Abstract
At its best, ethnography has the power to richly communicate the complexity of human experience. This chapter traces ethnographic strategies for researching sex worlds, in particular an approach that draws on an Actor Network Theory (ANT) sensibility. ANT encourages the researcher to privilege both human and non-human actors by tracing webs of relations—following actors and actors’ associations with other actors. My version of ANT offers a different ethnography of sex work, giving credit to ‘things’ such as condoms, sex toys, clothing, towels, and alcohol in the assembling of massage parlour sex work. I highlight the important work of heterogeneous actors in configuring sex work identities often sidelined/ignored in other studies. I argue that by focusing on how human and non-human actors mutually define each other, I avoid reducing my account of sex work to that of dyadic sex worker/client encounters, thereby revealing unexpected forms of power or “ethnographic surprises.”
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Notes
- 1.
For a detailed discussion of the implications of intimate ethnographies please refer to Pérez-y-Pérez and Stanley 2011.
- 2.
I received three referrals from women—who then proceeded to recommend me. For further details see:Pérez-y-Pérez (2003). Discipline, autonomy and ambiguity: Organisations, markets and work in the sex industry, Christchurch, New Zealand. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
- 3.
I regularly attended the Friday night social drinks at the NZPC drop-in centre. This social gathering provided me with an opportunity to network with people involved with and active in the sex work markets.Attendees included: sex workers and clients, fellow researchers, NZPC volunteers, local and national government representatives, community and local NGO members, etc.
- 4.
I frequently encountered a level of suspicion and, occasionally, a certain amount of animosity when my “other” job was disclosed during conversations. My (then) partner, confessed that he had wondered if I would, or had been tempted to “give it a go,” and that he had received constant harassment from his friends about my “role” at the massage parlour.It was common practice for sex workers to claim to be a receptionist to explain their presence in a massage parlour.
- 5.
Following Brants’ “regulated tolerance” (1998), “quasi-legal” in the New Zealand context combines elements of criminalisation (legislation regulating prostitution related activities), and informal regulatory arrangements of containment/surveillance. The Massage Parlours Act (1978) was an attempted organisational solution to facilitate increased surveillance of massage parlours, rather than to eradicate prostitution. Key to this approach was licensing and registration practices (for a more detailed discussion see: Pérez-y-Pérez, 2003, 2009).
- 6.
Summary Offences Act 1981, 8.26, in which it is an offence to offer sex for money in a public place, but it is not an offence to offer to pay for sex. Crimes Act 1961:s.147, it is an offence to keep or manage a brothel; this involves the managing of rooms or any kind of place for the purpose of prostitution for one woman or more. s.l48(a) it is an offence to live on the earnings of the prostitution of another person, this means that partners of sex workers could be committing an offence by being supported by their spouses. s.149, it is an offence for any person for gain or reward, to procure any woman or girl to have sexual intercourse with any male who is not her husband.
- 7.
I had a section in my wardrobe containing what I referred to as my parlour clothes. I invested in and applied dramatic make-up (rich red lipstick), a different perfume, and found myself browsing in stores I would not normally enter for my parlour clothes.
- 8.
There was no “bouncer” on the door to screen clients—this was up to me as manager/receptionist. I was required to “eject” unruly or difficult clients from the premises, to settle any disputes between workers and clients and between workers.I monitored behaviour of workers and clients within the massage parlour using a bricolage of methods.For further details see: Pérez-y-Pérez (2003).
- 9.
In Crang’s (1994) study, this was a restaurant.
- 10.
The massage parlour had a licensed bar and I was a licensed bar manager.
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Pérez-y-Pérez, M. (2015). Ethnography in a “Sexy Setting:” Doing Research in a New Zealand Massage Parlour. In: DeLamater, J., Plante, R. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Sexualities. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17341-2_7
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