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Matthews, D. 
ORCID: 0000-0001-8563-7358,
2024.
An exploration of how sex workers who identify as religious or spiritual manage their identities within their everyday lives.
PhD, Nottingham Trent University.
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Abstract
“Theoretical explanations of sex work are rich at the societal level yet sparse and underdeveloped at the individual level” (Gerassi, 2015 p.79) and research on religious and spiritual sex workers is even more limited. I address these limitations by exploring religious and spiritual sex workers’ complex and multifaceted everyday experiences.
The aims of my research are to i) explore the complexities of co-existing identities through the lens of religious and spiritual sex workers. ii) explore the roles and impact of religion and spirituality, offering new understandings of lived religion. iii) advance knowledge of everyday experiences of religious/spiritual sex workers at the individual level. My research addresses these aims by producing unique, qualitative research evidence about the experiences of religious and spiritual sex workers.
To address my research aims, I employed participant-driven photograph elicitation, diaries, and semi-structured interviews with 11 religious and spiritual sex workers across the UK (nine participants) and America (two participants). Participants held different religious and spiritual identities (Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Norse Pagan, and Spiritual) and engaged with various forms of sex work (escort, online content creator, phone sex work, porn star, stripper/dancer, sugar baby, and webcamming).
Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgy analysis served as my theoretical framework to understand and analyse participants’ different identities; and I discuss how sex workers negotiate their identities to achieve harmony within their everyday lives. “Harmony” is an identity concept which has emerged from this research. Harmony encapsulates the complex and multifaceted identity negotiations of religious and spiritual sex workers, and I exemplify experiences of harmony through consideration of an array of lived experiences.
Drawing on my findings about the complexities of my participants’ identities and experiences, I argue that religion, spirituality, and sex work can co-exist. I showcase this co-existence through the analysis of rich data about participants’ experiences of sex work, religion and spirituality, family, friends, communities, and private partners. I push forward academic understandings of both lived religion and sex work by elucidating ways religious/spiritual and sex worker identities are performed at the micro-level within spaces used for sex work and elsewhere.
| Item Type: | Thesis | ||||||||||||||||
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| Creators: | Matthews, D. | ||||||||||||||||
| Contributors: |
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| Date: | January 2024 | ||||||||||||||||
| Rights: | The copyright in this work is held by the author. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed to the author. | ||||||||||||||||
| Divisions: | Schools > School of Social Sciences | ||||||||||||||||
| Record created by: | Laura Ward | ||||||||||||||||
| Date Added: | 15 Mar 2024 15:02 | ||||||||||||||||
| Last Modified: | 18 Mar 2024 08:51 | ||||||||||||||||
| URI: | https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/51091 |
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