Intersections of Stigma, Mental Health, and Sex Work: How Canadian Men Engaged in Sex Work Navigate and Resist Stigma to Protect Their Mental Health

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 641-649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunny Jiao ◽  
Vicky Bungay
Keyword(s):  
2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-354
Author(s):  
Nadav Antebi-Gruszka ◽  
Daniel Spence ◽  
Stella Jendrzejewski

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianne Reis ◽  
Sandro Sperandei ◽  
Paula Galdino Cardin de Carvalho ◽  
Thiago Félix Pinheiro ◽  
Ferdinando Diniz de Moura ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Trans women have been shown to experience disproportionately poor outcomes in physical and mental health. Although it is common to talk about the violence against trans people, little is still known about mental health outcomes and experiences of suicidality among trans women, particularly in developing countries. This study aims to investigate risk factors and associations with mental health, suicide ideation and suicide attempts among trans women in the largest metropolitan area in Brazil. Methods Trans women living in São Paulo were recruited between May 2017 and July 2019 using the long-chain peer referral method Respondent-Driven Sampling. Multivariate regression models were used to investigate the associations with K10 score classification (logistic) and suicidal ideation/suicide attempt (ordinal logistic). Results A total of 763 trans women were included in the study. Over one quarter (26.5%) of trans women had been diagnosed with anxiety in the past, and close to one in five (19.1%) trans women had received a diagnosis of depression. More than two in five (41.9%) trans women had moderate to severe psychological distress. More than half of all participating trans women reported having previously either experienced suicidal ideation or attempted to take their own lives (25.0 and 31.2% respectively). In multivariate regression, moderate to severe psychological distress was associated with homelessness, income, current sex work, use of stimulant drugs, history of physical abuse, depression diagnosis and access to mental health treatment. Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts were associated with race/skin color, living arrangements, marital status, current sex work, history of sexual violence, depression and PTSD diagnoses, access to mental health treatment and psychological distress. Conclusions This study showed that there is a significant association between mental health conditions, lack of treatment for these conditions and suicidality among trans gender women. Findings point to the need for a structural transformation in Brazil that enables a reduction in the social inequality and violence that impact the mental health of trans women. A number of recommendations to achieve this are provided.


Author(s):  
Anugraha Varghese

Abstract: "Commercial sex workers" refers to those who engage in prostitution, and have been used in the literature on the subject over a period of time. The term has been adopted, which is free of the complex, derogatory and sexist connotations, which are often linked with the concept of a "slut". Sex work includes a wide variety of activities, including the exchange of foreign currency (or an equivalent) for the purchase of sex, and sexual services. Sex work has been attributed to several psychiatric issues, including physical violence as a child, sexual assault as a child, adult domestic discrimination, substance abuse, trauma etc. Commercial sex work, according to Medrano, and Gilchrist, is often correlated with the socio-demographic disadvantage such as ethnic minority, low-income, food and nutrition, and a lack of education and training. Sex workers may be exposed to the stigma of the action, and, therefore, have a high risk for psychiatric morbidity. There is indeed a scarcity of literature into how sex workers deal with mental health and stigma. The stigma of the sex industry would have a direct impact on the mental health of sex workers. The need to control, and the risk of selective disclosure of the sex work is the usual on-the-job. The objective of this review is to examine the current literature on sex workers, with a focus on health as well as other forms of social isolation such as disability, homelessness, and drug abuse. There aren't many articles dedicated to mental health, social isolation, or sex work. The paper is divided into three sections based on three major themes. The very first theme looks at the causes that lead to insecurity, social isolation, and sex work participation. The second topic examines how exclusionary mechanisms impact sex workers' mental health and the most common mental illnesses in the sex worker population. Finally, the third topic considers how exclusionary mechanisms impact the lives of sex workers, as well as the various degrees of social exclusion faced by different classes of sex workers. Sex workers, especially on-the-street, off-the-street, transient, and trafficked sex workers, face potential threats and sickness. Several of these impediments are connected to wider questions of social exclusion that go far beyond sex work. Keywords: Sex worker, psychiatric morbidity, social exclusion, sex work stigma, factors affecting entrance into sex workers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Bill McCarthy ◽  
Mikael Jansson ◽  
Cecilia Benoit

A growing literature advocates for using a labor perspective to study sex work. According to this approach, sex work involves many of the costs, benefits, and possibilities for exploitation that are common to many jobs. We add to the field with an examination of job attributes and mental health. Our analysis is comparative and uses data from a panel study of people in sex work and hairstyling. We examined job attributes that may differ across these occupations, such as stigma and customer hostility, as well as those that may be more comparable, such as job insecurity, income, and self-employment. Our analysis used mixed-effects regression and included an array of time-varying and time-invariant variables. Our results showed negative associations between mental health and job insecurity and stigma, for both hairstyling and sex work. We also found two occupation-specific relationships: for sex work, limited discretion to make decisions while at work was negatively related to mental health, whereas for hairstyling, mental health was positively associated with self-employment. Our results highlight the usefulness of an inter-occupational labor perspective for understanding the mental health consequences of being in sex work compared to hairstyling.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107780122110582
Author(s):  
Stavroula Kyriakakis ◽  
Jenna Henning ◽  
Sadie Goddard-Durant

This phenomenological study, consisting of individual interviews with a sample of 30 women engaged in sex work, examines the intimate relationships of women engaged in sex work in Barbados. Participants often entered relationships with men they met while engaged in sex work. Most experienced relationships that became transactional, abusive, and exploitative. Intimate partner violence (IPV) challenged their ability to negotiate condom use with intimate partners placing them at risk for HIV. A cycle emerged of entering relationships to exit the violent conditions of sex work and then re-entering sex work to escape IPV. Implications for mental health, HIV prevention, IPV, and empowerment services are described.


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