Visual Violence: Sex Workers' Experiences of Image-Based Abuses

This visual violence research project was commissioned by National Ugly Mugs and conducted in a participatory manner in partnership with sex worker collectives and organisations
Umbrella Lane, the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement (SWARM), and the Sex Workers’ Alliance Ireland (SWAI). Image-based
abuse, typically, relates to the non-consensual photographing or filming of sexual content (see Flynn and Henry, 2019) and is a well-documented problem beyond the sex industry. Little
attention has been paid to the way internet web technologies have enabled photographic violence and the implications for image-based surveillance against sex workers. The accounts
contained herein go some way towards addressing this and we seek to showcase image-based harms, specific to sex workers and their experiences, and we call this visual violence.

The report that follows provides vivid descriptions of abusive photographs and photographic
practices. Some photographs are interspersed as examples throughout and have been recreated and staged by a co-researcher, Camille Waring, who is ‘face out’ and ‘name out’ as a sex worker in online spaces.