Entre hipocresía y cinismo : un estudio socio-legal de la prostitución como contravención

Prostitution is not a crime in Argentina. However, Infringement Code Córdoba Province sanctions the visibility sex work offer ("scandalous or disturbing prostitution" art. 45, Law 9444). Sex workers relate with the Law in, at least, three ways: as "delinquents" as "victims" and an "agents of resistance." These edges are combined in the same subjects conforming particular legal subjectivity, which, I argue, is marked by cynicism and hypocrisy. On the one hand, cynicism is crystallized when they are not equally considered by legal institutions as subject to law's protection, leaving margins and the protection of the law in their daily lives but in the centre of their symbolic and physical violence. On the other hand, hypocrisy is reflected in the design of a device which penalizes the visibility of prostitution and affecting therefore a specific group of sex workers, who are normally the most vulnerable ones. In this context, sex workers' resistance opens up a dynamic negotiation of meanings and practices to re-define their socio-legal position