The Surveillance of Deviant Sexuality: Analyzing the Surveillance of Online Sex Work under SESTA/FOSTA


Adri Prattas, Queen's University

The sex work industry has faced centuries of punitive measures, stigmatization, and surveillance. In this paper, I explore the contemporary challenges posed by technological advancements, specifically focusing on the online spaces that sex workers have turned to for safety. Through combining David Lyons concept of surveillances power of categorization with Michel Foucaults discourses of sexualities, I introduce the concept of the surveillance of deviant sexuality. I demonstrate this framework through analyzing the American legislation known as SESTA/FOSTA (Allow Victims and States to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act) and its material consequences for online sex work and sex workers. Lyons idea that the ability to monitor, classify, and categorize individuals is a form of power is foundational to the framework I invoke in this paper. The contemporary surveillance landscape enables the collection of vast amounts of information used to categorize individuals based on predetermined characteristics. The power of exclusion arising from these categorizations influences peoples life chances, as seen in practices such as post-9/11 categorization of individuals as "desirable" or "undesirable" based on arbitrary characteristics, such as country of origin, when travelling. I connect this concept to Foucault’s discourses of sexualities to highlight how categorization occurs based on the moral acceptability of one’s sexual life. Foucault challenges the repressive hypothesis, suggesting that power over sex is instead discursive. He argues that the acceptability of sex is determined by specific circumstances, actors, and contextual relationships, leading to multiple discourses on sexualities produced through different institutional mechanisms, such as the legal system’s criminalization of sex work. Foucaults insights are crucial for understanding how power operates within the realm of sexuality. I apply the combined framework to analyze SESTA/FOSTA, a 2018 legislation that amends the Communications Decency Act. I argue that this legislation, although ostensibly aimed at combatting online sex trafficking, exemplifies the surveillance of deviant sexuality through its conflation of sex trafficking and consensual sex work. The legislation’s conflationary definition of sex trafficking reflects a moralistic perspective, rooted in radical feminist views that deem the sex work industry inherently coercive and misogynistic. I suggest that SESTA/FOSTA arises from the legal system using its discursive power to shape the narrative surrounding sexuality and sex work through attempting to legislatively designate sex work as deviant. Furthermore, the legislations focus on online spaces facilitates the surveillance aspect, compelling platforms to monitor and categorize users based on the legislations defined categories of deviant or permissible. Following this, I highlight the allegedly ‘unintended’ material consequences of SESTA/FOSTA, such as platform censorship and sanitization. The removal of Craigslists "personals" section serves as a prime example of these consequences, illustrating the legislations impact on platforms that struggle to distinguish between sex trafficking and consensual sex work due to the conflationary definition provided. Lastly, I showcase how SESTA/FOSTA directly harms sex workers through pushing them towards riskier street-based work due to the elimination of safer online spaces. This guided shift to street-based sex work endangers sex workers and pressures them into compromising situations to earn a living. In conclusion, I not only advocate for the repeal of SESTA/FOSTA through emphasizing the dangerous consequences this legislation has on sex workers, but I also emphasize the need to recognize the broader implications of moral surveillance on evolving discourses surrounding sexual deviance that extend beyond sex work.  

This paper will be presented at the following session: