AFRO's News Reading
Street-based sex workers perform emotional labor to build customer loyalty
(UC Riverside News, 2021.07.27)
Sex workers who ply their trade on the street perform emotional labor to convert casual clients into safe, repeat customers, finds a UC Riverside-led study published in Work, Employment and Society. Though many studies have examined the role emotional labor plays in indoor sex work, researchers have often taken for granted that outdoor sex work is short-term and strictly transactional. The new study, based on interviews with 36 mostly Black transgender respondents who work several popular outdoor “strolls” in Washington, D.C., is the first to establish that street-based sex workers also invest considerable emotional effort into maintaining loyal customers. The authors suggest this emotional labor might help transgender sex workers avoid potentially violent or abusive clients in addition to providing steady income.
"Our findings suggest that the presumed experiential differences across sex work sectors may be overstated," said corresponding author Sharon Oselin, a UC Riverside associate professor of public policy and sociology, and director of the Presley Center of Crime and Justice Studies... (Read full text)
AFRO's Comment:
Sex work is about but not only about sex. Sex worker does not only provide sexual services for the clients, but also perform emotional labour and maintain relationship with the clients. Some sex workers spend time and talk with their clients, or even cook meals for them to ease their loneliness, to make them feel they are cared about. They call them, and on many occasions, do consider them "friends".
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