Discourses of discrimination against sex workers

This paper explores how discourses of discrimination against sex workers are discursively reproduced or challenged in polylogal (multi-participant) interactions in digital environments such as YouTube. Drawing on stancetaking (Du Bois 2007Du Bois, John. 2007. “Stance Triangle”. In Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, edited by Robert Englebretson, 139–182. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ) and the stance dimensions of evaluation and alignment (Kiesling 2018Kiesling, Scott F. 2018. “Masculine Stances and the Linguistics of Affect: On Masculine Ease”. NORMA 13(3–4): 191–212. , 2021Kiesling, Scott F. 2021. “The ‘Gay Voice’ and ‘Brospeak’: Toward a Systematic Model of Stance”. In The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality, edited by Kira Hall and Rusty Barrett. New York: Oxford University Press.), we analyze how commenters’ stances towards sex work can be linked to (banal) whorephobia — i.e., the discursive manifestation of discriminations against sex workers. Focusing on two threads of comments found under a YouTube video, we suggest that whorephobia operates along a scalar continuum, with aggression against sex work/ers ranging from explicitly negative stances to more subtle and banalized ones that may even go unnoticed. In our data, (banal) whorephobia was traced in stances that indexed: (a) low evaluation of/low alignment with participants expressing sex-positive views or supporting that sex workers’ rights advocacy can be compatible with feminist agendas; and/or (b) high evaluation of/high alignment with participants who view sex work as inherently immoral or exploitative in line with Christian conservative or radical feminist discourses. We conclude that what makes banal whorephobia particularly concerning is that it manifests through stances that, though not explicitly hostile, may still reinforce sex workers’ stigmatization and social exclusions, often in ways that may seem socially acceptable or well justified.