Motherhood and prostitution: a discursive analysis of interviews with prostitutes

Abstract

From interviews made with four prostitutes, and based on the theoretical framework of the French-oriented discourse analysis, this article discusses one of the arguments presented to justify the decision of starting to work as a prostitute: children. In the discursive game, the women interviewed exalt the occupied maternal place, describing how good they are as mothers, weaving the defense of the option they chose. With that, maternity is used as a speech redirection, a way to erase the prostitute spot, discursively intensifying the sacrifice of motherhood. Although, despite the apparent control of the senses, the contradiction, constitutive of language, installs itself, and other senses escape.