A Visual Psychogeography Approach: Mapping Sex Market Facilitation in New York City

The geography of sex work has received attention from scholars exploring its ebb and flow based on how police, neighbors, and gentrification influence sex work zones; however, there are few studies about how sex market facilitators move within and feel about working in these zones. Researchers, artists, and activists have used psychogeography maps or maps that elucidate how individuals conceptualize place and their personal, emotional relationship to the city’s geography. We, a criminologist and a visual artist, used this psychogeography technique adapted from Debord and Lynch’s work. Sixty sex market facilitators working in NYC from the 1970s–2012 drew maps of their everyday operations. This participatory method enabled participants to feel and recall the emotions of this high-risk activity. This paper analyzes participants’ maps and corresponding narratives by exploring Lyng’s idea of edgework, the synergy of risk-taking activity, and feelings of mastery, authenticity, excitement, control, and a search for respect. This study addresses how participants map urban space from positions of ‘advanced marginalization,’ showing the impacts of spatial and mental boundaries of possibility. Through this psychogeography method, participants engaged in ‘countermapping’ as a form of resistance. The sensations and emotions derived from facilitation and its evolution moved us closer to understanding sex market facilitation from the inside.