The narratives of Asian American female sex workers are stories that demonstrate pain, pleasure, and power. These depictions often portray a woman as desirable (submissive and obedient because she was “saved” by a White man) or undesirable (war prostitute disrupting the purity of America). This is due to the failed efforts from policymakers and English educators to look beyond simple Black versus White racial relationships and beyond the needs of White feminists. When this occurs, the Asian American female student finds herself invisible. The purpose of this study was to look specifically through the niche demographic of Asian American female sex workers. This study was not meant to exclude other women, men, and humans of Asian descent, or sex workers of other races, but these are the first individuals I had the privilege of accessing as I am only beginning my sex work scholar journey. These particular women are of Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese descent, and this specified the research of my literature review. Because they also all identify as cisgender, gender dynamics were explored in this context. The participants were sampled to explore the historical and current conditions of Asian American females, the curriculum they received (or did not receive) in their high school English classes regarding Asian American female protagonists or storytelling of the body, and how these factors affected their sex work experiences. This research also moved to deepen the definition of sex work. As sex work is traditionally a consensual sexual service or erotic performance in exchange for money or goods, many women provide their services without consent or without money—and sometimes without both. The sex work, or sexual abuse, is then more of an unwanted labor they are forced to carry with them painfully. This research was not out to prove sex work is wrong or right; rather, it talked across the pain, pleasure, profit, problems, and power of these experiences. It also presents a more modernized take on sexual ways of being. I reached an authentic understanding of how these women’s bodies were navigated in the classroom, the bedroom, and beyond. With their stories, new policies and pedagogies are proposed to better serve forgotten female students in the English classroom by using the body as an entry point for unique storytelling.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The goal of this study is to explain the basic social process of street prostitution from entrance to exit using Grounded Theory Methodology.

published_or_final_version / Community Medicine / Master / Master of Public Health

published_or_final_version / Journalism and Media Studies Centre / Master / Master of Journalism

Sex work is a crime in South Africa. With the prevalence and deleterious social and economic effects of HIV, in health literature sex work has often been understood in relation to the way that it intersects with the transmission of the epidemic. This positioning of sex work then inadvertently stigmatises sex workers who are often cast outside the rights-based discourses that characterise South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy. In order to address this problem, this study explored the perceived barriers and facilitators to sex workers’ accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare (SRHC), gaps in the current service offerings relating to sex worker’s sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and the general experiences of SRHC amongst 11 female sex workers in Johannesburg, South Africa. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with these sex workers, who were based in Johannesburg City Deep. The resultant data were transcribed and subjected to a thematic analysis. The study shows that various structural and individual level barriers are perceived to prevent access to SRH. In particular, the analysis suggests that the disease-specific focus on sex worker-specific projects poses a barrier to sex workers’ accessing a complete range of SRHC services. Violence enacted by healthcare professionals, police and clients fuelled a lack of trust in the healthcare sector and displaced the participants from their basic human rights. It is also worrying that religion posed a threat to effective SRHC because some religious discourses label sex workers as sinners who are perceived to be excluded from forgiveness and healing. Finally, motherhood proved to be a point at which the participants actively managed their health and engaged with and in broad-based SRHC. Participants frequently only sought SRHC at the point at which an ailment affected their livelihood and ability to provide for a family. Taken together, these findings seem to show a range of formidable challenges to sex workers’ understanding of themselves in a human rights discourse. This study’s findings are of particular importance to rethinking the legislation that criminalises sex work, as well as healthcare initiatives geared both towards sex workers and women in general.

This dissertation investigates the development of early modern Japanese joruri puppet theater in the eighteenth century, focusing on representations of female characters in the works of three major playwrights. Joruri developed as a theatrical form combining chanting, music, and puppetry that was regularly performed for urban commoners. The plays were also commercially printed for leisure reading. The genre achieved immense popularity and exercised significant influence over early modern popular consciousness. The contemporary bakufu government licensed theaters and controlled what could appear on stage. In the shadow of this censorship, joruri developed genre conventions that reinforced the social order based on Confucian ideals, a strict class and gender hierarchy in which individuals were of less importance than the family, clan, or state. For this reason, joruri is often viewed as becoming progressively more formulaic and conservative. However, I argue that joruri playwrights straddled the fence between preserving a formula that reinforces the Confucian ethical order and its rigid gender and class hierarchy in order to avoid being banned and subverting it to speak to the audiences' anxieties about authority and the existing societal order. The instances of subversion often involved renegotiation of the genre conventions surrounding female characters whose tribulations arose from their low positions in the social order and whose tragic circumstances were highlighted by the drama. By examining the representations of innovative female characters by three major playwrights over the course of joruri's development, I show that the essence of these plays lies in these moments when joruri creates an alternative world where the repressed voice emerges, gender and class expectations are revisited, and the societal status quo is called into question. Chapter One provides an overview of the history of joruri, particularly in relation to women, its major playwrights and theaters, and its formal conventions. Chapter Two focuses on the representations of prostitutes as heroines in love suicide plays by Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724). I argue that Chikamatsu subverted the contemporary class and gender hierarchy by depicting prostitutes, who were at the bottom of the social hierarchy, as morally exemplary romantic heroines. Chapter Three examines the recurrent representations of stepmothers in Namiki Sosuke's (1695-1751) plays in the context of the existing conventional representations of stepmothers in joruri. I argue that Sosuke's unconventionally realistic depictions of the dark psychology and transgressive behavior of seemingly-exemplary stepmothers highlight the conflict between individual desire and social obligation and call into question the absolute priority of social obligation. Chapter Four examines the work of Chikamatsu Hanji (1725-1783) written during a time when joruri and kabuki were engaged in a particularly strong cycle of mutual influence and borrowing. I argue that Hanji's reinvention of provincial daughters as unconventionally outspoken in the female realm of love, and yet pawns in the male realm of politics, subtly criticizes societal norms that subordinate the value of the individual to the maintenance of the social order. Through examination of how each playwright established and renegotiated joruri's genre conventions in creating his innovative female characters, this dissertation sheds light on the multiple functions of joruri: as didactic theater, popular entertainment, and a site for subtle criticism where early modern conceptions of gender and class and societal norms were reexamined and reimagined.

The prostitute and the concept of prostitution played a meaningful role in both Frank Wedekind's life and his dramatic efforts. From his early youth to the writing of' his drama Schloss Wetterstein (1910), Wedekind remained deeply interested in the personal, social and philosophical problems generated by the existence of the prostitute and what he imagined her sensually based philosophy of life to be. Four of Wedekind's dramas were dealt with, which seem to be representative of his struggle to vindicate his own corresponding philosophy of sensuality. The first drama, Elins Erweckung (Elin's Awakening-1887), is important as his first drama dealing with the prostitute. It is largely socio-critical in tone and develops character types, which will later appear in other Wedekind dramas concerning the prostitute. Das Sonnenspektrum (~Spectrum of the Sun-l894), the fragmentary, second play analysed, develops the theme of sensual joy carried to its practical limit: a garden of physical love, where art and man's physical appetites live in harmony. The philosophical implications of unrestrained physical love, as embodied by the prostitute, take on a darker hue in the third drama, Tod und Teufel (Death and the Devil-1905). In this drama Wedekind's disillusionment with sensual love is shown. Its characters are not freely enjoying their unrestrained sensuality; they are driven by inner, bestial forces to their destruction. Wedekind attempts to rescue daemonic sexuality in the final drama worked with, Schlos Wetterstein (Wetterstein Castle). He creates the ''Edelhure'' (Noble Whore) in this work, who triumphs philosophically over sensual pleasure, but pays with her life. Her death is proud, but real. With Schloss Wetterstein ends Wedekind's attempt to reconcile unrestrained sensuality with practical reality. He found that the prostitute could not outrun the fate inevitably awaiting her, if she (and himself) looked for the meaning of life on the dark side of Man's existence. Death only, awaits those who open Pandora’s Box I

<p>This mini-thesis seeks to provide a substantiation for the need for a new legal framework for South Africa in order to address prostitution. It will argue that the current legal framework has failed in its desired aims and in addressing prostitution effectively. This mini-thesis critically analyses the underlying reasons for prostitution in South Africa and discovers that it is influenced by a myriad of interrelated factors. The current level of poverty and the prevailing socio-economic paradigm in South Africa have contributed to its complex nature. The demand for prostitution acts as a catalyst for both the further exploitation of prostitutes and women, while making them vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases. I establish that criminalisation alone is not sufficient to address prostitution, especially given the HIV/AIDS epidemic.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2008. / Title from file title page. Wendy Simonds, committee chair; Denise Donnelly, Dawn Baunach, committee members. Electronic text (218 p. : ill. (some col.), col. maps) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Sept. 23, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-206).

Thesis (M.A.(Criminology))--University of Pretoria, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.