Money talks? Secrecy and money management in the family affective bonds of women who perform sex commerce in Argentina

MORCILLO, SANTIAGO

International Handbook of Sex Industry Research

Routledge

Año: 2019; p. 293 - 304

Secrecy emerges as a key feature in the complex family ties of women who perform sex commerce from a position that is marked both by its displacement of their legitimized roles and by stigmatization. This chapter uses the tension stemming from secrecy and its links to money, gender, and kinship to analyze sex workers? family and affective relationships focusing on its micropolitical dimensions. The analysis is based on fieldwork including interviews and observation of different modalities or strata of sexual commerce, with and without contact with organizations (whether abolitionists or sex workers) and in three cities of Argentina (Buenos Aires, Rosario and San Juan) of different size and dissimilar characteristics. The lens of secrecy allows for the examination of, different dimensions of affective bonds: ties with family and friends, the role of money, relationships within a couple and vis-à-vis children. The main argument is that the three forms in which the tension of secrecy circulates (secretion, revelation, and communication) are regulated in function of three factors: monetary exchanges, gender relations, and kinship relations. The chapter concludes with a question about the power relations in sex workers? family ties and the costs of secrecy.