Migrant workers in the European sex industry come from every conceivable background, in terms of class, ethnicity, nationality and age, and they aren't just women but men and transgenders as well [1]. They arrive in Europe via countless routes, alone, with friends, in couples or in accompanied groups. Some of them arrive with money to spend while others arrive indebted. They may be using their own real documents and a tourist visa, or falsified papers and a real work permit or any combination of true and false 'papers'. Some of them have already worked as prostitutes in their own country, but whether they have or not, sources from all over the world agree that they have understood that their work in Europe will involve sex. That is, they have opted to do sex work.
Before continuing, I would like to clarify that in this essay I will not try to explain why prostitution exists, not will I define or judge it within any theoretical framework (such as feminism, postmodernism, marxism, etc.) Nor will I be identifying which national or ethnic groups predominate at the moment or how the relevant migratory networks function. Above all, I will not be dealing with the question of whether any human being can really 'choose' what work he does, whether prostitution or anything else.
My starting point is that many, many migrants doing sexual jobs do not describe themselves as 'forced' or as having no other options in life. They may well have fewer options, or fewer agreeable options, than some other people, but they have them. Moreover, among those who suffer from poverty, bad marriages and the entire array of possible root factors, not everyone opts for sex work, just as not everyone opts to migrate. Theories of determinism cannot account for the human phenomenon of choice, while every choice is influenced by questions of class, gender, ethnicity, economic level and present social conditions (war, dictatorship, famine, violence, unemployment, etc.). Actions occur within geopolitical and economic structures and dynamics.
Particularly, the 'underdeveloped' countries are subject to 'structural adjustment' policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund, policies which have contributed to an acknowledged 'feminisation' of poverty and migrations. In the 'third world', opportunities are diminishing all the time, even for people with university degrees. However, given all these underlying causes, migrants individually search for solutions, motivated by personal desires to live better lives. They make life-decisions when they uproot themselves from their homes, and they consider themselves brave and adventuresome for doing it--including when the future implies sex work.
While the majority of sex workers is still female, increasing numbers are men, transgenders and children. Sexual services are sought by women and transgenders, also, and not only by men. In an industry characterised by ambiguities, it is preferable not to perpetuate the classical assumption of Woman-prostitute/Man-client. I will use neutral terms whenever possible.
A Transnational Kind of Migrant
Studies of migrations between, for example, the Caribbean and the 'first world' describe the powerful mentality of transnational migrants: the conviction of a Jamaican of the 1950s that London was his 'capital'; the effort that migrants from Nevis make to conserve the island as their 'country' though they live in Brooklyn; the great capacity to exist in two places at once of the 'dominican yorks' (Hall, Fog Olwig, Guarnizo and others). Immense global businesses engaged in charter flights, messenger services, long-distance phone calls, the Internet and electronic transfers of money depend on the migrations of people who carry out less prestigious jobs in the richer countries. Working in the sex industry does not negate a migrant's transnational role.
But migrant prostitutes are a special phenomenon: It is typical for them not to settle in one place to live. Very often they continue migrating, or-perhaps better put-they continue travelling. The sex worker you encounter today in Madrid you may find tomorrow in Paris, next month in Amsterdam and a year later back in Spain. And this peripatetic condition should not be viewed as solely the result of efforts to avoid police controls; rather, it is part of a culture whose members want to see Europe and prefer some places to others. Although migrant prostitutes are often poor and 'illegal', many travel in a cosmopolitan fashion.
The European press almost always presents these subjects as deceived victims. In this essay my subjects are people who have tried to migrate, whether choosing 'arranged' trips and jobs or travelling completely on their own. Of course, while these potential travellers were looking for options, others were looking for such potential travellers, as well, with offers of trips to and jobs in Europe: members of this diverse group include free-lance and networked empresarios (sometimes called coyotes or snakeheads), travel agents, tourist boy- and girl-friends met during vacations, family members and friends).
When travellers later complain of being deceived, they usually point to the working conditions they have had to accept at their destination; with discouraging frequency they have signed contracts without understanding the extensive surveillance and little future liberty they imply. In any case, one can hardly know beforehand how he is going to feel displaying himself nude in a window in Amsterdam for fourteen hours a day, or standing next to a road in the Casa de Campo in Madrid. These are forms of prostitution which might be described as 'industrial', compared with types at home that perhaps involve dancing and drinking with clients in a more leisurely manner and having sex with two or three in one night. [2]
Talking of 'working conditions' means we're already talking about prostitution as work [3]. What does the job consist of? First we have to ask: Which job?
The Sex Market
The European sex industry includes brothels, clubs, bars, discotheques, cabarets, erotic telephone lines, virtual sex via the Internet, sex shops with private cabins, many massage parlours, saunas and other places for the development of physical 'well-being', escort services, some matrimonial agencies, many hotels, pensions and flats, commercial and semi-commercial announcements in newspapers and magazines and in small forms to leave or put up (like postcards), pornographic cinemas and rental videos, erotic restaurants, services of domination and submission and street prostitution: an immense proliferation of possible ways to pay for a sexual or sensual experience [4]. It should be clear, then, that what exists is not 'Prostitution' but a great variety of different sex jobs.
The word prostitution may interfere with understanding that there is a market for sex, distracting us from the demand side-that is, the desires of the many people who are looking for sexual services. A few years ago, an article in the Madrid newspaper El Mundo was called "A million men a day visit prostitutes", referring only to Spain and certainly not referring to all the forms cited above within the sex industry. Although counting is highly problematic in clandestine industries, this statistic is somehow impressive, in a country of some forty million people. After all, it's hardly all the same men who visit prostitutes every day: some go once a week, and others more or less often, with a much larger annual total who 'visit prostitutes' in Spain. Even counting only male clients, they are of every age, economic level, ethnicity, region and taste. Migrants are clients, as well. Clients are homosexuals, transvestites, transsexuals and women, also. The varied services such a diverse clientele will be seeking can be imagined.
Which means there are many, many opportunities to work in this industry. For migrants who find their other work-options disagreeable, difficult or badly paid (primarily, domestic service and caring for old or sick people or children), finding a place in the sex industry may be an interesting option. Since their identification papers may be questionable, and their work permits based on these also compromised, working in an 'irregular' world may not seem a dramatic change. Most migrants understand that finding a better life in Europe will not happen quickly and that they will probably have to begin in less comfortable situations. When this happens in the sex industry, what often matters to the worker is not leaving the industry but changing to a different situation inside it.
There is a vast array of possible situations within the industry. In some, such as erotic telephone lines, the worker doesn't even see clients. In some striptease or exotic-dance work, the performer may have no physical contact with clients. And even if the job involves 'full sex', doing it for a pornographic film is not the same as doing it in a brothel (or, for that matter, with clients of sexologists). Obviously, these are all quite different jobs, some performed in bars, others in houses, offices or examination rooms. In some, the worker controls the situation; in others he does not. Some workers are paid well, others badly. There are services described as 'easy' to perform by some people which seem 'difficult' to others. The boss or owner of the business may well be the crucial element in any given job. In short, everything depends on the specific situation.
The same is true if we look at the many possible forms of physical/sexual contact, of 'serving' the client [5]. Obviously, performing oral sex in a car or in an alley in the rain is not the same as doing it during a shift inside a heated club, where you are expected to talk and have drinks as well as sex with clients. It is possible, however, to point out some of the relevant abilities and options involved in carrying out many of these jobs well, meaning: in the most efficient and less problematic manner.
The above list (which will never be complete) summarises useful abilities for working in the European sex industry. In other cultures the industry has other facets, so the work may require other abilities. In Japan, for example, there is hostess work in bars where groups of men from the same company spend the evening talking and joking with the boss, which is prohibited inside the company. The hostess has to be there, light cigarettes, make sure that glasses are always filled and encourage the men to feel good. For these clients, making sexual commentaries about the women allows them to feel good. No other services are offered.
In the city of Nairobi during the colonial period (into the 1960s) a common form of sex work consisted in a woman setting up house and offering domestic services to migrant men from the countryside. The migrant could request that his clothes be washed and ironed, that food and teas be prepared for him, that he sleep in the house and that the woman have sex with him. The women charged for each service separately. Similar phenomena occur in many parts of the world where there is a masculine migration living in rented rooms without domestic facilities: others arrive to sell them domestic and sexual services.
And these are just the beginning; the possibilities are infinite. Although such forms are not well known in Europe, migrants who come from other continents may be familiar with them and may combine them with what they find here, creating 'hybrid' forms. Conversations with prostitutes easily reveal that concepts of prostitution, sex work, work or sex itself do not mean the same to everyone everywhere. Confusions occur when 'westerners' appear to see only sex in these jobs, while migrants don't experience them that way.
Working Conditions for Migrants
When 'migrant prostitutes' are mentioned in Europe, most people automatically assume that they work 'the street', a stereotype continually reproduced by the press, with its predictable photos of women leaning over to talk to men in cars. For personal reasons, some migrants do prefer to do street prostitution. However, many others consider it better to be in clubs, flats or less visible places than the street (or than centrally located bars), where they are less exposed to the public gaze, even though this may imply being controlled more by employers. In any case, numerous international studies have shown that the street proportion of prostitution is only a fraction of the total.
Another stereotype is the assumption that migrant workers have only two possibilities: 'freedom' or semi-enslavement, but in fact there is a wide range between the two extremes. Some people give money to 'pimps' for protection; many people give money to a girl- or boyfriend (as many people do, to their partners or spouses, outside the sex industry). There are families who share flats and income and friends who work together. There are people, under contract to work in clubs, who have scarcely any life outside and who are sometimes moved from place to place without being consulted. However, some of those people go along with that situation because it helps them save more money and they feel safer. Other people are truly trapped. Generalisations are useless.
Advantages of Sex Work
What advantages can sex work offer to a migrant? First, flexibility: one can work full-time, part-time or occasionally, which makes it convenient to many mothers. It can be a second job. In the case of street prostitution, it is one of the few ways to make money, buy food and take it home the same day; also the place of work may be chosen, either close to or far from home. It is work that can be tried and left if it doesn't suit; if it suits, it may be the path to independence. Many sex jobs do not require formal training or education. Many of these advantages are characteristic of the 'informal sector' in general. Numerous migrants point out the opportunities that the work offers to 'see the world' and meet Europeans, and some say they don't feel as alone or lonely as they do in other available jobs.
The usual assumption is that the poorer migrant will be found only in the lowest rung of any industry, but they can be found at all levels of the sex industry. Moreover, many migrant prostitutes do have formal training, even university education. The work may be a way to pay for a university career in Europe. As in every job, the worker has more chance to choose, control and move up after being in the business a certain amount of time, learning and finding his preferred level, depending on his individual capacities.
Foreigners may also enjoy some advantages within the industry, where their phenotypes make them more exotic-perhaps more exciting-to some clients. If they know how to take advantage of this, they may get more or better clientele. Some non-Europeans may be more willing to work with non-European clients, too, of their own or other ethnicities, and this could give them a niche within some markets. In the case of transgenders (and there are many among migrants), having 'different' bodies, equipped with organs of both sexes, gives them a clientele that is seeking exactly that ambiguity.
Disadvantages of Sex Work
The worst practical disadvantage of sex work is its clandestine character. Labour protections do not exist: neither contracts, benefits, social security nor unions to demand them. Since the industry isn't legal as such in most places (although the bars, clubs, restaurants, agencies, etc, are, in various ways), workers, with few exceptions, do not enjoy many of the most basic social services, such as police protection-even when they are victims of rape, robbery or coercion. This means that the boss or owner of the business is free to impose almost any unjust condition on his employees, and if they protest they can simply be dismissed. Employees of massage parlours commonly complain that the boss watches over them too much, or that they don't have the right to reject clients they don't like. In exotic-dance bars, the complaint is often of overly long shifts and little rest, and sometimes of exorbitant 'house fees.'
These commentaries are heard as much among migrants as among natives, with the further aggravation that they are even less likely to claim labour rights. If they don't have permission to earn money, or they only have permission to earn as domestics, they aren't likely to lodge a complaint. In research carried out in many countries, the most common complaint of sex workers in general police abuses: that 'raids' are simply an easy way to fulfill their arrest requirements; that they blackmail prostitutes and coerce them into giving sexual services free; that they persecute foreigners, or blacks or transsexuals. Prostitutes in general everywhere complain more about the police than about clients or 'pimps'.
It appears that prostitutes live a process of 'apprenticeship' during which they are more exposed to rapes, beatings and robberies; later they learn to avoid or manage problematic clients. Working in couples, for example an older or more experienced person with a younger, may help during this learning process. However, given the lack of police protection, the possibility of violence from clients always exists.
Another important disadvantage of sex work is the difficulty of maintaining a healthy emotional state of mind. Many prostitutes feel guilty of having sinful relations; others describe feeling a great weight on the heart. About the sex itself, many say they 'don't feel anything' when they are with clients, while others feel disgust, fear, loneliness or sadness. [6] Since they enjoy no police protection, they are exposed to all kinds of deceit, confusion, danger and problems. Despite the fact that the worst does not always occur, preserving a positive state of mind is a formidable task.
Ambiguous jobs
Domestic service is considered one of the jobs that can lead to prostitution. Live-in domestics share intimate situations with families who are not their own; they care for children and old or sick people; they have little privacy of their own. They are in the house in the morning, when family members get up, and at night, when they go to bed. Some have sexual relations with someone in the family, perhaps through coercion or perhaps out of loneliness, love or desire, or to obtain advantages, benefits or extra money. Some domestics have a second job doing sex work. Of course, many domestics have none of these experiences; but in any case it's better not to imagine that there's a clear dividing line between domestic service and sexual service. These are ambiguous worlds.
The same is true of matrimonial agencies. Some arrange conventional marriages; many people are satisfied to have found their spouses this way. At the same time, some agencies use the same techniques to 'sell' people to others that sex businesses use. Many women are married fairly straightforwardly in order to do domestic/sex work for a husband; that is, to carry out the role of 'traditional' wives: this leads to the common marriage between a 'first world' man and a 'third world' woman. Authentic disasters happen in these situations, but successes occur as well. Many women married through agencies reject the label often assigned to them of 'poor victims' and 'mail-order brides'.
In many studies of prostitutes, evidence shows that there does not always exist a clear line between work and client, on the one hand, and love and lover, on the other: A commercial aspect may coexist with feelings of love or affection. This may present as many advantages as disadvantages; some workers feel confused, others enjoy the confusion.
With the exception of people who feel they have a 'vocation' for sex work, migrants working in the industry almost always say it's temporary. Many leave and return later, but whether they like the work of not, the majority don't identify themselves as prostitutes or sex workers. Anyone asking migrant sex workers whether they like being prostitutes or why don't they leave prostitution may receive strange answers. Perhaps they don't consider themselves prostitutes, or perhaps, since they view the situation is temporary, it doesn't matter so much. Or perhaps when they see pained expressions on the faces of those asking the questions they prefer to tell anything but the truth. Once such questioners have left, a sex worker usually comments that when people say one is victimised and miserable as a prostitute one has probably never had to clean public toilets or had to suffer the sexual harassment that goes along with a lot of domestic work-the jobs supposedly more dignified than prostitution.
For those who can only imagine feeling disgust at doing sex work, it would be a terrible choice. It turns out this is not the universal reaction; or that 'disgust' is only one component or moment among many, some neutral or positive. Looked at that way it's like every other job in the world.
Notes
[1] The term transgender brings together all possibilities among transvestites and transsexuals, whose appearances may be masculine, feminine or androgynous. The word intergender is also used. Current studies of sexuality avoid classic assumptions: in the case of prostitution the automatic assumption is that they are women. return
[2] Sex tourists speak of this difference in the following way: While in Europe prostitutes value and impose efficiency and speed, in the 'third world' they take more time with the client, give more services and appear to become more involved. This would be a pre-industrial, perhaps 'craftsman' form of work. return
[3] Not 'profession', which may imply more intention. return
[4] The terms for these services vary from place to place. Migrants come with their own terms, in various languages, which mix and produce hybrid forms. return
[5] There are those who call themselves sexoservidoras (sex-servers, perhaps) in México. return
[6] Some people speak of the disgust or sadness they feel when they clean bathrooms or bodies, as well. Many experience 'emotional' dangers when they work as maids, living in situation with families who are not their own. return