Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 “You can’t make a living doing porn”: Laith
- 2 “I am the same me in bookings as I am out”: Sage
- 3 “I was an escort on a bike”: Kora
- 4 “Maybe it will be good for British girls because less Europeans coming into the industry”: Darcy
- 5 “I was outed in one of the tabloid newspapers”: Anonymous
- 6 “They are both shitty jobs … because I’m not free”: Sierra
- 7 “Don’t judge us as different from you”: Wyatt
- Postscript
- Notes
- References
- Index
4 - “Maybe it will be good for British girls because less Europeans coming into the industry”: Darcy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 “You can’t make a living doing porn”: Laith
- 2 “I am the same me in bookings as I am out”: Sage
- 3 “I was an escort on a bike”: Kora
- 4 “Maybe it will be good for British girls because less Europeans coming into the industry”: Darcy
- 5 “I was outed in one of the tabloid newspapers”: Anonymous
- 6 “They are both shitty jobs … because I’m not free”: Sierra
- 7 “Don’t judge us as different from you”: Wyatt
- Postscript
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
The EU referendum
On 23 June 2016 a referendum was held allowing the UK public to advise on leaving the EU, known as the Brexit vote. It may seem odd that Brexit features in a study of the most hidden populations of off-street sex workers. Brexit was a prominent theme in the research due to the timing of the data collection phase in the UK between 2016 and late 2017. Sex workers are not considered when assessing the potential risks and benefits of geo-political decisions such as leaving the EU yet what occurs in the political economy affects all workers whether their contributions are recognised as part of formal marketplaces or not. Contributors discussed how Brexit would affect their work. They talked about race, or more accurately, culture and citizenship as phenomena that influenced their earning potential and the way they marketed themselves. Some contributors worked in the EU and shared a sense of uncertainty about how that would continue. Juno, for example, worried about her tax status:
‘I work in [the EU] … And when Brexit happens I’m not really sure what will happen, like I get a sex worker's permit from the government, just for tax, and to do that you have to have an EU passport. I mean in a few years if I’m not going to have an EU passport then that would certainly affect me … I pay my taxes and I don't think they give a crap as I’m paying. They see “oh you’ve got a British passport” and here is your registration tax number, and if you make more than so many euros you start paying tax. But I mean I was really nervous that that was going to trickle through and become a problem for me in the UK, but I’ve been doing it for years and nothing ever happened.’
Brexit has been characterised as a protest vote in response to years of Conservative government austerity measures that most profoundly affected working class families residing in the North of England (Seidler, 2018). European and non-European immigrants were portrayed by some in the right-wing media as a threat to Britishness. It was reported that some working class people felt that due to globalisation, London, as the seat of Britain's political elite, was no longer part of, or working in the interests of, ‘their country’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Work, Money and DualityTrading Sex as a Side Hustle, pp. 95 - 112Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2021