Policy discussions relating to the selling of sex have tended to fixate on two spaces of sex work: the street and the brothel. Such preoccupation has arguably eclipsed discussion of the working environment where most sex is sold, namely, the private home. Redressing this omission, this paper discusses the public health and safety implications of policies that fail to regulate or assist the ‘hidden population’ of sex workers, focusing on the experiences of home-based workers in Sydney, Australia. Considering the inconsistent way that Home Occupation Sex Services Premises (HOSSPs) are regulated in this city, this paper discusses the implications of selling sex beyond the gaze of the state and the law. It is concluded that working from home can allow sex workers to exercise considerable autonomy over their working practices, but that the safety of such premises must be carefully considered in the development of prostitution policy.

This article examines the association among victimization, modes of sex working, and the locations used by sex workers through an analysis of “Ugly Mug” reports detailing 528 crime acts in 333 reported incidents in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. These forms, voluntarily lodged between 2000 and 2008 by members of NSW's estimated 10,000 sex worker population, suggest that street-based work has a higher victimization rate than other modes of working, including escort work, work in commercial premises, and private work. Although this ostensibly supports the commonly held view that “outdoor” working is more dangerous than “indoor” work, this analysis suggests that most instances of victimization actually occur in private spaces. Hence, it is argued that risks of victimization in sex work are influenced by a variety of environmental characteristics relating to concealment, control, and isolation, suggesting that not all off-street locations are equally safe. We conclude with recommendations for policy regarding sex work.

Premises associated with commercial sex—including brothels, striptease clubs, sex cinemas, and sex shops—have increasingly been accepted as legitimate land uses, albeit ones whose location needs to be controlled because of assumed ‘negative externalities’. However, the planning and licensing regulations excluding such premises from areas of residential land use are often predicated on assumptions of nuisance that have not been empirically substantiated. Accordingly, this paper reports on a survey of those living close to sex industry premises in New South Wales, Australia. The results suggest that although some residents have strong moral objections to sex premises, in general residents note few negative impacts on local amenity or quality of life, with distance from a premise being a poor predictor of residents' experiences of nuisance. These findings are considered in relation to the literatures on sexuality and space given regulation which ultimately appears to reproduce heteronormative moralities rather than respond to genuine environmental nuisances.

Much recent scholarship on sexuality and urban spaces has focused on forms of urban governance. Within this literature an emerging body of work has begun to highlight how formal urban planning processes and regulations are increasingly used as mechanisms to govern sexuality within later 20th century Western cities, particularly through the placement of sex industry premises. This paper contributes to this literature through a case study of the emergence of gay bathhouses in land-use planning process within inner Sydney during this period. It highlights how the placement of these businesses within Sydney depends on a broad range of shifting and competing discourses on how sex industry premises impact upon the amenity of the city, its neighbourhoods and land uses—that is, their secondary impacts, cumulative effects, and contribution to urban ordering. On one hand, planning processes reveal ideas about how these establishments contaminate and pollute neighbourhoods and sensitive land uses such as schools or churches. On the other, there are also emerging arguments that sex industry premises such as gay bathhouses can improve the health and lifestyle opportunities for specific communities and residents within particular city environs. I argue that these latter positive discourses have guided the placement of gay bathhouses within the planning of Sydney over the last few decades.