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Sex work, disability and care: towards a 'caring imaginary' for disabled sex workers in Ireland
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Date
2024
Authors
Murphy, Doris Amy
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University College Cork
Published Version
Abstract
This project investigates the lived experiences of disabled sex workers in Ireland. Theoretically and conceptually it uses a feminist ethic of care, intersectionality, and critical disability studies to analyse my participants’ experiences of accessing care. It also identifies the barriers to care that exist for disabled sex workers in Ireland. This project proposes a ‘caring imaginary’ for disabled sex workers, and it recommends policy-relevant strategies towards achieving this goal.
Methodologically, this project uses creative methods, including walking interviews as a biographical method, and map-making. It also takes a feminist Participatory Action Research approach to investigate the lived experiences of disabled sex workers in Ireland. The partner organisations who participated were the Sex Workers Alliance of Ireland, the Sexual Health Centre in Cork, and the Red Umbrella Front. These organisations helped to shape the research questions, aided with the recruitment of participants, consulted throughout the project, and at the end of the project they co-constructed the recommendations and policy implications. They also helped to identify potential stakeholders, eleven of whom took part in interviews to establish the landscape of sex work in Ireland. Following these interviews, six different sex workers with disabilities were interviewed about their experiences of care in Ireland. Eight of the ten interviews were walking interviews, while the other two interviews took place virtually.
Some of the themes which emerged from the interviews with stakeholders include: the facilitators of care; barriers to care; and how organisations either upheld or challenged the hegemonic position on sex work in Ireland. Critical analysis of the findings from the sex worker interviews helped to organise the chapters into five different themes: sex work and sex workers’ lives in Ireland, disabled sex work, addiction and sex work, care, and caring imaginaries. Maps of the walks sex workers led were created by the researcher, and these provide a visual insight into the sensory and embodied experiences of the walking interviews from both the researcher and participant. Given the ethos of participatory research that underpins the research and the use of creative methods across the project, two of the participants volunteered poems which are included in the findings chapters.
One of the main findings from this project is that the main provider of care to disabled sex workers in Ireland is the sex working community. The idea of care and community care was defined, problematised and discussed at length in the research. Analysis of the research findings led to the development and contribution of a ‘caring imaginary’. The participants in this project noted that the full decriminalisation of sex work would be an important first step towards a ‘caring imaginary’.
Recommendations from this project include the full decriminalisation of sex work in Ireland; funding to be made available to sex worker-led organisations to support sex workers as they see fit; and more conversations to be had about disability, sex work, addiction, and the intersectional nature of disabled sex workers’ lives. Organisations which support sex workers should be included in the management of complex cases, and inter-agency working should be encouraged between support organisations. There was agreement across stakeholders and sex workers that support organisations should be led by sex workers, and at the very least that all organisations should access training led by sex workers.
This project is the first to investigate the lives of disabled sex workers in Ireland, and proposes a ‘caring imaginary’, which is underpinned and indeed constituted by the knowledge and lived experiences of disabled sex workers. Further research into the intersectional lives of disabled sex workers could include members of the Travelling community, or migrant workers with disabilities in Ireland.
Description
Keywords
Feminist ethic of care , Sex work , Disability , Participatory action research , Walking interviews
Citation
Murphy, D. A. 2024. Sex work, disability and care: towards a 'caring imaginary' for disabled sex workers in Ireland. PhD Thesis, University College Cork.