Introduction

Sex work is defined as the consensual exchange of sexual services for money or other non-monetary goods such as housing, transportation, food, and medicine (Sawicki et al., 2019; SWOPLA, 2021). While not all sex work is currently criminalized, sex workers feel the effects of criminalization, especially when engaging in multiple forms of sex work throughout their careers (Blunt & Wolf, 2020). To understand sex workers’ experiences, we must first understand the context in which they exist. Legal forms of sex work can include BDSM professionals, strippers, porn actors, phone sex operators, and webcam models. Though sex work involving intimate physical contact is nearly universally criminalized throughout the USA. The present research situates itself in Los Angeles, California, where the two most prominent laws that criminalize sex work are Penal Code 647(b) — which makes it illegal to engage in or solicit prostitution — and Penal Code 653.23(a)(1) which criminalizes supervising or aiding a prostitute as well as receiving money earned through a prostitution transaction (California Penal Code Sect. 647(b) PC: Prostitution & Solicitation; California Penal Code Sect. 653.23(a)(1) PC: Supervising or Aiding a Prostitute). These criminalization policies most directly impact Black and Indigenous, trans, full-service, and outdoor sex workers who experience higher levels of violence due to the compounding of multiple marginalized identities. Criminalizing sex work leads to arrests, surveillance, raids, blackmail, and sexual assault against sex workers by law enforcement, as well as increased violence from clients of sex workers and third parties, who abuse the precarious legal and social status of sex workers (Lens et al., 2019; Platt et al., 2018). Aside from formal structures of discriminatory policies, sex workers are frequently targeted by systems of policing due to their association with a criminalized labor even if they themselves are engaged in legal forms of sex work (Lam et al., 2021).

The needs of SWP have been inadequately researched. Research estimates that the proportion of sex workers who are mothers can range from 68 to 93%, parenting millions of children (McCloskey et al., 2021; Praimkumara & Goh, 2016; Rolon et al., 2013; Sloss & Harper, 2004; Willis et al., 2016). The notable intersection between parenthood and sex work merits further inquiry due to the multiple vulnerabilities SWP may face. Mothers, being both parents and women, face additional surveillance from social media, their interpersonal relationships, and from within themselves as they attempt to uphold unattainable expectations of parenthood (Henderson et al., 2010). In particular, the children of Black mothers remain overrepresented at multiple decision-making points within the child welfare system suggesting that racial bias and social judgments weigh heavier on more marginalized communities (Detlaff et al., 2011).

Previous research regarding sex work and parenthood primarily addresses the experiences of assumed cisgender women doing in-person sex work (Castañeda et al., 1996; Dalla, 2003; Duff et al., 2015; Karandikar et al., 2022; McCloskey et al., 2021; Rolon et al., 2013; Semple et al., 2020). When SWP are acknowledged as mothers in media and previous research, they are often depicted as ill-prepared people who willingly put their children into dangerous situations, portraying sex work and motherhood as conflicted identities (Dodsworth, 2014; Dalla, 2003; McClarty et al., 2014; McCloskey et al., 2021; Sloss & Harper, 2004). There are domestic and international accounts of family separation resulting from SWP being deemed unfit solely due to their work (Beckham et al., 2015; Dickson, 2019; Duff et al., 2015). For example, in one 2004 US-based study, only 10 out of 105 children born to street-based workers lived with their SWP; the others had been removed by child welfare services under the guise of safeguarding children from exposure to illegal substances, perceived violence, and illegal activities (Dalla, 2004, p. 194). In the reports mentioned above, child welfare officials framed family separation as a preventive measure based on the presumed dangers brought by parental sex work rather than having actual evidence of such exposure. As a measure to avoid family separation, researchers studying sex work in other countries found that SWP conceal their work from children and family members (Basu & Dutta, 2011; Benoit et al., 2019).

While research on SWP is growing on a global scale, empirical work on parents who engage in sex work in the USA is limited due to criminalization. Even disclosure of participation in legal forms of sex work holds heavy social consequences such as loss of housing, access to financial institutions, and/or other jobs. This study explores the unique forms of exclusion SWP face that sex workers without children may not; and the ways that SWP care for themselves and their families in spite of such stigmaFootnote 1 and criminalization. Previous research has explored the experience of SWP when they interact with medical and social service providers (social workers, doctors, counselors) in other countries (Benoit & Millar, 2001; Sloss & Harper, 2004; Willis et al., 2016). However, to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore SWP more covert and mundane surveillance interactions with schools, neighbors, and other sex workers. Our study addresses these gaps by exploring how SWP characterize their own exclusion. Due to the hidden and stigmatized nature of this population, research that aims to better understand the needs of this community must originate from the community itself. Solutions that allow SWP to be affirmed in their parenthood are explored in the discussion.

Methods

This study consisted of five, in-depth, qualitative focus groups conducted over Zoom with thirteen parents who engaged in sex work. All parents provided consent for the focus groups interviews and for sharing images they created during an art-based activity at the end of focus group discussion as a way to synthesize participants' thoughts. Before the research team initiated the questions, we assessed the group’s comfort level about being recorded (audio only); facilitated a community agreement exercise, whereby parents created and agreed to guidelines of respectful communication; and provided our own introductions disclosing our personal connections to sex work and parenting. The methods for this study are operationalized within the guiding philosophy of participatory action research (PAR). Peer-led research brings the benefit of ensuring the inclusion of various framings and reducing the risk of imposing particular social assumptions onto the research (Elsdon et al., 2021). The distrust that SWP and sex workers broadly have with formal research (Shaver, 2005) is addressed through PAR praxis that centers on relationship building toward social justice objectives (Cahill, 2007). PAR is necessary for this study because the strengthening of community bonds has the potential to unearth unique contributions from a workforce that is often stratified (Author, 2022). The critical “actions” which resulted from our PAR study are encompassed by an in-person gathering of participants from our focus groups and their children and a SWP-led publication project that was pursued after the formal study, both of which featured continued participation and leadership of parents from the initial study.

Our research team is composed of four Sex Worker Outreach Project Los Angeles (SWOPLA) organizers with lived experience in sex work. Only the main author has academic research experience. Throughout the paper, we utilize the term “research community” to refer to “participants” to divest from language that reinforces hierarchy between participants and researchers. Additionally, we seek to dissipate the privilege of academic degrees and honor the collective knowledge that would not have been created without the expertise of the participants. This research team approaches this inquiry with the understanding that the lived experience of SWP positions their comprehension of what is needed within the community above that of current recommendations. Therefore, it is the job of the research team to uplift their collective knowledge and advice (Karandikar et al., 2022). PAR is one channel to accomplish this.

In Los Angeles, there are no formal services aimed toward addressing the needs of SWP. However, SWOPLA, a sex worker–led organization that has established trust with sex working communities, poses a natural bridge to dialogue around the unique needs and challenges of SWP. This study received approval from the UCLA Institutional Review Board (IRB#22–000294).

Recruitment and Data Collection

Previous research has emphasized the existence of tiers or hierarchies of relative social, economic, and legal privilege within sex work, which impact workers who partake in different types of sex work. These hierarchies typically position those who engage in legal forms of sex work where workers are less stigmatized (i.e., stripping, webcam work, or fetish work) above their outdoor counterparts (i.e., street based workers where sex with a client is implied) (Chacon, 2014; Fuentes, 2022; Mezzadra & Neilson, 2012).

Previous studies have not accounted for the impact of parenting status on differential access to community. A Los Angeles study on support networks within the sex work community found that in many cases, workers’ access to different types of sex work and support systems was impacted by their social location on the “whorearchy,” a stratified worker hierarchy that is heavily influenced by the forces of racial capitalism that favors white heteronormative workers who conform to Eurocentric beauty standards (Fuentes, 2022). To capture the range of experiences of the most marginalized sex workers, research must include an expansive view of sex work and parenthood.

This study addresses a gap in the literature by highlighting the experiences of indoor sex workers, a subsect of sex work that is not commonly researched, to explore the nuances of different types of work (Elsdon et al., 2021; Semple et al., 2020).

SWP can be difficult to reach depending on the legality of their work.

Disclosing their labor status to the wrong person has often resulted in a loss of custody of their children due to stigmatization against their work and common assumptions around engagement with drug use by sex workers (Beard et al., 2010). For this reason, the research team relied heavily on snowball sampling, whereby SWOPLA members distributed information about participating in the study through their connections to the broader Los Angeles sex worker community. The research team also distributed recruitment materials through SWOPLA social media channels, public flyering at five community-based organizations, and the SWOPLA mailing list which has a reach of 200 members.

We found that trust-based vetted referrals from other community members through snowball sampling yielded more qualified participants than distributing flyers to LA-based service providers. The materials distributed included a link to a screening process (via questionnaire) created by the research team to assess a participant’s eligibility for the study. After someone was marked as eligible, a member of the research team would call them to further explain the study consent form, answer their questions, ask for their general availability, and build rapport (many research community members were referred by SWOPLA members). In these conversations, the research team would provide context for the study, affirm SWOPLA’s commitment to sex worker-affirming services, and confirm that we do not collaborate with carceral entities such as the police or Child Protective Services. SWOPLA is an organization that works towards the abolition of the prison industrial complex. While this goal is not universally shared by sex workers and was not shared in our recruitment materials, expressing these values to the research community was a successful measure to alleviate concerns around sharing their stories with us.

Members of the research community for this study were over the age of 18, had work experience in the sex trade in Los Angeles County, were the primary caretaker of a child under the age of 18 while engaging in sex work, spoke English, and had access to an internet-linked computer where they could participate in the study. Forty-five potential participants were recruited, 32 were deemed ineligible, and 13 participated in the study. The primary reason potential participants were deemed ineligible was based on geographic location. The research team intentionally recruited people with varying types of sex work experience, gender identities, ethnicities, and sexual orientations to amplify voices of sex workers who may be more often excluded in the sex worker rights movement.

The 13 parents who participated in the study ranged in age from 29 to 49 with children between the ages of 8 months to 17 years old. Their collective sex work experience included the following: pornography (picture or video), phone sex (sexting), webcam work, fetish work (domme, sub, switch), full-service sex work, sugaring/girlfriend experience, and erotic dancing/stripping. Study participants’ are diverse from a sociodemographic perspective: 70% identified as cis women, 15% as trans-masc, and 15% as non-binary; 8% identified as Latinx, 15% as Black/African American, 8% as Afro-Indigenous Caribbean, 8% as North, Central and South American Indigenous, 8% as Mixed race, and 53% as White.

Focus groups ranged from two to three SWP. This grouping was an intentional decision by the research team and not due to limits in available community members. The research team opted to limit the number of parents in each group to curate groups with shared characteristics and increase the capacity for vulnerable conservations to occur while accounting for the reservations around occupational stigma (Benoit et al., 2018). The characteristics for intentional group matching were identified through questions on a screening form. This was done to ensure that parents had an extra layer of commonality besides being parents who engaged in sex work because, as feminist researcher Madriz notes, participants can express their ideas more freely when discussing with others of similar background (Madriz, 2000). For example, our fourth group consisted of three parents who had experience as professional dominas, prompting them to speak on the specific challenges of being a parent who does indoor, sex work that is not explicitly criminalized in the USA. The participants were joined by two research team members in each focus group. The intimate size of the focus groups provided the research community with the assurance that we were being intentional about the group formation. Feminist scholars argue that regardless of small group size, the validity of focus group size is addressed through the strength of group development, particularly at the termination phase (Toner, 2009). At group termination, most members were eager to connect with each other separately, exchanging contact information and noting plans for enacting some of the community solutions that were mentioned in the groups.

Focus Group Guide

The research team created a focus group guide with the main objective of gathering community expertise on the unique struggles that SWP experience and how a sex worker mutual aid and peer support organization like SWOPLA could meet their needs. The interview guide consisted of introducing the purpose of the groups, community guideline setting, nine open-ended questions, and an art-based exercise to synthesize ideas. In addition, we inquired about their family configuration, their relationship to the work and the ways it may have changed if they started work before or after having children, the ways that their work impacts their role as a parent, and what they would describe as their significant unmet needs at the intersection of parenting and sex work. For example, we asked “What is the value of sex work for parenting? How does it affect your parenting role?”.

The four members of the research team centered care ethics throughout the creation of the focus group guide to avoid reproducing extractivist practices. In our question framing, we remained sensitive of the deficit-framing that sex workers are often subjected to and made a purposeful decision not to focus solely on the negative impacts that sex work might have on their child. Instead, questions that do ask participants to reflect on deficits seek to understand the link between criminalization and stigma and these impacts, rather than focusing on sex work itself as the issue. The research community spent around 10 min answering each open-ended question.

Data Analysis

To prepare for data analysis, all five focus group audio files were transcribed using otter.ai, cleaned, and exported as word files. We opted out of utilizing qualitative coding software in part to facilitate communal coding, in addition to our financial barriers and the small size of our data set. Although each member of the research team was present for all focus groups, we individually read the fully transcribed interviews to account for proper understanding. The research team engaged in an exploratory coding process of collective meaning-making where we would review a transcript individually, develop a priori codes, and return together to discuss which codes we agreed upon from the data (Saldaña, 2015). To account for coder discrepancies, each transcript was reviewed by two research team members independently and the coders would meet to discuss coding discrepancies until a consensus was reached to align our coding.

Based on the content of the focus group interviews, the research team decided to utilize concepts from Foucauldian theory to interpret the input of the research community during coding and analysis. We specifically utilized the concept of the discipline society which operates through the threat of potential but near-constant surveillance by state actors and civilians alike, who are encouraged to internalize and reinforce the disciplines set forth by the state (i.e., the criminalization and social rejection of sex work) (Foucault, 1995). As a result, structures of private punishment, such as social stigma and internal policing, reinforce the state goal of discipline within the population itself. We created codes for issues embedded within Foucault’s concept of the discipline society such as direct surveillance, fear of social consequences, and internal policing (or lack thereof). This contributes to a broader discourse about the modern punishment bureaucracy, the private actors which serve as its extension, and how an individual’s position in relation to such informs their self-conception. Guided by the study objectives, and informed by our discussions around the theory of the discipline society, the interview data was reviewed again utilizing thematic and in vivo coding to bring attention to the participant’s thoughts, actions, and feelings (Saldaña, 2015). The research team utilized a shared code book where code definitions and examples were cataloged. After initial rounds of coding, 37 codes were produced through our analysis.

We returned together to discuss salient categories such as experiences of isolation and balancing work and parenting responsibilities. We also highlighted different solutions that parents offered to problems such as a lack of narrative representation in media and parent-specific spaces, isolation from kinship care and other sex workers, and the difficulty of discussing their work with their child. The research team developed “solution codes” for these moments: “childcare,” “affirming extended family,” “mental health support,” “space for children to process having a sex worker as a parent,” “being a part of a sex worker parent community,” and “sex worker friendly basic needs assistance.” At this point, the research team identified the concept of the discipline society as a useful analytic tool to inform their coding and analysis.

After reorganizing the codes, the research team identified two major themes informed by our discussions. These two themes are broadly defined as:

“I’m doing this for my kid”: Describes the importance that SWP attribute to sex work, beyond the material benefits of the work and in spite of the potential drawbacks of the work;

Apprehension: The fear resulting from surveillance that arises from living in a society where the threat of punishment in the form of family separation is constantly looming;

The experiences shared by the SWP in the focus groups shed light on some of the more subtle mechanisms of modern surveillance and punishment in Los Angeles, with potential implications for elsewhere.

Results

Findings are situated across these themes of sex work’s contributions to parenting and the apprehension SWP feel because of their lived experience at the intersection of two surveilled identities: parent and sex worker. As SWP described the importance of sex work for facilitating involvement in their childrens’ lives, it also came with a contrasting apprehension of how long they can balance the benefits and the fear that comes with this surveilled existence.

“I’m Doing This for My Kid”

On a practical level, the parents in the study agreed that sex work provided them with a higher hourly pay rate, affording them more time to spend with their children.

However, to only focus on these material benefits underplays the unique value that sex work provides for parents. For those who had started sex work before becoming a parent, the research community expressed a sense of appreciation for the way that sex work allowed them to be kinder, more understanding parents. One parent describes how sex work has given her the ability to free herself from nerves around her children’s sexual evolution where other parents who do not tackle the topic of sex in their everyday world may feel overwhelmed:

Both of my kids are going through puberty. It’s totally different than my childhood where there was so much like restriction. I grew up very sexually repressed. We couldn’t talk about sex… If I catch my son watching pornography, it’s not going to freak me out. I can be like, “Oh, okay you’re watching pornography, let’s make sure it’s ethical, you know? Does the woman look like she’s enjoying it? Or maybe she isn’t enjoying it, but is she giving consent to not enjoy it?” Just so he can start parsing that apart, like how to watch pornography and not feel ashamed about it. (Stella, group 4).

Ivy mentioned how their child returned home from a sexual education day at school. When they asked if she learned anything, her child replied with “nothing you haven’t already told me” (Ivy, group 2). They recalled this moment with pride in their ability to cultivate an open and supportive environment that led their child to feel safe and comfortable talking to them about sensitive topics such as human sexuality.

It is important to acknowledge that when these parents shed their own shame in discussing sexuality, they are often simultaneously interrupting intergenerational cycles of shame, particularly so for those who had a tense relationship with their own parents. The research community shared how several lessons they learned from sex work were applicable to parenting. It not only allowed them to act as better parents, but also allowed them to better understand their own lives in relation to their upbringing. The research community shared how working irregular hours, demonstrating patience with demanding clients, and cultivating the ability to anticipate clients’ needs all enhanced their parenting skills. One parent explained the value of being in a profession that pushes her to confront her trauma:

I don’t think that people necessarily start doing sex work because of trauma. However, once you’re doing sex work, it will scratch at any wounds that you have because you’re dealing with toxic people. So that pushed me to heal a lot of my wounds. Having not had to confront all this stuff, I would have been comfortably uncomfortable, instead of grappling with some of my issues, which ultimately made me a better parent. (Athena, group 4).

Sex work facilitates their ability to be physically and emotionally available for their children. While some parents felt like they were perpetually not doing enough, they simultaneously expressed feeling like positive role models for their children. Similarly, Grace expressed the ways that sex work has given her a deeper insight into how to support her child’s development:

I really feel that sex work has kind of made me more accepting of, you know, just all the human idiosyncrasies, and just oddities, and things that my kids express that may not make sense right now. You know, but, yeah, it may never make sense. I think what this has given me is kind of this radical acceptance for the human experience, and how people express affection. (Grace, group 4).

The research team observes that this radical acceptance allows for more trust and love to be shared within participants’ familial relationships and passes on the values of inclusion and acceptance to their children. There were occasions that children witnessed their parent’s exclusion from public spaces, but the SWP of the research community were quick to remind their children that the way they were being treated was not morally correct.

I was extradited from several communities in different areas of life. Bank accounts, churches, like female mommy circles, you name it. Just weird situations that segregated me within society. But I still had that time with my son. I think also teaching him how not to segregate people. He works with people with disabilities, and I have a disability. So I think, I think that really tied into being able to teach him how important it is to not segregate people. (Hazel, group 2).

It was quite common that parents attributed the value of acceptance they instilled in their children to their participation in the sex industry. In line with demonstrating acceptance towards people against whom society discriminates, parents agreed that they raise their children to be critical of social norms.

There’s liberation that like exists in my home as it relates to sexual liberation, like just having a child who’s just very blatantly is telling me when I say “well, let me take your picture”. She’s like, “you didn’t ask for consent”. And just making me question my mentality that like even though I pay the bills, and I feed you so then I own [you] or something? To me personally, that’s the relationship that I’ve been able to create around, like, mutual respect, and reciprocity (Luca, Group 1).

Another way this is seen is through the way that sex work taught parents (and subsequently their children) about consent and asserting their boundaries in all aspects of life. Scarlett (group 3) describes how her work fundamentally augmented her autonomy within her relationships:

I didn’t have a relationship with [sex work] until I became a parent because I was in a really abusive place… I did behavioral work but it doesn’t pay the bills and I couldn’t flee. I was with a very abusive partner who held me captive, I couldn’t leave. I had to find a way to escape for my son and to build a life because I wasn’t getting paid that much. And it really brought me… back to like a place of empowerment, where I felt okay about myself again. [voice crack] And I felt good. I know, I deserve a life. But I did it for him. So I could give them one, too. (Scarlett, group 3).

For Scarlett, sex work allowed her to parent her child independent of her abuser. However, we see later that this power that some gained through sex work for their parenting is threatened, or fully compromised, by criminalization and stigma.

Apprehension

The focus groups revealed that sex work provided an important support for the research community’s journey through parenthood, yet there still existed a strong perception that their work needed to be carefully concealed from anyone who was not their child. We utilize the concept of apprehension to organize SWP’ discourse, and frame apprehension as a reaction to being targets of a discipline society which prohibits sex work and parenting by sex workers. This prohibition is enforced via ubiquitous points of potential surveillance, including private individuals, state agencies, nonprofits and corporations, all of which purport to provide care. The messaging was often so ingrained that SWP themselves struggled to engage in the art-based exercise which asked participants to imagine content for a SWP magazine. They could not imagine SWP being depicted positively in the media. Delilah shared her internal narrative:

I was having a really hard time cuz like it’s hard to imagine sex work and parenting. It’s such weird words to have together. I was trying to think of advertisement but then how is that going to look to vanilla people? Like, if this is a magazine, I was scared of what I could put on there. What was appropriate? What wasn’t? (Delilah, group 5).

Delilah highlights her engrained self-censorship and how she often thinks about how others are perceiving her, including by imagining the judgment of a mainstream audience. Even within the relatively safe space of the focus groups, Delilah faces a psychological barrier, which she names as being tied to what “vanilla people” (non-sex workers) think, demonstrating how the effects of criminalization and stigma can be internalized. Delilah’s struggle illustrates how the “discipline society” is composed not only of state punishers but also civilians. The ubiquitous but uncertain possibility of vague punishment results in censorship as “self-discipline” which is exemplified by Delilah’s struggle to imagine SWP portrayed positively in the media. It is important to note that the SWP of the research community were unambiguously proud of what participating in sex work allowed them to achieve. This may suggest that the discipline society has not been fully effective in its attempts to coerce a policed population into internalizing its norms, despite messenging by media, family members, business associates, and strangers.

We can see this reflected in Gianna’s (group 1) title for their art-based exercise, “Sweetie, mom’s not really a nurse. Talking to your child about your awesome job” (Image 1). The research community expressed perceptions of omni-present institutional, legal, and social disapproval, but chose to pursue sex work while parenting nonetheless, trusting their own assessments of the risks and benefits. Despite a perceived hegemonic prohibition against parenting as a sex worker (or performing sex work as a parent) and a deep resulting apprehension of potential punishments, the research community would not be “disciplined.” This resistance to how their work is perceived by outside forces is most clearly encapsulated by Luca:

Image 1
figure 1

Art-based exercise page from Gianna, focus group 1

Full size image

Mind your own fucking business and let me be a parent. If on some level I felt like my kid was being affected I would consider what needed to change about what I was doing or how we were relating to each other. Or leaving sex work? I don’t know what that looks like because that’s not happened at all. But besides that, I don’t know why you would take my child. I’m able to provide them with such a glorious life and I’m really fucking proud of that. DCFS [Department of Child and Family Services] like, why? (Luca, group 1).

When trying to access services, the research community felt as if their existence as a parent and sex worker disqualified them from being able to receive services or as if they could only get services if they stopped being a sex worker. Gianna describes feeling discriminated against and how this has dissuaded her from seeking help for her and her family:

I find myself not even looking for support. I’ve looked for individual therapy, I’ve had it before, at [Family Services Agency]. I recently tried to go back and during the intake call, I made the mistake of being honest. They were like, “Oh, do you use substances?” And I was like, “Well, I party for a living. So yeah” and they turned me away. They said, “You have to go through a drug program”, but I don’t feel like that’s my problem. That’s not why I’m coming to you guys. It just made me feel disheartened. I’m really angry that I’m in a place where I just assume I can’t get it. (Gianna, group 1).

One member of the research community, Stella (group 4), mentioned that they did have an encounter with a friendly service provider who was able to overlook Stella’s involvement in sex work after Stella let it slip that she was a stripper. While she was able to get the benefits she needed, most research community discussions around accessing services highlighted how deeply damaging anti-SWP stigma can be.

A key aspect of this apprehension is the deep distrust that it creates in other systems that risk harming their family. SWP cannot risk trusting the wrong person, which means they are constantly hiding their work (and full selves) from others. Luca describes one defining experience with service providers.

I always feel like I’m under surveillance. When I’ve like had tried to be honest it was immediately fucking carceral… Sometimes when you’re in a place of just wanting therapy, and they’re over here telling you that you have to do this before you do that. Just please help me and then I’ll leave and things will be better. But it’s always this deep distrust. I can’t ever share anything that I actually would like to share. (Luca, group 1).

Like Foucault, Luca connects the hostility of service providers—most of which are private actors reliant on government funding—to the criminalization SWP face directly from the state. Luca explained further that the messaging they received from these service providers was that their engagement in sex work equated to poor parenting, based on an assumption that sex work was dirty, perverse, and harmful to their child. This assumption aligns squarely with the rationalization of the criminalization of sex work, rather than aligning with empirical evidence.

Parents made conscious decisions about which aspects of their profession were age-appropriate for their child to be exposed to without completely concealing their participation in sex work. For example, one parent found it was appropriate to ask their teenage child’s opinion on a new work outfit. However, they also felt anyone on the outside looking in would view the entirety of their work as deviant and causing harm to their children by its very nature, regardless of a child’s exposure to that work. Grace reflects on the main change she has experienced since becoming a parent as a sex worker:

I feel like I have had to take a lot more risk because with babysitters you got to be discreet. They see you running out with, you know, a bag of boots over your shoulder, full face of makeup, and the kids don’t question it, no big deal. But babysitters are starting to look at that. Adults might see that and think “she’s up to something”. There’s just this kind of feeling of self-consciousness. It’s not shameful to me. I don’t feel that sense of shame, but I do feel that sense of risk. (Grace, group 4).

Grace highlights the pressure that SWP feel to conform aesthetically out of fear that they will be judged for their work, as being a sex worker is a uniform they cannot take off. Ivy from group 2 described the need to put on “mom drag” and make changes to their physical presentation to appear as a “normal mom” in spaces that their child inhabited. They would feel out of place in mundane places such as the grocery store if they were wearing a “full face of makeup.”

The apprehension SWP experienced due to simply existing as themselves in public spaces contributed to SWP holding their families at a distance, especially if there was a possibility of being outed by someone with whom the parent had tension. Athena shares her experience with an ex partner that held potential legal ramifications:

With custody disputes, my ex threatened me anytime I would complain about him. He’s like, “I’m just gonna tell the judge you’re a dominatrix”, and then it would shut me up. It was a good form of control. (Athena, group 4).

With childcare being difficult to access, parents had to navigate relationships with family members (such as aunts and parents) where their engagement with sex work was hidden as to not jeopardize childcare assistance. This resulted in hypervigilance of visual “tells” and limited what they could share about their day-to-day life. The fear of further social banishment enacted by and through their own children informed parents’ feelings of isolation and apprehension:

I’ve always been very open with my son. And he hated it. Because he was told by his dad how dirty and wrong it was. So for me to be open about it was like, you know, cognitive dissonance e, he didn’t get it. It just didn’t make sense in his head. I had his dad poisoning the whole town against me. I had everything pretty much riding against me. Even his counselor said, that I was perverted and that everything I did, like hugging him was perverted. So he didn’t even want me hugging [my son]. (Hazel, Group 2).

Sex work allowed Hazel to leave a relationship that was no longer healthy for her and her child, but it was nonetheless weaponized against her. A consequence of parents’ vigilance is that it curtailed their ability to build community with other parents, which alienated their children by proxy.

It kind of limits the way that you speak and associate with other parents, because you have to be careful with your words. They’re always like, ‘Hey, why aren’t you available for a playdate?’ And you’re like, ‘Ahh, I have I have a photoshoot’. and you’re kind of keeping up with some weird lies, because you don’t know how you’re going to be accepted. I just try and keep it as vague as possible. But people ask a lot of questions. (Scarlett, group 3).

Gianna (group 3) shared a similar sentiment when describing her guarded involvement with her child’s schooling:

I’m a facilitator for her for school, but I’m not the head of the PTA Mom, I’m not like the bake sale mom. I’m like the designated driver mom. Like, call me if you’re stranded somewhere and I’m happy to you know. I’ve always been a little bit bummed about that. (Gianna, Group 3).

Even though she was an in-person worker who had some control over who saw her work (mainly as a stripper), Gianna literally kept her distance from her child’s school, limiting her interactions with other parents and administrators. Many community members mentioned that online sex work was compatible with being parents due to its ability to be multitasked and batched, yet they feared this content being found and used against them. Like in Delilah’s case, it can disrupt the family network and limit their child’s access to kinship care and extended family:

My mom passed away, and then my dad doesn’t speak to me because I’m a whore. He says that all the time. So it does hurt when like, I can’t have my dad in my daughter’s life because of that. Like my dad, my dad’s not the greatest guy in the world, obviously, but he’s still my dad. So it still hurts and then my brother too, he wants nothing to do with me because of the sex work. So it’s really hard for that reason because I’m kind of raising my daughter alone, so it’s hard *tears up*, sorry. (Delilah, group 5).

Another factor compounding the exclusion that these parents face is a shared sense that being a parent acts as a barrier towards connection with other sex workers communities. Sage shares the disconnect she feels with her childless coworkers:

I have to move in the shadows around the most because I pay for childcare and I need this a lot. So that can be tough. Sometimes it is tough for them to relate to me because they think that their dog is the same thing as my child which is really not the same thing at all. (Sage, Group 3).

While finding community amongst coworkers is not accessible for all sex workers, parenting added an additional barrier to relating to other workers. This carries negative implications for the mental and physical safety of SWP because sex workers use word of mouth to exchange information about pertinent resources and risks, such as law enforcement, and violent clients (Andrade et al., 2019). When parents’ access to these spaces are compromised, the risks they take on to support themselves and their families are compounded. Whether the stigma and social reinforcement stems from criminalization or not, stigma, criminalization, and the harms they cause to SWP are mutually reinforcing social phenomena.

Discussion

The parents in our research community choose sex work because it allows them to provide for their children. Instead of being supported in this choice, they experience silencing, surveillance, censorship, and criminalization from the state, state-backed agencies, and civilians. As depicted by Foucault’s Panopticon, living within the discipline society requires that SWP maintain vigilance against unpredictable entities that may threaten their parenting. Common themes of uncertain-yet-omnipresent policing and social surveillance of legally proscribed behavior led us to frame the experiences and needs of SWP using Foucault’s “Discipline and Punishment.” SWP navigate not only how to parent and provide for their children, but also how to conceal their work from any person or agency that may uphold the standards set by a discipline society. However, it is important to note that SWP do not necessarily hide their work from their children. The emphasis made by the research community was on separating their children from sexual content they deemed to be age-inappropriate, rather than preventing them from knowing about the work itself. While this apprehension was notably shared amongst all members of the research community, there was no evidence that it stemmed from internalized stigma or shame. Rather, apprehension manifested from calculating numerous, shifting factors that delineated what was safe to disclose, to whom, and in what context. While SWP might be subject to state criminal punishment and surveillance, sex work does not seem to have resulted in shame. Indeed, several of the SWP were, quite clearly, proud.

The research community discussed their experiences of navigating potential ubiquitous surveillance, including that enacted by civilians (most notably other parents) empowered to act as “moral” agents to inflict punishment on behalf of the state.

Foucault (1988) posits, just as the state does the work of empowering systems of discipline, alternatively, those who become the author of their own narrative can reclaim power. SWP seek the opportunity to assert their right to engage in sex work as a parent. This desire is distinctly held by those who have limited opportunities for generating income or would otherwise find difficulty raising their children. Though weary of the risks being identified as a sex worker may pose, SWP yearn for visibility. To share their stories free of intimidation, dominant narratives must be disrupted and expanded to include SWP. Sanchez (2004) argues, if sex work remains unacknowledged legally as formal labor, SWP can only fight to be less excluded. These forms of exclusion exist despite the benefits parents attribute to their choice to engage in sex work, such as spending more quality time with their children. Nevertheless, a parent should be able to do sex work for reasons other than family values and is not necessary to demonstrate that sex work and parenting are compatible identities.

Human services organizations (i.e., Department of Child and Family Services, Child Protective Services, Department of Mental Health) that receive state funding are direct agents that are themselves, trapped in bureaucracy and procedures. This makes them unable to truly help parents in a way that is affirming to an existence that the state morally opposes. Instead, ingrained beliefs of what makes a “good” parent blind social service providers to the suggestion that sex work could be a logical career choice. When behavior is pathologized to justify punishment, the involvement of child welfare services is leveraged to exercise judgments over a parent’s morality rather than actual risk to a child. Professionalized care providers must recognize that participation in sex work is consistent with a parent’s reasoned analysis of how to best care for their child.

In our research, exclusion SWP reported from their families corroborates prior studies that found SWP lack access to supportive family and community networks (Elsdon et al., 2021; Karandikar et al., 2022; McCloskey et al., 2021). In their interviews, the research community alluded to the need for interdependence (i.e., being acknowledged by childless sex workers, having community with other SWP, having child-friendly spaces for SWP) to cultivate a sense of integration while combating isolation and delegitimization. We also observed the ways that SWP felt distrustful of non-sex workers and childless sex workers, which stifles the potential for building a “chosen family” through worker collectivity. The perception that other workers could not or refused to understand the way parenthood impacted their involvement in the sex trade reproduces the same feeling of isolation experienced within parenting circles.

Previous studies have suggested that investing in community-led preventative care, rather than punitive services such as the child welfare system, can create opportunities to combat isolation and surveillance experienced by SWP. Duff et al. (2014) notes the benefits of a community-based worker support program in Canada, which provides low-barrier parental support and family reunification services among other harm-reduction centered programing. The program’s success is rooted in its holistic approach to the community to care. Seeking to understand social and political impacts on interlocking issues of drug use, mental health, and access to education, rather than framing them as deficits of the individual accessing services, is a necessary step forward. Although some community-led programs in the USA provide direct services to workers (e.g., Sex Workers Outreach Project, Red Canary Song, Bay Area Workers Support), criminalization complicates the logistics of how these services can acquire funding and provide individualized care to SWP (Dodsworth, 2014; Duff et al., 2014).

Social Policy Implications

SWP are questioned constantly on their fitness to parent based on morality alone. When seeking social services, the interrogation process systematically excludes SWP from funding that is earmarked to help people in their situation. Aligning with previous studies, the research community described mixed experiences with human service organizations. They expressed feeling pathologized and surveilled due to the lack of cultural understanding regarding sex work (Gorry et al., 2010). This is reflective of the greater legal context which sex work exists in the USA.

Based on the needs identified in the focus groups, we recommend policy makers take steps to decriminalize and destigmatize sex working parenthood. This should include the full decriminalization of sex work: removing criminal penalties for third parties who assist sex workers within a network of care, repealing laws against “pimping” and/or “pandering,” and distinguishing consensual engagement in sex work from human trafficking by overturning laws like Prop 35 in California—which allow prosecution of third parties as traffickers despite the sex worker’s own claims of consensual labor.

To adequately support parents, community and social service organizations should be provided funding for parenting classes tailored towards SWP and parenting services specifically designed to support sex workers. Additional suggestions to counter carceral violence against SWP include the following: legal protections against discrimination based on familial status; protecting sex workers from discrimination by banks, landlords, medical providers, universities, payment processors, social media platforms, and other public accommodations and services; and enacting policies to ensure that a parent’s participation in sex work cannot be used against them in the context of custody disputes or by any ‘child protection’ agencies.

For those who argue that sex work puts parents and families at risk, we suggest supporting policies that allow families to achieve their basic needs without further penalizing parents who do this type of work. To support SWP autonomy, policymakers should endeavor to make high quality child care more accessible; implement better paid family and medical leave; implement a universal caregiving wage; and reform Social Security to untether social pension payments from an individual’s contributions (English Collective of Prostitutes, 2020).

In alignment with the value of centering SWP narratives, policymakers should fund work to promote sex worker-created art, sex worker-affirming programming and services, sex worker–led research and knowledge production, and sex worker community building, especially when such programs center SWP.

Limitations and Looking to the Future

While the research team managed to conduct several focus groups, these were all held virtually due to schedule and budget constraints. If it had been feasible, the research team would suggest holding several focus groups in-person with free childcare provided on site. Future research studies should continue to push the bounds of stigma conceptualizations and explore how sex work is shaped by parent–child relationships through longitudinal studies on these relationships (Praimkumara & Goh, 2016).

Wrap-around services to SWP should address their roles as both parents and workers. The lack of US-based groups working with sex-working parents suggests that additional research should expand on the role of community organizations in the USA (Basu & Dutta, 2011; Beard et al., 2010; Dalla et al., 2019; Dodsworth, 2014).

Conclusion

To effectively combat the exclusion and surveillance that SWP experience, structural interventions must be rooted in critical sex worker–led discourse. Even though our research community did not fully internalize the shame that society attempted to impose onto them for their choice of work, they were subject to the fear of being potentially surveilled and punished by formal and informal agents of an anti-sex worker discipline society. SWP were particularly concerned about being separated from their children for reasons entirely unrelated to child welfare and despite the benefits that sex work provided to their parenting. Our study findings indicate the significance of centering SWP in sex worker organizing spaces and acknowledging the compatibility of sex worker and parenting identities. In doing so, not only are existing expectations of what constitutes “good” parenting challenged, but carceral systems that construct these expectations are as well.