Who Do We Call “Creepy?”: Sex Workers’ Relationships as Targets of Intimate Intervention

Abstract

Like other forms of problem-solving justice, prostitution diversion programs (PDPs) are designed to (re)shape thinking and behaviors. The authority to surveil and punish stems from criminalization of sex work, itself an act of control over women and their bodies. The court cues normative behaviors through rewards and punishments based on information gleaned through ongoing surveillance in and out of court. Using a critical feminist lens, we draw on ethnographic and interview data from studies of two court-affiliated PDPs to examine the regulation of women's bodies and intimate relationships. We found that criminal justice professionals explicitly viewed constant discussion and surveillance of all facets of PDP participants’ lives as a tool to cause participants to internalize particular understandings of normative relationships. Such normative understandings involve assumptions about which men are “creepy” that do not always reflect women's lived experiences and decontextualize relationships in ways that are incompatible with women's own assessments of these relationships. This analysis contributes to feminist social work by revealing the social control functions of such programs, which employ “creepy” intrusion to police the boundaries between unacceptable and normative behavior while simultaneously disregarding the systemic forces that shape women's choices and constructions of normativity.