Sex Worker Memoirs as Methodological Intervention to Resist Anti-Prostitution Sentiments: A Reading of Nalini Jameela's Autobiographies

East Tower 

Nalini Jameela's memoirs, "The Autobiography of a Sex Worker" (2005) and its sequel "The Romantic Encounters of a Sex Worker" (2018), garnered significant public and media attention in India. In these texts, Jameela discusses the financial freedom and sexual autonomy she experienced while working as a sex worker in Kerala during the 1990s and early 2000s. Her narratives unravel the abuse she faced in "secure" hetero-patriarchal relationships, the financial and sexual exploitation encountered in daily wage labor, her interactions with law enforcement as an independent sex worker, and her ability to find hope and joy within her work.

Despite Jameela publicly asserting that she has never felt like a victim and that sex work has provided financial support for her and her children, dominant media narratives continue to question her refusal to fit into the victim trope. They express curiosity about her unabashed discussions of her work and her lack of guilt or remorse. This creates an ongoing tension between Jameela's attempt to break free from such representations and the state and national media's efforts to reshape her narrative within an anti-prostitution framework.

This paper, which aligns with CRN06's theme of "Methodological and Theoretical Advancements in Sex Work," argues that memoirs written by sex workers are crucial cultural tools for capturing their self-embodied knowledge, and help in challenging hegemonic narratives that position them as victims. I use Jameela's texts as a contemporary example that reflects the complexities of sex workers' daily lives and realities in post-globalization India. Despite the media's attempts to reshape her story, these texts provide a strong critique of anti-prostitution rhetoric. While Jameela's experience is not representative of every sex worker in India, the attention received by her work highlights both the biases in our understanding of sex work and the need for discussing such texts within academic circles.