Sex in the Academy/Sex in the Field: Bodies of Ethics in Activist Research

Abstract

The infiltration of sex workers into academia has offered new lenses through which to understand sexual commerce. Sex work research is plagued by a history of voyeurism, victimisation and sexual tourism without sufficient regard for the lives, rights and demands of sex workers themselves. Being a sex working researcher raises multiple challenges in the field. But being in the academy brings further risks. Risks of assault, harassment and invasive questioning from colleagues are ever present when one’s naked photos are on the internet. From parental complaints to public outcry, this chapter takes a personal journey into the author’s own ethnographic research into feminist pornographies. It moves through fisting workshops to public rallies to community forums and explores how sex working researchers navigate legal risks of self-incrimination, bureaucratic requirements of human ethics committees and political risks of engaging with media, and still manage to pioneer ethical approaches in a field where practice and theory so intimately overlap.