ABSTRACT
A long theoretical debate regarding the nature of selling sex has oscillated between what have often been seen as binary alternatives: selling sex as either oppression or profession. In sex-work theorising there is an opposition between the abolitionist school of thought (Barry 1984; Jeffreys 1997; Raymond 1998), according to which prostitution is inherently oppressive, and movements arising from sex workers themselves, who demand the right to earn from sex work without stigma or violence (Pheterson and St James 1989). A third position attempts to understand ‘sex work’ in particular socio-economic contexts have included the work of Sanders (2005b), Wardlow (2004; 2006) and Zatz (1997), who have suggested that sex work/ prostitution is not a universal experience. Instead, they argue, women (and men) selling sex experience their work according to local norms, and particularly according to the law and the protection that is available to them. This third position, which takes us beyond the oppression/profession binary, points to the need to contextualise sex work carefully in its particular local context, with the backdrop of local norms, ideas and culture, which is what I have done in a particular non-Western context – that of Chennai – and at a particular point in time – the mid-2000s.
