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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
In This Life: The Impact Of Gender And Tradition On Sexuality And Relationships For Devadasi Sex Workers In Rural India, Treena Orchard
In This Life: The Impact Of Gender And Tradition On Sexuality And Relationships For Devadasi Sex Workers In Rural India, Treena Orchard
Dr. Treena Orchard
In the popular imagination and certain academic fields, sex workers' experiences of sexuality and intimate relationships are often "naturalized," to the point where they are assumed to be deviant or completely different than those of women in mainstream society. Researchers and sex worker organizations are challenging these reified constructions by examining more diverse and representative models of sexuality and relationships. However, the experiences of women selling sex in the "third world" are consistently portrayed as violent, non-pleasurable, and oppressive, characteristics often applied universally to "third world women". Using data from ethnographic fieldwork with girls and women who belong to the …
Girl, Woman, Lover, Mother: Towards A New Understanding Of Child Prostitution Among Young Devadasi Sex Workers In Rural Karnataka, India, Treena Orchard
Girl, Woman, Lover, Mother: Towards A New Understanding Of Child Prostitution Among Young Devadasi Sex Workers In Rural Karnataka, India, Treena Orchard
Dr. Treena Orchard
The emotive issue of child prostitution is at the heart of international debates over ‘trafficking’ in women and girls, the “new slave trade”, and how these phenomena are linked with globalization, sex tourism, and expanding transnational economies. However, young sex workers, particularly those in the ‘third world’, are often represented through tropes of victimization, poverty, and “backwards” cultural traditions, constructions that rarely capture the complexity of the girls’ experiences and the role that prostitution plays in their lives. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with girls and young women who are part of the Devadasi (servant/slave of the God) system of sex …