Whitaker Ideas Forum: Eilis Ward, Considering the unconscious in law and policy: the case of the Irish Sex Purchase Ban

This paper considers the role of the unconscious in the evolution of law and policy in Ireland with reference to the Sex Purchase Ban incorporated into criminal law in 2017: The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act.

It suggests that the ban represents a desire by the state to kill off for good  the prostitute/sex worker whose presence in Irish society has, over time,  been intolerable. It draws on the work of feminist sociologist and psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin to understand the dynamics of killing off, or of refusing to recognise that which is intolerable to the psyche, supported by Sarah Ahmed’s theoretical work on the cultural politics of emotion. Using Ahmed’s work, it suggests that the (unconscious) emotions attendant with the presence of the female sex worker have created a political economy that has circulated throughout Irish history  brought to the fore again with the recent emergence of sex workers claiming rights in both a policy process and in Irish society.