Who Takes Part in the Political Game? The Sex Work Governance Debate in Israel

The Question of Moral Worth in a Controversial Market: Moral Justification Regimes and Boundary Work Among Israeli Men Who Pay for Sex Abroad

This study examined the internal moral debate that takes place among Israeli men who pay for sex (MWPS) while traveling abroad. We explored how they construct their sense of moral worth and present themselves as moral subjects in light of the intensified stigmatization of their actions. Using the theoretical frameworks of pragmatic morality and boundary work, we conceptualize four main moral justification regimes that MWPS use to construct themselves as moral subjects: Cultural normalization; Conditional freedom of choice; The altruistic act of charity; and Unpacking the Stigma Discourse. The findings highlight how these justification regimes are anchored in three intersecting fields - cultural, spatial, and power relations - which produce various matrices of conflict, compromise, or collaboration in different situations. Thus, the flexible switching between various justification regimes reveals how MWPS define themselves and their activities and negotiate various moral dispositions - akin to various cultural logics - in the context of moral taint and stigma.

Paying for Sex During COVID-19 Pandemic: The Experiences of Israeli Men

INTRODUCTION

This qualitative study explored the experiences of men who pay women for sex (MWPWS) during the COVID-19 pandemic, which poses radical and profound challenges to various aspects of people's intimate, sexual, and financial experiences.

METHODS

The study was based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 10 Israeli MWPWS who regularly visit various prostitution venues. The interviews were conducted between April and July 2020, between the first and the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Israel.

RESULTS

The findings focus on four major aspects of the participants' experiences: the participants' inability to pay for sex, the difficulties imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic to participants' sex-for-pay experiences, the positive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on their sex-for-pay experiences, and the insignificance of COVID-19 pandemic to their sex-for-pay experiences.

CONCLUSIONS

I conclude that COVID-19 pandemic triggers various sexual, emotional, and gendered experiences for MWPWS. Accordingly, MWPWS may reevaluate their engagement in sex-for-pay, and their experiences of it may be reshaped in light of the pandemic. I discuss the findings' contribution to sexuality and masculinity studies, and the methodological possibilities that they raise for qualitative scholars studying social phenomena during the COVID-19 pandemic.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The study highlights the significance of developing ad hoc prostitution policy that supports the individuals involved in the sex industry-both MWPWS and the women who are paid for sex-during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, it suggests that prostitution policy should address the diverse experiences of MWPWS, beyond viewing them as merely offenders who should be punished, or re-educated.

Changing Minds and Changing Laws: How New Zealand Sex Workers and Their Allies Shaped Decriminalisation in New Zealand

INTRODUCTION

This article provides insight into a rare instance of a collaborative governance approach to sex work that led to the decriminalisation, design and implementation of the sex work policy governance framework in New Zealand with the Prostitution Reform Act 2003.

METHODS

Drawing on a sample of 17 interviews conducted between the years 2012 and 2019 in addition to associated archival material originating from government and non-government sectors including sex worker representative organisations.

RESULTS

It finds that non-sex workers' endorsement for the decriminalisation of sex work was motivated by the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) and occurred primarily within a human rights and harm minimisation framework. But that during the lobbying and parliamentary process, amendments to the Bill emerged that contradicted the NZPC's main goal which was for sex work to be recognised as a legitimate labour activity and for all sex workers to benefit from decriminalisation and policy reform.

CONCLUSIONS

As such, this article broadens the scope of analysis related to the sex worker rights movement by examining how and why sex workers and their allies came to communicate and act on the impetus for sex work law reform and how it affected policy outcomes.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Those involved in collaborative governance sex work law reform projects could consider adopting Östegren's typology of repressive, restrictive or integrative approaches to sex work law reform in negotiations that concern regulation and policies.