Community: The Changing Nature of Our Relationships

3 Perspectives on Sex

KEY MESSAGES:

• Trans sex workers are people too - with the same hopes and dreams as other people and need representation in organisations to have a voice for their specific needs re: identity, ageing, etc.
• Gender differences in attitude towards identity, behaviour and relationships in prison need to be considered when entering into health promotion in this situation
• Important to be aware of power and intimacy in BDSM play and relationships and the level of negotiation and consent they entail

Friday 11:00-11:30 CELEBRATING DIVERSITY TRANSGENDER AND SEX WORK, BRINGING THE TWO TOGETHER

Gabby Skelsey, RhED

Contact: gskelsey@ischs.org.au; www.sexworker.org.au

PRESENTER’S BIO:

Gabby Skelsey has worked with the sex industry for fifteen years, both under the banner of the original Prostitutes Collective of Victoria (PCV) and since 2000, in the RhED program (Resourcing health and education in the sex industry).  She works with brothel, escort and private workers providing information, advocacy, referral and support where needed. Gabby has post graduate qualifications in health sciences and counselling and is a clinical member of PACFA (Pyschotherapy & Counselling Federation of Australia). Gabby has presented conference papers in the UK, Australia and New Zealand around topics including sex industry health matters, trauma and PTSD.

ABSTRACT:

Resourcing Health & Education (RhED) is a service for the Victorian sex industry. Operating from 10 Inkerman Street, St Kilda, RhED provides site based and outreach services in collaboration with relevant programs and agencies. RhED is committed to respecting and reflecting the needs of the sex industry, and actively promoting the rights of sex workers.  As a program of the Inner South Community Health Service, RhED operates from a harm minimisation approach providing practical and realistic health information and supports. RhED aims to provide services that recognise health as not only a physical dimension but includes a person's emotional and social wellbeing.  Issues of social inclusion, exclusion and resilience towards transgender sex workers have seldom been the focus of public or academic interest, yet they are major health issues. Combining these issues together with sex work has a direct impact on the health and safety of transgender sex workers but not the health of others. This impact tends to be overlooked.  For example in recent research Working in Victorian Brothels (Consumer Affairs Victoria June 2009), transgender sex workers were identified but the report did not expand on the additional discrimination and stigma they may experience working in the sex industry. Although a minority, transgender sex workers are a vital part of this diverse industry. Their needs and experiences need to be addressed.  This case presentation exhibits the life of a transgender sex worker who works in the legal industry. Issues addressed include body image, confidence in personal life vs sex work, emotional impacts of experiencing discrimination both within and outside the sex industry.  Transgendered people may experience marginalisation in the general community and form unique coping and managing strategies. However, this does not address the issues of accessing supports and services due to limited service providers knowledge and interest.

Friday 11:30-12:00 LOVE BEHIND BARS: SEXUAL AGENCY, COERCION AND CONSENT IN AUSTRALIAN PRISONS

Juliet Richters, School of Public Health & Community Medicine, UNSW

Contact: j.richters@unsw.edu.au

PRESENTER’S BIO:

Juliet Richters has been involved in sex research and education since 1983. Her work includes national and local surveys of sexual behaviour and attitudes, in-depth interview studies, and theoretical work on the sociology of sexual practice. Topics include condom use, circumcision, casual sex, various sexual practices, bisexuality, contraception, and prevention of HIV and other sexually transmissible infections. She has worked with gay men, university students and other young people, sex workers and the general public, and for many years ran a survey with ACON of women in contact with the gay and lesbian community.

ABSTRACT:

In our  recent study in New South Wales, we surveyed a random sample of 1317 inmates from 27 prisons (response rate 80%) by computer-assisted telephone interview on their sexual health, behaviour and attitudes. We also recruited male, female and transgender former and current inmates by purposive sampling for face-to-face interviews to explore sexual issues inside prisons in more depth.  Among men, both consensual sexual contact between inmates and sexual assault or coercion were much less common than the popular view of ubiquitous situational homosexuality and prison rape would suggest. Inmates were much more disapproving of male-to-male sexual contact than other Australians, and most disagreed with the proposition that Having sex with another inmate in jail doesn't make you gay. Qualitative findings indicate that a small minority of inmates adopted a sexually available, feminised role. Prisoners used various imaginative ways of dealing with sexual deprivation, including masturbation with improvised toys, occasional male-to-male contact (some of it transactional) tobacco is currency in this setting where most prisoners are smokers), and attempts to have sex with their visitors despite being in a public space.  In women's prisons, sex was much more common and less stigmatised, in affectionate or romantic relationships as well as more instrumental or recreational contexts. Sexual coercion was rare but some women reported events such as cavity searching for drugs by other inmates as 'sexual assault'.  The differences between men and women's sexuality in these single-sex institutions illuminate aspects of the social construction of both gender and sexual practice, and raise further complex questions about agency and sexual ethics which stretch comfortable professional notions of consent and coercion to breaking point. 

Friday 12:00-12:30 QUE(E)RYING VIOLENCE: RETHINKING PLEASURE, HARM AND INTIMACY IN LESBIAN SADOMASOCHISM

Senthorun Raj*, University of Sydney

Contact: sensunilraj@gmail.com

PRESENTER’S BIO:

Senthorun Raj has completed a B.A majoring in Gender and Cultural Studies, and is currently writing an Honours thesis on queer refugee bodies and the law at the University of Sydney. He has completed a summer research fellowship at the Australian National University on homophobia, racism and hate speech. Sen is currently working as the Policy and Development Coordinator for the Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby and co-chairs Amnesty International Australia’s Diversity Steering Committee. Sen has published papers in human rights, sexuality and refugee law, gay male domestic violence and racist humour.

ABSTRACT:

Intimacy and violence, often seen as antithetical concepts, have been increasingly intertwined concepts in the diverse sexual practices of lesbian women. In thinking through this relationship, it is important to ask how policy and legal approaches conceptualise violence. Distinguishing between the embodied qualities of violence, in a socio-cultural context, relies on a consideration of power, pleasure and ethics. However, none of these terms are universal or self-evident. Bodies experience violence and intimacy in culturally specific and historically located ways. Understanding the sustainability of lesbian relationships requires a more nuanced approach to understanding the affects of violence. While violence has injurious effects, it may also be linked to the production of pleasure and erotics. Working with this paradox, my paper will tease out the ways which physical and emotional wellbeing is affected by experiences of lesbian sadomasochism. Comparing these divergent experiences through a discursive analysis of desire, sexuality and medical health, I will argue that harm must be located with respect to its embodied specificity rather than defined by particular acts. Differentiating what is meant by ‘violence’ in intimate lesbian sexual situations, physically intrusive acts or verbal taunts are not intrinsically counterproductive to the wellbeing of a relationship. Violence is both productive and oppressive. Thinking through the differing positions of violence in lesbian relationships requires a careful revision of pleasure, resistance and emotion.

Raj's presentation is avaialble in a special edition of the GLIP review, see our publications page for more details or download the full publication here.