Family Matters: Sex-Working Parents Surveilled in the Parenting Panopticon

Background and Purpose: People engaging in sex work are often parents. However, when sex-working parents (SWPs) are acknowledged as mothers, they are often depicted as ill-prepared parents who willingly put their children into dangerous situations, thereby portraying sex work and parenthood as conflicted identities. This work begins to complicate hegemonic meanings surrounding the “ideal mother” and explore the variable ways that SWPs balance their work with parenting while navigating looming criminalization. There is a lack of SWP representation in sex worker organizing spaces. Our PAR study examines SWPs’ family configuration, their relationship to work and ways it may have changed before or after having children, the ways that their work impacts their role as a parent, and what they would describe as their significant unmet needs at the intersection of parenting and sex work.

Methods: The study employed five online focus groups with a total of thirteen English-speaking SWPs (average of 3 SWPs per group) in Los Angeles County. We utilized a qualitative semi-structured interview guide and an art-based counter-messaging exercise to better understand the misrepresentation of SWPs in civil society. Members of the research community for this study were over the age of 18, had sex work experience in Los Angeles County, were the primary caretaker of a child under the age of 18 while engaging in sex work, and had access to an internet-linked computer where they could participate in the focus groups. Parents were recruited through online flyers sent through email listservs, and in-person outreach at street-based worker sites. Each focus group lasted approximately two hours and they occurred over the span of two months in 2022.

Results: Through discussion and an exploratory line-by-line coding process to identify focused codes, three major themes emerged: 1) “I’m doing this for my kid”: Describes the importance that SWPs bestow onto sex work that outweighs potential drawbacks of the work; 2) Constant fear of apprehension: The fear resulting from surveillance and living in a society where the threat of punishment in the form of family separation is constantly looming; 3) Interdependence: the overarching need to be understood and accepted sex workers and civilians.

Conclusions and Implications: SWPs primarily attributed their lack of willingness to seek parental help to the criminalization that they faced. This does not mean that harm toward their children is not possible, but it does pose a helpful path forward for supporting the children of SWPs. This study emphasizes the need for social workers to create service capacity where SWPs can seek help for their families if needed. As such, social work researchers should recognize that liberation for sex workers and their families looks different than what government systems have in mind. The social work profession must recognize that sex work is labor for the sake of meeting basic needs and not a parent’s willful disregard for their child’s safety. Without structural changes in social work, SWPs will continue to be punished for doing what they can care for their families.