Uncovering the myths of the male sex worker: a multi-jurisdictional study of male and non-binary sex workers in Scotland and Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Male and non-binary sex workers are a significantly underrepresented and undervalued population within society and wider academic, political, and legal discourses surrounding the sex industries (Curtis and Boe 2023). These groups are largely invisible within such discourses, and their experiences are either disregarded or misinterpreted through the lens of pervasive and harmful myths. This thesis explores the dominant myths surrounding male and non-binary sex workers within a multi-jurisdictional context (namely, Scotland and Aotearoa New Zealand). Between February and October 2023, 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with sex workers residing in Scotland and Aotearoa New Zealand. These interviews were situated within a queer ethnographic framework (Rooke 2009), and participant stories were analysed using performative and rhizomatic approaches to narrative analysis (Loots, Coppens, and Sermijn 2013). Through their stories, sex workers taking part in the study resist stereotypical and binary understandings of their experiences and lives. Throughout this thesis, I argue that invisibility, myth, and harm are intimately linked. I argue that myths have the capacity to cause harm, both material and emotional, and that such harms are further exacerbated in socio-legal landscapes of sex work criminalisation (in the case of Scotland). It is also my contention that limited and mythological understandings of male and non-binary sex workers contribute to the erasure of these groups and further cisheteronormative understandings of the sex industries. This research exists to challenge pre-existing paradigms of male and non-binary sex work, and offers new ways of imagining these groups within social, political, and legal discussions surrounding the sex industries.