Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the late 19th century, reformers challenged imperial states to abolish the regulation of prostitution throughout their territories and to take steps to prevent women from being trafficked into colonial areas. Dutch state officials agreed, while French state officials did not. Why did these countries respond differently? I argue that the unique imperial trajectories of France and the Netherlands led to distinct notions about the perceived importance of sexuality to the state and the need to control it in the name of national and imperial prestige. States sought to organize women’s sexuality differently in response to varied levels of militarization and ethnonational and colonial tensions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Panics, sexual, moral, and medical, have played a large role in justifying sexual regulation as it plays itself out in prostitution policy. The regulation of prostitution since the turn of the century has enforced traditional gendered, heterosexual norms. However, significant shifts in the sexual terrain have occurred in late capitalism, including an opening of women’s sexuality, increasing acceptance of homosexuality, and a widespread commodification of sexuality that has put significant cracks in the marital heterosexual orthodoxy. While it seems policy responses to late 20th century panics, such as the AIDS epidemic, have overall reinforced conservative traditions, there are instances where policy does not reinforce traditional sexual values. It is worth examining these cases for evidence on how the regulation of sexuality, and hence the sexual landscape, may shift. Nevada was the first state to enact strict laws promising mandatory 2-10 years in jail for practicing as an HIV positive prostitute. Yet at the same time, Nevada stood alone nationwide in mandating HIV testing and condom use for prostitutes working in legal brothels. This paper examines Nevada’s response to the AIDS panic by exploring the policy making process creating HIV policies toward prostitutes. We argue that while the policies reflected traditional ways of controlling women’s sexuality by stigmatizing prostitution using disease frames, it also served to solidly legitimize a commodified sexuality based in legal brothels.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Prostitution is a social fact persisting across urban areas throughout the world. Domestically, there were 57,618 prostitution arrests in 2004. Plenty of research exists on prostitution, including ethnographies of daily life, legal issues over sex work, and causal factors pulling women into prostitution. In spite of this literature, there is a paucity of studies that focus on how and why prostitutes leave the streets (Murphy and Venkatesh 2006; Weitzer 2000). Generally there are various theories on why individuals desist from crime and some of the most prominent of these studies conclude that desistance occurs over the life course as informal social control mechanisms operate. However, most previous studies solely examine male desistance from crime and neglect how this process unfolds for females. Only recently, some scholars are filling in this gap by focusing specifically on female desistance from crime (see Giordano et al. 2002; Rumgay 2004; Schaffner 2006). In spite of these works, there are still very few studies that examine how and why women desist from prostitution. Departing from previous literature on desistance, I ask the following research questions: What are the motivations for exiting prostitution? Are pathways out of prostitution associated with specific motivations? Can prostitution, a particularly gendered crime, shed light on how gender affects desistance from crime?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the social science literature, there is a significant amount of research on the sex industry and prostitutes in particular. Most of these studies focus on the legal concerns, stigma or the daily lives of female prostitutes. Surprisingly, there is a paucity of work examining the process and means through which women exit prostitution. One study (Dalla 2000) claims prostitutes exit primarily via intervention programs. This study uses this work as a point of departure to analyze the motivations and pathways through which women leave the trade.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines news media coverage on the 2004 new anti-prostitution law in Korea, which emphasized punishing customers and pimps and protecting sex trafficking victims more than have any previous laws. Dominant news frames were identified in two mainstream newspapers and one reform newspaper in Korea to examine the process of the formation of a dominant interpretation of the controversial gender issue. In the two mainstream newspapers, the dominant news frame was “economic loss”: the law was framed as threatening the livelihood of people who were engaged in the sex industry and related businesses, and as a threat to the national economy in a time of economic stagnation. In contrast, the reform newspaper framed the law as “protection for human rights”, but this frame was marginalized in the two mainstream newspapers.