern s…
Saving Fallen Women Now? Critical Perspectives on Engagement and Support Orders and their Policy of Forced Welfarism
The UK seems set to follow the increasingly abolitionist trend that is taking hold in Europe in response to the issue of prostitution. While some argue that an abolitionist approach signals a serious attempt to tackle the injustices and gendered aspects of commercial sex, we are less optimistic. Drawing upon the findings of the first study to evaluate Engagement and Support Orders, we argue that any focus on women's needs is distorted by the cont…
Introduction: The Changing Social and Legal Context of Sexual Commerce: Why Regulation Matters
Current developments
A comprehensive review of law and policy in relation to prostitution has recently begun in the UK, marking the first major re-examination of the issue since the Wolfenden Report in the 1950s ('Sex law to get major overhaul' The Guardian, December 30th 2003). A Home Office consultation paper on the subject was due to be published in the summer of 2004. In Scotland, an expert panel has already been meeting to review the law in the light of the issu…
The 'subject' of prostitution: Interpreting the discursive, symbolic and material position of sex/work in feminist theory
Prostitution is often viewed in feminist theory as the sine qua non of the female condition under patriarchy. Frequently cited as 'the absolute embodiment of patriarchal male privilege' (Kesler, 2002: 19), the highly gendered nature of commercial sex appears to offer a graphic example of male domination, exercised through the medium of sexuality. This construction is, however, as convincing as it is problematic. By reviewing the work of Shelia Je…
Joanna Phoenix & Sarah Oerton Illicit and Illegal: Sex, Regulation and Social Control. (Cullompten : Willan, 2005 232pp, £17.99pb)
Signalling an important contribution to the field, Phoenix and Oerton’s ‘Illicit and Illegal: Sex, Regulation and Social Control’ offers a critical account of contemporary efforts to regulate sex. The book begins with the paradox that cannot have escaped the attention of many readers in the field: that the apparent increase in freedom, choice, and diversity in sexual matters is conversely and simultaneously matched by a ‘proliferation of laws, po…
Regulating Prostitution: Social Inclusion, Responsibilization and the Politics of Prostitution Reform
Following Matthews' (2005) recent examination of prostitution's changing regulatory framework, we offer a critical account of the move from ‘enforcement’ (punishment) to ‘multi-agency’ (regulatory) responses as, in part, a consequence of new forms of governance. We focus on the increasing salience of exiting—a move favoured by Matthews as signalling a renewed welfare approach, but one which, when viewed in the wider context of ‘progressive govern…
The Subject of Prostitution: Sex Work, Law and Social Theory
The Subject of Prostitution offers a distinctive analysis of the links between prostitution and social theory in order to advance a critical analysis of the relationship of law to sex work. Using the lens of social theory to disrupt fixed meanings the book provides an advanced analytical framework through which to understand the complexity and contingencies of sex work in late modernity. The book analyses contemporary citizenship discourse and th…
Living with the Other: Street sex work, contingent communities and degrees of tolerance
There is substantial literature on how fears of Other populations are prompting the increased surveillance and regulation of public spaces at the heart of Western cities. Yet, in contrast to the consumer-oriented spaces of the city centre, there has been relatively little attention devoted to the quality of the street spaces in residential neighbourhoods beyond the central city. In this article, we explore how media representations of sex workers…
Regulating sex work in the EU: Prostitute women and the new spaces of exclusion
Contemporary prostitution policy within the European Union has coalesced around the view that female prostitution is rarely voluntary, and often a consequence of sex trafficking. Responding, different nation-states have, however, adopted antithetical legal positions based on prohibition (Sweden), abolition (UK) or legalisation (Netherlands). Despite the apparently sharp differences between these positions, in this article we argue that there is n…
Away from prying eyes? The urban geographies of `adult entertainment
Most towns and cities in the UK and USA possess a number of venues offering sexually orientated entertainment in the form of exotic dance, striptease or lap dancing. Traditionally subject to moral and legal censure, the majority of these sex-related businesses have tended to be situated in marginal urban spaces. As such, their increasing visibility in more mainstream spaces of urban nightlife raises important questions about the sexual and gender…
Legal Geographies—Controlling Sexually Oriented Businesses: Law, Licensing, and the Geographies of a Controversial Land Use
In this article, we explore both a neglected geography (the location of sexually oriented business) and a neglected instrument of sociospatial control (premises licensing). Arguing the former is increasingly shaped by the latter, we suggest that licensing provides a flexible means by which the state is able to reconcile the growing demand for "adult entertainment" with concerns about community standards, urban aesthetics, public safety, and prope…
What's Law Got To Do With it? How and Why Law Matters in the Regulation of Sex Work
Drawing on recent empirical work that considers the relationship between different legal approaches to the ‘problem’ of prostitution, this article argues that the frequently drawn distinction between apparently diametrically opposed positions, such as prohibitionism and legalization, is certainly less significant than is often assumed and may, in fact, be illusory. This lack of distinction raises serious questions as to law's role in regulating s…
Introduction: The Changing Social and Legal Context of Sexual Commerce: Why Regulation Matters
Abusing Vulnerability? Contemporary Law and Policy Responses to Sex Work in the UK
A critical account of a ‘creeping neo-abolitionism’: Regulating prostitution in England and Wales
An increasingly dominant neo-abolitionist perspective on the issue of prostitution is currently taking hold across Europe. Pioneered in Sweden, this approach considers prostitution as inherently oppressive and seeks to tackle the dynamics of supply and demand by criminalizing purchasers and offering support to sellers who are regarded as victims. Against recent calls from both the European Parliament and an All Party Parliamentary Group on prosti…
Saving Fallen Women Now? Critical Perspectives on Engagement and Support Orders and their Policy of Forced Welfarism
The UK seems set to follow the increasingly abolitionist trend that is taking hold in Europe in response to the issue of prostitution. While some argue that an abolitionist approach signals a serious attempt to tackle the injustices and gendered aspects of commercial sex, we are less optimistic. Drawing upon the findings of the first study to evaluate Engagement and Support Orders, we argue that any focus on women's needs is distorted by the cont…
Qué transa con la ley? Por qué y de qué forma es relevante el derecho para la regulación del trabajo sexual
The Subject of Prostitution: Sex work, Law and Social Theory
The Subject of Prostitution offers a distinctive analysis of the links between prostitution and social theory in order to advance a critical analysis of the relationship of law to sex work. Using the lens of social theory to disrupt fixed meanings the book provides an advanced analytical framework through which to understand the complexity and contingencies of sex work in late modernity. The book analyses contemporary citizenship discourse and th…
Internet Sex Work
Behind the screen: Commercial sex, digital spaces and working online
Exploration of how sex workers interaction with digital and online technology. • Examine the shift to online sex work and importance of the internet. • Discuss marketing strategies, the use of social media and personal websites to build brands. • The impact of reviews on sex workers and their practice. • Highlight some of the harms and dangers sex workers face using the internet as well as the benefits it affords
Beyond the Gaze and Well Beyond Wolfenden: The Practices and Rationalities of Regulating and Policing Sex Work in the Digital Age
Drawing on the largest study of the United Kingdom online market in sexual labour to date, this article examines the legal and regulatory consequences as aspects of sex work increasingly take place within an online environment. Our research shows that while governmental policy has not kept abreast of these changes, the application of current laws (which have, since the 1950s, focused on public nuisance and, more recently, trafficking and modern s…
Risking safety and rights: Online Sex Work, Crimes and 'Blended Safety Repertoires
It has been well established that those working in the sex industry are at various risks of violence and crime depending on where they sell sex and the environments in which they work. What sociological research has failed to address is how crime and safety have been affected by the dynamic changing nature of sex work given the dominance of the internet and digital technologies, including the development of new markets such as webcamming. This pa…
Troubling Decriminalization
In the context of a fiercely polarized battle on the correct legal response to prostitution, sex workers and their advocates often advance decriminalization as a policy that can protect rights and provide improved health and safety for those involved in the sex industry. And yet this policy, after an initial implementation in New South Wales in 1995, has failed to gain much legislative support in jurisdictions outside Australia and New Zealand. T…
Sex workers’ experiences of criminal justice in the United Kingdom: Improving responses to sexual violence and harms
While there is no attempt here to connect commercial sex with violence intrinsically, types of harms and violence are often experienced by those working in the sex industry. Yet, sex workers often have negative perceptions and experiences of the criminal justice systems that should exist to help protect and deliver justice to all victims/survivors. The following analyses come from a mixed-methods, cross-national study exploring sexual violations …
Living the law: An ecological analysis of NGO responses to sex work governance
This article analyses the criminalisation of sex work as an ecological system of governance, sustained not only through statutory law but also through institutional mandates, funding logics, and cultural ideologies. Drawing on interviews with NGO practitioners in the United Kingdom and United States, and using ecological systems theory, we show how criminalisation operates through networked institutional relations. NGOs, as meso-level actors, med…
How crime-based legal regimes shape sexual harm: Sex work, consent and vulnerability
Crime-based and carceral legal regimes shape sexual harm by structuring how consent is negotiated, enforced and recognized. Using a social harm framework, this study examines sex work not as an exceptional case but as a critical site for analysing how crime-based governance operates through the interaction of sex work law and sexual violence law to structure vulnerability and access to justice. Drawing on survey data from 483 sex workers and form…
Sex work and related issues (23 works) · Political science (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Criminology (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Sex work (11 works) · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (8 works)