Dramaturgy as a Part of Female Commercial Sex Worker’s Life
Ratifika Dewi Irianto, Elly Malihah and Siti Nurbayani
Department of Sociology of Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Commercial sex worker, Dramaturgy, Family.
Abstract: As night falls in Bandung, it is a right time for female commercial sex workers to start their day. One of the
many places for them to commercialize their bodies is Station area localization in which a transaction between
these female commercial sex workers and their male customers exists. A life shown by them is nothing but
the existence of a backstage and front stage life as a life value that different from one to another. This kind of
contradiction between the backstage and front stage life, however, does not influence their roles as mothers.
This research employs qualitative approach to see how dramaturgy is performed by these female commercial
sex workers. This study will show the contradiction between the night life and the day life of the female
commercial sex workers.
1 INTRODUCTION
Basically, a woman wants to have a good life partner
as well as a perfect family where the husband earns
the money to fulfill the family needs. Yet, this kind of
thing is nothing but false hope for female commercial
sex workers. They don’t have husbands who are able
to fulfill their needs. The lives of female commercial
sex workers in Station Bandung localization reflect
their economic struggle due to the condition of not
having a husband. In reality, even though they are
said to commit deviant behavior by being commercial
sex workers, they are still ordinary women who run
their lives as mothers just like everyone else out there
despite the bitter pill they swallow every night as the
commercial sex workers.
This condition brings up a contradiction between
their real live where they become the mothers of
families who give life values to their children and
their night lives where they become these commercial
sex workers who involve in deviant behavior.
Prostitution, essentially, is a sex behavior of
changing partners, performed by either male or
female (Sandra, 2013). The commercial sex workers
usually gather in an area that turns out to be called
localization (Amaliyasari dkk, 2008). They gather to
perform prostitution to gain money. The economic
struggle is one of the reasons of the existence of
commercial sex workers in the bustling city like
Bandung. It is strengthen by the data from
Performance and Accountability Reports of
Government Agencies (LKIP) of Bandung
Departments of Social Service through The Central
Statistic Agency in 2014 on commercialized women
quoted in 2012 for the 2013-2018 period showed 319
out of 3.847 women who were socially and
economically vulnerable fell into prostitution as
commercial sex workers.
For them, being commercial sex workers means to
feel what you do not want to. It is a dilemma to have
this kind of job for them because on one side, they are
embarrassed to do so but on the other side, they need
to do it in order to make a living. By this existing
inner conflict, they try to hide their real identities
from people around them.
As a matter of fact, these sex workers who face
the conflict will resolve them by faking their
identities in front of people near them. They do it so
that their children will not be embarrassed to know
their mothers true profession. They act in a play in
front of their children, families, and people around
them. They act in a play in front of people to gain a
better judgment or recognition. Truthfully, role-play
is a common thing to do by a person. However, on
this particular case, there is a contradiction between
their roles as mothers and as commercial sex workers.
There is the concept of dramaturgy in their lives.
Dramaturgy is an effect of a phenomenon, or a
reaction towards the increase of social or racial
conflict (Suneki and Haryono, 2012).
562
Irianto, R., Malihah, E. and Nurbayani, S.
Dramaturgy as a Part of Female Commercial Sex Worker’s Life.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 1, pages 562-564
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

It leads to the objective of this research that is to
see how dramaturgy is performed by the married
female commercial sex workers in Station area
localization in front of the families and people around
their lives.
1.1 Commercial Sex Workers
The localization situated in Station area has been
established since Dutch occupation in Indonesia. This
localization gives negative influence to the
commercial sex workers themselves. One of which is
felt by their own family.
Kartono (2011) says that prostitution comes from
Latin pros-stituere, which mean letting oneself
commit adultery, whoring, or obscenity. Being a
commercial sex worker nowadays becomes a choice
of profession, more of a shortcut, for women with
economic struggle despite the pros and cons among
the society.
The most decisive factor for someone to be
involved in prostitution is economic pressure (Sandra,
2013). Other than that, Sihaholo (2012) states that
other external factors are the low social control due to
insufficient law in Indonesia and the state of
globalized modern life that considers women as
things to exploit. This can also happen due to peer
encouragement that attracts the women to be
commercial sex workers. Meanwhile, ones of the
internal factors are the women’s materialist lifestyle
and abnormal sexual drives.
Deviant behavior done by these women has its
own downslide. They feel guilty doing the profession
which is not along with the will of the society and
seen as defiance. They have this inner conflict within
each of them.
Moreover, they are also afraid of the medical
problems they may get such as HIV or other sexually
transmitted diseases. It gives impacts like worry and
fear every time they do their jobs.
1.2 The Dramaturgy of Sex
Commercial Workers
Dramaturgy as one of theories coined by Erving
Goovvman shows how human life has two parts: front
stage and backstage. Dramaturgy is a life
performance acted out by individual by role-playing
more than one character. Theatrical performance
performed on the stage is none but a miniature of
human life with variety of acts and interactions of one
another. Dramaturgy theory states that an act done by
human being has the similarity to that on theatrical
stage.
Suneki dkk (2012) argues that dramaturgy theory
cannot be separated from Cooley’s influence about
the looking glass self, which consists of three
components. First, we establish how we perform as
other people. Second, we imagine how they judge our
performances. Third, we generate feelings such as
embarrassment, proud, as forming of others’
judgment.
Goffman makes a distinction between front stage
and backstage. The front stage is also separated into
her own private front and setting. The setting supports
the individual to act. Without the setting, that very
individual cannot act out the performance. Parts of the
setting on dramaturgy theory are front stage and
backstage.
2 RESEARCH METHOD
This study was conducted in Station area in Bandung.
I choose this area based on preliminary research
showing the area was suitable for gaining data. In
Station localization located in Kebon Jati Bandung
gives an illustration on how a female commercial sex
worker performs dramaturgy on her daily life among
their families.
The research data gained from eight married
informants with children by using qualitative method.
The study was conducted by running an interview and
observation.
The analytical unit of this research is the
commercial female sex workers’ family as the
supporters to extract data on dramaturgy performed
by these women. The data were analyzed before and
during my research on the field. As the preliminary
research, I observed how the defiance, that was the
female commercial sex worker, had the family, how
she interacted with her family, how she presented
herself in front of her children and how she delivered
her self identity in front of people around her.
Meanwhile, for onsite data analysis, during the field
research, I interacted and asked directly until it
reached data saturation.
The first method I employed to analyze the data
was to deduct the data by filtering unimportant ones
for my further study. Afterwards, data presentation
shows that there were informants giving depth data
through interview and observation. I ended the
research by making the conclusion. I emphasized the
snowball throwing data which made the research
would stop when it had reached data saturation. Data
triangulation had been performed to women who
were commercial sex workers, their children and their
other family members. The triangulation technique
Dramaturgy as a Part of Female Commercial Sex Worker’s Life
563

was conducted through observation, interview, and
documentation.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The result of the interview and observation showed
that all the eight informants were married and have
children. The research reflects the life of female
commercial sex workers who do not want any of their
family members know what kind of job they are doing
at night. It was revealed by their answers to my
question as well as my observation that five of the
informant said they claimed to be a song leader or
staff at a karaoke house. Such claim legitimized their
need to go at night and come home in the morning.
One informant said she worked at a café, which made
her go at night and come home in the morning.
Another informant said she was a store employee.
This finding shows that they need to play a different
role when they face other people around them and
they too need to play another role when they do their
job in Station.
From a sociological perspective, this finding is
considered as part of female commercial sex workers
lives dramaturgy even though truthfully every
individual does dramaturgy but the one run by these
women is a contradictive role, between the role as
mothers at home and the role as commercial sex
workers at night. It was proved that they performed
religious activity to be seen by their children, they
also followed Quran study group near their house so
that their neighbor would not be suspicious. Another
example is when they did not tell anybody around
them what kind of thing they did for a living. To keep
their secret, they were forced to change their clothes
and using the make- up in public restrooms near the
Station as well as use particular transportation.
The theory of dramaturgy of Widodo in Suneki
and Haryono (2012) explains that social interaction is
interpreted as theatrical performance or play on the
stage. Human being is an actor who tries to unite
personal characteristics and objectives for other
people through him/herself. From the expert opinion,
we can see that social interaction conducted by
female commercial sex workers has different part of
front and back region. Their front stage is when they
put on masks as good mothers in front of their
children. They act as if they are ordinary mothers.
Through the result of this study, eight informants
embedded good values to their children especially
religious values. Meanwhile, the backstage is when at
night they take off their front stage masks. In the
backstage, they are free to do whatever they want
such as cursing, flirting men, or being naughty
women.
In this discussion, when they are in their own
home, it is their front stage, unlike other individuals
who will give up their roles when they are home. It is
to say that they actually put on their fake role in front
of their children by being commercial sex workers so
that their children will be better than them.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Being a female commercial sex worker is a tough
decision to make, especially if she is a mother. There
is no easy way for this kind of case yet it is one of the
solutions for her to be out of economic struggle so that
dramaturgy is a mean of help for her to support her
defiant behavior while make a living. Dramaturgy or
role play supports the defiant behavior conducted by
the mother, the existence of the front stage as a good
mother for her children and people around her makes
the mother keeps her job as a commercial sex worker.
On the front stage, she limits the contact with her
audience. At the same time, the backstage shows how
she does her job as the commercial sex worker.
Through dramaturgy performed by her, she gives a
positive impact for her family by keeping her job as a
secret so that she is able to nurture her children into
better human beings. It will be different if she does
not perform dramaturgy that will lead to
psychological as well as moral burden for both her
family and her children if they find out what the real
profession of their mother.
REFERENCES
Amaliyasari, P., Puspitasari, N., 2008. Perilaku Seksual
Anak Usia Pra Remaja di Sekitar Lokalisasi dan Faktor
yang Mempangaruhi. Jurnal Penelitian Dinas Sosial,
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Kartono, K., 2011. Patologi sosial. Jakarta: Rajawali Pers.
Sandra, A., 2013. Dampak lokalisasi Pekerja Seks
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Journal Administrasi Negara, 1 (2), hlm. 465-478.
Sihaloho, N., Nasution, I., 2012. Tahapan pengambilan
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Suneki, S., Haryono., 2012. Paradigma Teori Dramaturgi
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