Transgressive Multipli[cities]: Unveiling and Reveiling Hong Kong’s Forbidden Spaces

Site: Temple Street, Mong kok, and Wan Chai

“The law controlling sex in Hong Kong, like the one in the UK, follows the teaching of the Wolfenden Report: Although the law decriminalizes sex trade, all activities related to it (for example: living on the earnings of prostitution or keeping a vice establishment) are a criminal offenses.” However, according to Foucault, there is no difference between a sex worker and other workers, except they provide a different type of service. Therefore, the spaces should be designed in order to reduce the stigma attached to such contested spaces. Most of the commercial sex worker industry consists of women working in small, usually one room apartments, usually referred to as “one-woman brothels” Is necessary to have designed spaces that are separate from residences? Should the sex industry in Hong Kong be treated as commerce, and reside in commercial buildings so as to not disturb surrounding residences? Should there be a formulation of a red light district in Hong Kong?

Methodology:

Understand the legal frameworks in Hong Kong, study other contested spaces, including saunas and brothels. Space acts as the metaphor for access, places are programmed, designed, and built by those with the power to do so. But who has access? What does one pass through to enter, and security required for safety. Is there a buffer zone between the public and private realm. Is there a cultural order? Underlying ideas, values and social norms that are spatially and symbolically expressed?

In order to reduce the stigma that sex work garners in Hong Kong, there are certain groups who advocate that sex work should share the same social status as any other business. Does this result in a single highly commercialized building that treats prostitution like any other commercial transaction? Or is there a formulation of a Red Light District that turns prostitution into a tourist destination like in Amsterdam?

Possible Case Studies: Amsterdam, Bangkok, Japanese Love Hotels

Existing Typology Study (Hong Kong): One woman brothel, Sauna & Massage Parlour, Night Club Workers, Freelance, Street.

Theory: Foucault, Beatriz Colomina, Mary Mcleod, Sylvia Lavin

Annotated  Bibliography:

Brown, Lori A. Contested spaces : abortion clinics, women’s shelters and hospitals : politicizing the female body. Farnham, Surrey ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate Publishing Company, [2013]

Emerton, Robyn. Trafficking of women into Hong Kong for the purpose of prostitution : preliminary research findings. Hong Kong : Centre for Comparative and Public Law, Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong, 2001.

“Out in the Sun: Legal Constraints and Possibilities in Protecting the Rights of Sex Workers.” An International Conference on the Sex Industry and Worker’s Rights. Hong Kong : Zi Teng, [2004]