Reflecting on the interview as an erotic encounter

As researchers, our sexualities are always relevant to the research process. However, when woman researchers engage in research with men about their (hetero)sexual experiences, our positionality becomes more explicitly central. This article makes a methodological contribution to critical research into male sexualities by providing a reflexive analysis of cross-gender interviews conducted with 43 men about paying for sex. It employs an understanding of both the participant and the interviewer as defended subjects and it interrogates the complex interviewer-participant power relationship, offering a critical approach to understanding the knowledge that is produced by and within our research encounters.</p

A critical analysis of men's constructions of paying for sex: doing gender, doing race in the interview context

Men from all walks of life pay for sex in various contexts every day, yet we know very little about the ways in which men make meaning of their paid sexual encounters, particularly in South Africa, where sex work is both illegal and highly stigmatised. South Africa's apartheid and colonial past, as well as contemporary concerns about HIV/AIDS, further complicates and impacts on the social meanings of sex work. This study explores the ways in which men make meaning of paying for sex, and how they negotiate their client identities in relation to their various intersecting social identities, such as their gender, sexuality, race, and class. Indepth interviews were conducted with 43 men who identified as clients of sex workers, through face-to-face, Skype video call or instant messenger interviews. This study is designed to contribute methodologically to knowledge on cross-gender interviews. It employs a critical and intersectional form of reflexivity to the analysis of its particular interview-participant dynamic, where a woman researcher interviewed men about their sexualities. I argue that men's motivations for participating in these interviews - such as gaining a sense of libidinal excitement or thrill, the desire to confess their engagement in a sexual taboo, the assumption that the interview encounter was transactional, to engage in a power struggle, and the desire to have their emotional needs met - also provided insights into both what motivates men to pay for sex and how they relate to sex workers. The study highlights the importance of employing an intersectional approach to understanding men's constructions of paying for sex. It argues that, in order to manage the stigma that is associated with paying for sex, men drew on dominant racist discourses, tropes stemming from the colonial era, about the black body as dirty and diseased and the white body as respectable and clean, to negotiate desirable client identities. Moreover, it argues that men valued the client-sex worker encounter as a "safe space" where sex workers, whom they constructed as their experienced teachers, would teach them the sexual skills that they (felt they) needed to better approximate idealised versions of masculinity outside of the paid encounter. However, for some men, paid sex was not only a place where dominant discourses of gender and sexuality were reproduced; it was also a safe space where they could secretly explore and experiment with their sexuality, highlighting how paid sexual encounters might offer opportunities for resisting and queering the strict boundaries of normative heterosexuality. Finally, based on the overall findings of this study, I put forward suggestions for legislative approaches to sex work that respond specifically to the South African context and address the stigma attached to sex work

Queering the ‘straight’ line: men’s talk on paying for sex

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with eight men who identified as clients of women sex workers, but who also spoke about paying to secretly explore their sexual desires for trans women and men. I draw on queer theory to approach the question of how, and to what extent, men’s paid sexual encounters functioned as sites where they could resist the constraints of compulsory heterosexuality and navigate more fluid sexual identities. Highlighting the complex nature and meanings of paying for sex, I argue that the secrecy of the paid sexual encounter provided a space for ‘breaking out’ of the confines of heterosexuality whilst simultaneously being the very thing that allowed men to stay ‘in line’ with what was expected of them within the heteronormative realities of their everyday lives.<br/

Queering the ‘straight’ line: men’s talk on paying for sex

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with eight men who identified as clients of women sex workers, but who also spoke about paying to secretly explore their sexual desires for trans women and men. I draw on queer theory to approach the question of how, and to what extent, men’s paid sexual encounters functioned as sites where they could resist the constraints of compulsory heterosexuality and navigate more fluid sexual identities. Highlighting the complex nature and meanings of paying for sex, I argue that the secrecy of the paid sexual encounter provided a space for ‘breaking out’ of the confines of heterosexuality whilst simultaneously being the very thing that allowed men to stay ‘in line’ with what was expected of them within the heteronormative realities of their everyday lives.<br/

Towards harm reduction programmes with sex worker clients in South Africa

This report explores possible harm reduction approaches to a sex worker client intervention in the South African context. It considers the current evidence base on client interventions globally and sets out key recommendations for an effective client intervention programme. Drawing on this framework and recommendations, the report concludes with an example of a curriculum which could be used as a possible approach to a client intervention plus an educational booklet targeted at sex worker client

Reflecting on the interview as an erotic encounter

As researchers, our sexualities are always relevant to the research process. However, when woman researchers engage in research with men about their (hetero)sexual experiences, our positionality becomes more explicitly central. This article makes a methodological contribution to critical research into male sexualities by providing a reflexive analysis of cross-gender interviews conducted with 43 men about paying for sex. It employs an understanding of both the participant and the interviewer as defended subjects and it interrogates the complex interviewer-participant power relationship, offering a critical approach to understanding the knowledge that is produced by and within our research encounters.</p

Cultural and religious diversity: Are they effectively accommodated in the South African workplace?

Justice Yvonne Mokgoro and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu are but two of many public figures who have described South Africa as a “Rainbow Nation” – an expression used to highlight South Africa’s multicultural diversity. “Rainbow” is used to visually emphasise the various races, cultures, backgrounds and religions, to name but a few, of South Africa’s inhabitants. Yet, whilst diversity is in general regarded as good and necessary for societies to progress and evolve, practically managing diversity in micro-entities, such as places of work, unfortunately often turns out to be quite complicated. With diversity in mind, the general focus of this article will be on cultural and religious diversity in the South African workplace. Consequently, the meaning of “culture” and “religion” will be explored, albeit briefly, in contextualising the rest of the discussion. The article will attempt to illustrate that despite the competing cultural and religious interests of parties (with a focus on the competing interests of employers and employees in particular), South African courts appear willing to go to considerable lengths to protect the exercise of employees’ constitutional rights in this regard. In doing so the article will briefly explore cultural and religious diversity in South Africa, and in particular how such diversity filters through to, and is addressed in, the work environment. The article will proceed to consider existing legislation which addresses cultural and religious diversity in the South African workplace, and how such legislation has been implemented and interpreted by arbitrators and judges to date

Slums of Hope::Sanitising silences within township tour reviews

In a context of rapidly increasing urbanisation and deepening global inequalities, slum tourism has thrived. This paper presents a discursive analysis of tourists’ online reviews of two township tours in Cape Town, South Africa. We investigate how, and to what ends, tourists collectively construct townships as places of hope on TripAdvisor; we question how these reviews feed into broader narratives of urban poverty in the global south. We show how tourists draw on both neoliberal and colonial discourses to construct townships as places of hope–vibrant cultural spaces, rich in non-material assets, inhabited by happy, hard-working residents. We show that by producing slums as productive cultural spaces, tourists are able to resist the stigma associated with slum tourism and position themselves as ethical, enlightened and morally superior tourists. We argue that neoliberal and colonial discourses operate together to produce sanitised representations of townships that both obscure inequalities between poor residents and wealthy tourists from the global north and depoliticise issues like poor infrastructure in townships. In discussing the broader implications of the study, we highlight the importance of producing nuanced representations of townships that acknowledge residents’ assets and excellence, while also foregrounding how they live within the oppressive constraints inherent in enduring systems of inequality

“Out of Africa”: Racist discourse in men’s talk on sex work

Sex work remains highly stigmatised throughout the world. This is particularly true in South Africa, where legal, academic, and popular discourses continue to construct sex workers and their clients as responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS, thereby exacerbating the public panic and stigma related to sex work. Through the lenses of feminist decolonial and queer theories, this paper explores how male clients manage the stigma associated with the purchase of sex and how they negotiate their gendered identities by enlisting discourses of race and class. Drawing on excerpts from in-depth interviews with 43 men who identify as clients of women sex workers, we show how men evoked racist colonial tropes to construct the black body as lower class, dirty and diseased. We argue that this denigration of the black Other allowed men to construct their own masculine identities favourably. To conclude, we reflect upon how legislation that criminalises sex work in South Africa operates in tandem with structural inequalities and racist ideologies to maintain and perpetuate the stigmatisation of the black body, particularly the black woman sex worker

Institutional Ethics Challenges to Sex Work Researchers: Committees, Communities, and Collaboration

Doing research in the field of sex work studies throws up challenges. Among these are the restrictions and regulatory issues placed on researchers by institutional ethical review processes. We draw on academic research and our personal experiences as two researchers who have been involved with many sex work research projects to illustrate how sex work researchers face a set of challenges relating to ethics – we define these as institutional ethics challenges rather than ethical challenges. They are the challenges associated with applying for and obtaining ethical approval from research institutions and funders to conduct research on stigmatised and potentially criminalised topics. This article has three aims. First, to discuss the institutional ethics challenges that sex work researchers may encounter when applying for ethical clearance. Second, to assist researchers in making a case for their research by communicating the value of doing research on sex work in contexts where it remains criminalised and by placing the assumed risks associated with sex work research into perspective. Finally, to offer a pathway forward regarding how, guided by co-produced research protocols, researchers and sex work Communities can find common ground for good practice to enhance collaboration and foster genuinely ethical research