Sex work as care? Implications for a feminist ameliorative approach to the relationship between sexuality and care

The two phenomena of sexuality and care are often considered separately, but are frequently intertwined in practice. The links between sexuality and care are visible, for example, when men with disabilities demand the right to be sexually serviced by female nursers or carers, and in the representation of female caring figures such as nurses, babysitters, maids, teachers and mothers in pornography. Perhaps most prominently, sexuality and care are brought together within the institution of marriage, in which women are required to provide care for and submit sexually to their husbands. The fact that these two phenomena are combined in this highly prominent and enduring institution suggests the importance of investigating the relationship between sexuality and care. Consequently, in this thesis I investigate this relationship, and seek to define an approach to sexuality and care that is useful from a feminist perspective. I do so by identifying a trend that I call the 'sex-work-as-care tendency', which has emerged since the early 2000s mostly within academia, and to a lesser extent in sex worker activism. Proponents of the sex-work-as-care tendency understand prostitution to be a form of care. I use the sex-work-as-care tendency as a starting point for a discussion of the relationship between sexuality and care, examining and evaluating it against a definition of feminism that understands sex hierarchy to be both unjust and primary. Using an approach derived from intellectual history, I critically analyse two 'intellectual predecessors' to the sex-work-as-care tendency: social reproduction theory and Arlie Hochschild's concept of 'emotional labour'. These two traditions of thought have significantly influenced the sex-work-as-care tendency, and by critically examining the ideas and assumptions present in them I am able to evaluate the usefulness of this theoretical understanding from a feminist perspective. I find that while the sex-work-as-care tendency does present some advantages to feminist thought, its many disadvantages make it unsuitable. Finally, I present the beginnings of a genuinely feminist approach to the relationship between sexuality and care.