RT Article
T1 Sex Work and the Karmic Wheel: How Buddhism Influences Sex Work in China
JF International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology
VO 63
IS 13
SP 2356
OP 2377
A1 Tsang, Eileen Yuk-Ha
A1 Lowe, John
LA English
YR 2019
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1675746346
AB As prostitution is widely condemned as a form of criminality in China, there is a need to examine how Buddhism functions not as a form of therapy for the purposes of rehabilitating or deterring prostitution but as a force that encourages participation in prostitution. In this work, we argue that rural-urban migrant sex workers who are Buddhists appropriate the religion's teachings of compassion, mindfulness, and karma to find a renewed sense of meaning and purpose in their livelihoods. We illustrate how Buddhism allows sex workers to cultivate the affective labor required for the purposes of servicing male clients in conjunction with finding positive purpose in their lives. In doing so, their bodies gain affirmative value in the form of helping their heterosexual male clients address deficits in their masculinities.
K1 Sex work
K1 Prostitution
K1 China
K1 Buddhism
K1 Mindfulness
K1 Karma
K1 Masculinities
K1 Sexarbeit
DO 10.1177/0306624X19847437