Scripting pragmatic intimacies in sex work, migration and intimate-material exchanges

Bibliographic Data

ID15098205
AuthorsJulie Ham (0000-0002-8607-4443, University of Hong Kong, corresponding author), Iulia Gheorghiu (0000-0001-9772-8740, University of Hong Kong)
Year2021
Volume23
Issue10
Pages1375-1389
Publication date2021-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCulture Health & Sexuality (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-1058 • E-ISSN: 1464-5351
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13691058.2020.1785011
PMID32856570
OpenAlexW3082714823
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited43

This paper examines women's movement between sex work and intimate economies, with a specific focus on how non-Chinese women in Hong Kong leverage intimacy as a means of managing legal and socio-economic precarity within various institutional and individual constraints. To capture the diversity of women's experiences, we use the term 'intimate-material exchanges' to broadly refer to compensation or material support provided in exchange for sexually intimate relations. We ground our analysis of the interactional processes involved in intimate-material exchanges in 39 interviews with ethnically non-Chinese women and men in Hong Kong. For the women in this study, intimate-material exchanges were shaped by migration and distinguished by pragmatism, strategy and intentionality that involved adapting, improvising and experimenting with sexual scripts in an ambiguous legal space in order to derive maximum material benefit. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of migration and intimate-material exchanges for sex worker rights

Improvisation · Political science · Sex work · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Labor Movements and Unions · Psychology · Sex work and related issues

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