“You’re saying I don’t belong” : queer, non-mainstream religious and spiritual sex workers navigating stigma

Matthews, D ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8563-7358, 2025. “You’re saying I don’t belong” : queer, non-mainstream religious and spiritual sex workers navigating stigma. Journal of Gender Studies. ISSN 0958-9236

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Abstract

Dominant discourses frequently construct sex work and queer identities as fundamentally incompatible with religiosity. Consequently, queer religious and spiritual sex workers occupy an under explored space at the intersection of sex work, spirituality, and LGBTQIA+ identities. This article addresses this gap by presenting two case studies of queer sex workers in the United States, who engage with Norse Paganism and New Age spirituality. Drawing on in-depth interviews, it presents a thematic analysis exploring how religious and spiritual identities shape their experiences of sex work, personal relationships, and self-perception. By challenging assumptions that religiosity and sex work are inherently antithetical, this article contributes to scholarship on queer sex workers by illustrating the diverse strategies they employ to reconcile their intersecting identities, resist dominant moral frameworks, and navigate religious and societal stigma. It further advances understandings of contemporary religiosity, showing how queer sex workers can create affirming religious and spiritual spaces that challenge normative assumptions about sexuality, belief, and sex work.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Gender Studies
Creators:	Matthews, D.
Publisher:	Informa UK Limited
Date:	8 December 2025
ISSN:	0958-9236
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/09589236.2025.2600391 DOI 2545224 Other
Rights:	© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	12 Dec 2025 17:03
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2025 17:03
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54871

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