When Event Spaces and Commercialised Sex Spaces Overlap: Gendered discourses of sex work and the Olympic Games
In the past decade, debates regarding the sex industry, especially street-level sex work, have become exacerbated by the hosting of global sporting events. Such issues as displacement, safety concerns and financial cuts to social services have contributed to the problematisation of the overlap between mega event spaces and commercial sex spaces. The different approaches that destination cities have implemented to address these aspects of the urban environment reflect the political and economic geographies of sex work and the post-colonial perspective of sex worker as criminal or victim (Agustin, 2008; Hubbard, 1998). This research focuses on a case study of Vancouver