From the self-entrepreneur to carnivalization in prostitution between men

Abstract

Prostitution raises questions about the forms of social restriction and agency, especially when neoliberalism and the dangers of reducing existence to economic rationality are brought into play. When discussing prostitution practiced by men, specifically, singularities and ambiguities become evident. While the subject is daily incited to higher-performance work strategies, he also participates in certain displacements of traditional prescriptions of work, gender and sexuality. With this socially porous field in mind, this study, derived from a cartographic approach, discusses the narratives of two sex workers about their experiences in prostitution. By acting as agents in the market, they move between forms of self-entrepreneurship and a certain carnivalization of their activities (which shows the coexistence, in prostitution among men, of neoliberalism and the current suspension of gender and sexuality norms). Their experiences indicate different positions in sex work, involving the strategic and market-oriented use of characteristics and skills for various compensations (financial, hedonistic, emotional), as well as the construction of care and protection networks. Based on the narratives, it is argued that stereotypical representations about the exercise of prostitution among men hinder the analysis of the new configurations between sex work, gender and sexuality.