Ethnography and Prostitution in Peru

Abstract

Based on the author's fieldwork in the Peruvian capital in the early 1990s, the volume offers readers a historical overview of policies regarding sex work in the country and an analysis of the role the media plays in shaping discourses about scandal, prostitution and social deviance. Discussing the history of regulated prostitution in the country, she explains that early twentieth-century municipal and public health authorities sought to suppress the visibility and autonomy of sexually promiscuous women by requiring them to register with authorities, work in circumscribed 'vice' districts, and undergo periodic inspections for signs of syphilis or other sexually transmitted disease. [...]she discusses heterosexual men's perspectives on women-who-prostitute, arguing that it is impossible to understand how practitioners of sexual commerce are perceived without questioning how 'prostitution is a product of male sexuality' (p. 50).

Ethnography and Prostitution in Peru, by Lorraine Nencel. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press 2001.

In Ethnography and Prostitution in Peru anthropologist Lorraine Nencel explains how discourses regarding gender, sexuality, and labour constrain the lives of women involved in sexual commerce in contemporary Lima. Based on the author's fieldwork in the Peruvian capital in the early 1990s, the volume offers readers a historical overview of policies regarding sex work in the country and an analysis of the role the media plays in shaping discourses about scandal, prostitution and social deviance. The analysis reveals how the language men use to describe women limits the possibilities women have for self-identification, and it also offers readers a close look at the life trajectories and daily experiences of those involved in commercial sex work. In addition, Ethnography and Prostitution in Lima reveals how popular images regarding gender limit sexually promiscuous women's abilities to demand respect for their labour, secure safe work conditions, or find alternative employment. Purposefully eschewing well-worn terms like 'prostitute' and 'sex worker' in favour of calling the subjects of her study 'women-who-prostitute', Nencel writes that it is her goal to deliver an 'investigation of prostitution which would represent prostitutes not only in relation to their work but also as female individuals living in a broader community' (p. 81). The result is a fascinating study that will be of interest to scholars of gender, power and culture from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Ethnography and Prostitution in Lima is premised on the idea that men and women enact a variety of distinct gendered roles in the context of their daily activities. Nencel opens the volume by describing a scene that reveals what she calls two distinct 'performances' of prostitution in Lima. Referring to an interview with selfidentified prostitutes on a local talk show, she describes how most of the women answered questions about their work according to a traditional 'script' in which they expressed shame over the nature of their work and offered 'predictable' explanations - including migration from rural areas, abuse at the hands of a parent or lover, and being single mothers - to describe how they came to their 'dishonourable' trade. Only one woman, Nencel says, stepped 'out of the mould'. This woman was defiant. She told the interviewer she liked her work, and she spoke with confidence about her choice to remain in sexual commerce rather than go back to a more 'acceptable' office job. But although this woman bravely challenged the traditional role of the prostitute in public, the show, according to Nencel, 'was not over until the host had cut her argument to pieces' (p. 1). The author uses this example to establish that although there may, in reality, be a variety of ways in which Peruvians 'perform' femininity and sexuality, only one role is accepted: that of the modest, non-promiscuous, soft-spoken, compliant and subservient woman. Those who do not conform are expected to express guilt and remorse over their 'deviance' from the norm. Throughout the book Nencel returns to the theme of gender performance to show that the entire cast of characters involved in Lima's demimonde - the women-who-prostitute, their boyfriends, and the men who pay them for sex - all conform to a plot regarding gender and sexuality scripted long ago.

In Ethnography and Prostitution's first section Nencel examines what she terms 'gendered enclosures', that is, sets or locales that have shaped present-day discourses on sexuality in Peru. Discussing the history of regulated prostitution in the country, she explains that early twentieth-century municipal and public health authorities sought to suppress the visibility and autonomy of sexually promiscuous women by requiring them to register with authorities, work in circumscribed 'vice' districts, and undergo periodic inspections for signs of syphilis or other sexually transmitted disease. While the regulation system has undergone some transformations since the early twentieth century, Nencel points out that the categorization of women and their enclosure in specific urban zones inspired many of the ideas about prostitution that remain prevalent today. Next Nencel analyzes the media's role in constructing discourses regarding women-who-prostitute. Third, she discusses heterosexual men's perspectives on women-who-prostitute, arguing that it is impossible to understand how practitioners of sexual commerce are perceived without questioning how 'prostitution is a product of male sexuality' (p. 50). Rejecting work by feminist scholars that portrays male sexuality as a 'fixed notion', Nencel structures her analysis in the last part of the first section around understanding 'sexuality by questioning its meanings in a specific context' (p. 52). Here she bases her discussion on twenty-one interviews with men from all social classes and analyzes the contrasting language men use to describe prostitutes and their wives or girlfriends. She concludes the section by probing men's knowledge of the women-who-prostitute's lives, noting that 'improvements in the situation of prostitutes will be eternally postponed if the prostitute as a sexual actor remains conceptually opposed to the prostitute as social actor in men's experiences' (p. 69).

After establishing how such 'external agents' as health regulations, the media, and heterosexual men portray women-who-prostitute, Nencel explains how the women describe and represent themselves to each other and to outsiders. This portion of the volume is quite interesting because Nencel delivers a highly detailed account of the women's lives and beliefs. The author centres the discussion around two 'gendered enclosures': a poor neighbourhood in the decaying colonial slum district of Barrios Altos, where women solicit clients on the street during the day and gather for lunch at the house of a woman named Clara, and an entertainment district, where women-who-prostitute, their boyfriends, and their clients gather at night in bars and clubs.

Nencel divides her discussion of the women who gather to eat lunch at Clara's house in four distinct 'scenes'. In order to provide information regarding her own experience as an ethnographer, she analyzes her relationship with the women she interviews before providing direct transcripts of conversations she had with several of the women to convey the 'everydayness' of the women's lives. The dialogue confirms Nencel's assertion that the women attach great significance to the fact that they sell sexual services to men on the street because they are single mothers and devoted daughters supporting children and elderly relatives. She notes that they challenge the notion that women who have sexual relations with more than one man are deviant and morally corrupt. Instead, the women-who-prostitute seek to convey the impression that they are honourable and self-sacrificing mothers, an identity theoretically unavailable to them in the prevailing gender ideologies shaped by the 'external agents' discussed in the first section. In the second half of the book Nencel also probes the complex relationships the women have with each other. She suggests that among those who meet daily at Clara's house there is little sense of solidarity or community. The women treat each other with great formality and avoid revealing personal details about their lives. As individuals in a common line of work they may share information with a colleague or poor resources for another's funeral, she writes, but they are just as likely to criticize one another's actions and fail to follow through on an offer of help or advice. In this and the next section, 'The Fusion of Truth and Illusions', Nencel notes that a common desire to portray their work in sexual commerce as 'stopgap' or 'transitional' underpins the fragmented community among the women-who-prostitute in Lima. Unwilling - or unable - to challenge the predominant discourses equating sexual promiscuity with deviant femininity, they negotiate their problems with clients, the police, or health agents alone rather than as participants in collective action.

In summarizing her work, Nencel expresses frustration at the ways in which the women in her study are 'continually working against the symbol of the whore in the construct of the prostitute' (p. 221). She notes that while she does not support regulationism, she nevertheless recognizes that the only women to undertake collective action as ' women-who-prostitute' were those forcibly registered by the state in the early twentieth century. Regulation - like the media - created the discourses and wrote the gendered scripts Peruvian women and men continue to reform. But working to abolish prostitution, as feminists and social reformers have done, is not the answer, according to Nencel. Instead, she argues, those who advocate for the women must work slowly and deliberately to change the discourses constraining the women-who-prostitute so they can work together to mobilize for their own benefit.