Introduction

Child sexual exploitation (CSE) (as currently defined within the United Kingdom) is a form of child sexual abuse (CSA), typified by the presence of exchange, whereby the victim and/or perpetrator receives something in return for the sexual activity. It is this exchange dynamic that distinguishes CSE from other forms of CSA within current UK and many other nations’ definitions. It is also this exchange dynamic, where the young person is the one deemed to be benefiting from the exchange that raises particular questions about the exercise of agency within abusive situations; the focus of this chapter.

Drawing on a decade of primary and secondary research in the field, I explore the relationship between victimhood and agency, and the unhelpful binary ways in which it has often been conceptualised within CSE discourse and practice to date. I observe how adherence to dichotomous conceptualisations of those experiencing CSE, and associated narrow understandings of CSE victimhood, have served to diminish our responses to particular populations and particular manifestations of harm; namely those typified by any degree of observable agency on the part of the child.

Both my own research and the wider body of literature clearly articulate the need for ‘a new sexual abuse narrative’ (Woodiwiss 2018:163) if we are to address the evidenced shortcomings in CSE practice. This narrative must be capable of accommodating the co‑existence of choice and constraint, benefit and harm, and victimhood and agency that I and other researchers have observed to be present in many young people's experiences of CSE (Pearce 2010; Beckett 2011; Melrose 2012, 2013; Beckett et al 2013; Warrington 2013; Hallett 2017; Woodiwiss 2018). It is my contention that Gidden's (1976) structuration theory, widely utilised in other fields but not yet in relation to CSE, offers a helpful framework around which such a narrative can be developed.

Reframing young people's experiences of CSE through the lens of structuration theory offers a much-needed way to move us beyond the observable simplistic binary conceptualisations of victimhood versus agency. It helps us to better understand and respond to the widely variable and complex dynamics and contexts of CSE. Specifically, reconceptualising young people as ‘reflexive agents’ operating within a ‘structure of constraint’ offers us a means of concurrently recognising the range of biographical and contextual factors at play in any given situation, and allows us to move beyond exclusionary ‘idealised’ victim-based patterns of identification and response.