It’s Not Just Sex: Relational Dynamics between Street-Based Sex Workers and Their Regular Customers

2021 ◽  
pp. 095001702110217
Author(s):  
Sharon S Oselin ◽  
Katie Hail-Jares
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Service Industry ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Work Practices ◽  
Considerable Time ◽  
Economic Stability ◽  
Relational Dynamics ◽  
Relational Work ◽  
Boundary Setting

Establishing regular customers is an integral aspect of any service industry since they can increase profits and referrals. Most research on regulars within sex work focuses on indoor, high-end workers, who cultivate them through relational work practices. Yet very little is known about whether street-based sex workers employ these same tactics or even seek out regulars. This article draws upon interviews with 36 street-based sex workers in Washington, DC, USA. Sex workers dedicate considerable time and effort in order to retain regulars via relational work, noting such customers offer greater economic stability and fewer risks. Relational work also has disadvantages, exacerbated by the illicit and illegal nature of this work. Street-based sex workers navigate boundary setting and slippage as a part of retaining or rejecting regular clients. These findings have implications for policies that can reduce harms for sex workers and enhance their protections.

scholarly journals Labouring in the Sex Industry: A Conversation with Sex Workers on Consent and Exploitation

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Francine Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Service Industry ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Cultural Symbol

Sex work in all its forms is an occupation that belongs to the service industry, and like any other work, sexual labour is open to exploitation. However, the reason why sex work is seen to be different from other forms of labour is that it betrays the socially accepted rules of love and intimacy and is exercised within a criminalised environment. As a cultural symbol, sex work remains steadfastly linked to aberration and dangerousness. This article juxtaposes the legal and lay definitions of consent and exploitation based on conversations with fourteen Canadian sex workers. The objective of this exploratory article is to delve within two ill-defined and highly contested notions related to the sex industry—consent and exploitation.

Using Ethnography to Explore HIV Risk Among Transgender Sex Workers in Washington, DC

2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-22
Author(s):  
Amy Hardt
Keyword(s):  
Hiv Infection ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Income Status

In the United States, HIV/AIDS is a health issue that we tend to associate with developing countries in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. The quiet truth is that American HIV infections have remained steady over the past decade, with sex, gender, and race/ethnic minority populations disproportionately affected by AIDS in the 21st century. A subgroup that appears to have one of the highest rates of HIV infection is characterized by a confluence of sex/gender/race/ethnic minority attributes, as well as low-income status. This subgroup comprises male-to-female transgender individuals (MTFs) who engage in street-based commercial sex work (prostitution) in urban centers such as Washington, DC. MTF as a gender and sex work as an employment are not standard categories on the US census, so we do not have the kind of nationwide population data that would be necessary to generate a representative epidemiological profile for this sub-group. However, CDC surveillance does tell us that men of color who sleep with men (MSM) have a growing rate of HIV infection around the country, and the MSM category is understood to include most MTFs who reveal their status to health workers. Also, studies in several cities suggest that HIV among MTF transgenders, and MTF sex workers in particular, may be at epidemic levels. In a 1999-2000 study of 188 MTF transgenders living in the Washington, DC area, thirty-two percent (32%) reported their positive HIV status (Xavier 2000). In a similar study in San Francisco, thirty-five percent (35%) of 392 MTF transgenders actually tested seropositive (Clements-Nolle et al. 2001). Studies with MTF sex workers, such as one with 55 participants conducted in Atlanta, have found over fifty percent (50%) of samples infected with HIV (Boles and Elifson 1994).

‘We all have one’: exit plans as a professional strategy in sex work

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 748-763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Ham ◽  
Fairleigh Gilmour
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Work Practices ◽  
Temporary Work ◽  
Dominant Narratives

The idea of ‘exiting’ the sex industry plays a powerful symbolic role in the feminist debates around the morality, legitimacy and regulation of sex work. Drawing on interviews with 39 women sex workers in Australia and Canada, we explore three key contrasts between dominant narratives and interventions that frame ‘exiting’ as escape from trauma or exploitation, and sex workers’ assessments of ‘exiting’ as a personal or professional strategy. First, we explore sex workers’ perceptions of sex work as temporary work. Second, we analyse the symbiosis between exit plans and current work practices. Third, we examine workers’ assessment of the value of ‘exiting’ sex work in the context of changing market forces within the sex industry, the ‘square’ labour market (or non-sex work sectors) and exiting interventions (i.e. programmes to assist workers in leaving sex work).

“Different Strolls, Different Worlds? Gentrification and its Impact on Outdoor Sex Work”

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon S Oselin ◽  
Katie Hail-Jares ◽  
Melanie Kushida
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Urban Redevelopment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Individual Perceptions

Abstract Research reveals mixed findings regarding gentrification’s effects on longtime residents and legal small businesses. There is only minimal examination of the ways in which urban redevelopment impacts illicit outdoor marketplaces, and the studies that do rarely employ a comparative analysis or focus on individual perceptions regarding such changes. Using the case of street-based sex work, this study illuminates how workers in the outdoor trade assess changing work conditions and establishes that such evaluations color workers’ decision-making. We draw on interviews with 51 sex workers of color who are familiar with two divergent sex work “strolls” in Washington, DC. Our findings suggest that participants perceive gentrification as a multifaceted phenomenon that reconfigures their work by altering social support, environmental conditions, and competition, changes which ultimately inform where they ply their trade. This research shows that individuals in illicit outdoor markets consider the ramifications of urban redevelopment on their work and make strategic decisions that have implications for their emotional, physical, and financial well-being.

Sex work practices and condom use in female sex workers in Sydney

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 319-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Fox ◽  
R L Tideman ◽  
S Gilmour ◽  
C Marks ◽  
I van Beek ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Condom Use ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Female Sex Workers ◽  
Work Practices ◽  
Inconsistent Condom ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
Sexual Characteristics ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Self Administered Questionnaire

The aim of this study was to determine sex work practices and predictors of condom use among female sex workers (SWs) in Sydney. SWs from two centres completed a self-administered questionnaire covering demographic and sexual characteristics and sex work practices. One hundred and forty-eight international (born in Asia) and 141 local SWs (born in Australia, New Zealand or the UK) were recruited. Local SWs saw more clients per shift than international SWs ( P = 0.002), but international SWs worked more shifts per week than local SWs ( P = 0.001). International SWs used condoms less consistently at work than local SWs ( P = 0.001). About 37% of international SWs never used condoms with non-paying partners, compared with 14% of local SWs ( P = 0.01). Speaking Thai (odds ratio [OR] 8.9, 95% confidence interval [CI]; 3.19–24.87) or Chinese (OR 17.4; 95% CI 4.98–60.89) (both P < 0.001) and previous sex work in Thailand (OR 10.0 95% CI 2.31–43.52; P = 0.02) were associated with inconsistent condom use. Strategies to improve condom use need to be evaluated.

scholarly journals Time to Turn Up the Volume

2019 ◽  
pp. 194-199
Author(s):  
Nadia Van der Linde
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Service Provider ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Sex Worker

I remember my first self-organised donor panel well. It was at the Global Social Change Philanthropy Conference in Washington, DC in 2013. I had just started work as the first coordinator of the Red Umbrella Fund—the newly established fund for and by sex workers. I organised a session that would clarify the distinction between sex work and human trafficking and emphasise the need to fund sex worker organising. We had a strong panel: an awesome sex worker activist, a knowledgeable academic, a passionate service provider, and a committed funder. I was, however, in for a rude awakening: even though the line-up was great, the audience was scarce. I thought to myself, if we can’t even get funders to show up and learn about sex workers’ rights, how will we ever meet the needs of sex worker organisations fighting for their basic human rights?

scholarly journals The Double-Edged Sword of Health and Safety: COVID-19 and the Policing and Exclusion of Migrant Asian Massage Workers in North America

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Elene Lam ◽  
Elena Shih ◽  
Katherine Chin ◽  
Kate Zen
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
The State ◽  
Emergency Relief ◽  
Sexual Services

Migrant Asian massage workers in North America first experienced the impacts of COVID-19 in the final weeks of January 2020, when business dropped drastically due to widespread xenophobic fears that the virus was concentrated in Chinese diasporic communities. The sustained economic devastation, which began at least 8 weeks prior to the first social distancing and shelter in place orders issued in the U.S. and Canada, has been further complicated by a history of aggressive policing of migrant massage workers in the wake of the war against human trafficking. Migrant Asian massage businesses are increasingly policed as locales of potential illicit sex work and human trafficking, as police and anti-trafficking initiatives target migrant Asian massage workers despite the fact that most do not provide sexual services. The scapegoating of migrant Asian massage workers and criminalization of sex work have led to devastating systemic and interpersonal violence, including numerous deportations, arrests, and deaths, most notably the recent murder of eight people at three Atlanta-based spas. The policing of sex workers has historically been mobilized along fears of sexually transmitted disease and infection, and more recently, within the past two decades, around a moral panic against sex trafficking. New racial anxieties around the coronavirus as an Asian disease have been mobilized by the state to further cement the justification of policing Asian migrant workers along the axes of health, migration, and sexual labor. These justifications also solidify discriminatory social welfare regimes that exclude Asian migrant massage workers from accessing services on the basis of the informality and illegality of their work mixed with their precarious citizenship status. This paper draws from ethnographic participant observation and survey data collected by two sex worker organizations that work primarily with massage workers in Toronto and New York City to examine the double-edged sword of policing during the pandemic in the name of anti-trafficking coupled with exclusionary policies regarding emergency relief and social welfare, and its effects on migrant Asian massage workers in North America. Although not all migrant Asian massage workers, including those surveyed in this paper, provide sexual services, they are conflated, targeted, and treated as such by the state and therefore face similar barriers of criminalization, discrimination, and exclusion. This paper recognizes that most migrant Asian massage workers do not identify as sex workers and does not intend to label them as such or reproduce the scapegoating rhetoric used by law enforcement. Rather, it seeks to analyze how exclusionary attitudes and policies towards sex workers are transferred onto migrant Asian massage workers as well whether or not they provide sexual services.

scholarly journals HIV and STI positivity rates among transgender people attending two large STI clinics in the Netherlands

2021 ◽  
pp. sextrans-2020-054875
Author(s):  
Susanne Drückler ◽  
Ceranza Daans ◽  
Elske Hoornenborg ◽  
Henry De Vries ◽  
Martin den Heijer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Hiv Prevalence ◽  
Hiv Positive ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Transgender People ◽  
Sexually Transmitted

BackgroundGlobal data show that transgender people (TGP) are disproportionally affected by HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs); however, data are scarce for Western European countries. We assessed gender identities, sexual behaviour, HIV prevalence and STI positivity rates, and compared these outcomes between TGP who reported sex work and those who did not.MethodsWe retrospectively retrieved data from all TGP who were tested at the STI clinics of Amsterdam and The Hague, the Netherlands in 2017–2018. To identify one’s gender identity, a ‘two-step’ methodology was used assessing, first, the assigned gender at birth (assigned male at birth (AMAB)) or assigned female at birth), and second, clients were asked to select one gender identity that currently applies: (1) transgender man/transgender woman, (2) man and woman, (3) neither man nor woman, (4) other and (5) not known yet. HIV prevalence, bacterial STI (chlamydia, gonorrhoea and/or infectious syphilis) positivity rates and sexual behaviour were studied using descriptive statistics.ResultsTGP reported all five categories of gender identities. In total 273 transgender people assigned male at birth (TGP-AMAB) (83.0%) and 56 transgender people assigned female at birth (TGP-AFAB) (17.0%) attended the STI clinics. Of TGP-AMAB, 14,6% (39/267, 95% CI 10.6% to 19.4%) were HIV-positive, including two new diagnoses and bacterial STI positivity was 15.0% (40/267, 95% CI 10.9% to 19.8%). Among TGP-AFAB, bacterial STI positivity was 5.6% (3/54, 95% CI 1.2% to 15.4%) and none were HIV-positive. Sex work in the past 6 months was reported by 53.3% (137/257, 95% CI 47.0% to 59.5%) of TGP-AMAB and 6.1% (3/49, 95% CI 1.3% to 16.9%) of TGP-AFAB. HIV prevalence did not differ between sex workers and non-sex workers.ConclusionOf all TGP, the majority were TGP-AMAB of whom more than half engaged in sex work. HIV prevalence and STI positivity rates were substantial among TGP-AMAB and much lower among TGP-AFAB. Studies should be performed to provide insight into whether the larger population of TGP-AMAB and TGP-AFAB are at risk of HIV and STI.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) on the Health and Social Needs of Sex Workers in Singapore

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rayner Kay Jin Tan ◽  
Vanessa Ho ◽  
Sherry Sherqueshaa ◽  
Wany Dee ◽  
Jane Mingjie Lim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Permanent Resident ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Interviews

AbstractWe evaluated the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on the sex work industry and assessed how it has impacted the health and social conditions of sex workers in Singapore. We conducted a sequential exploratory mixed methods study amidst the COVID-19 pandemic from April to October 2020, including in-depth interviews with 24 stakeholders from the sex work industry and surveyor-administered structured surveys with 171 sex workers. COVID-19 had a substantial impact on sex workers' income. The illegality of sex work, stigma, and the lack of work documentation were cited as exclusionary factors for access to alternative jobs or government relief. Sex workers had experienced an increase in food insecurity (57.3%), housing insecurity (32.8%), and sexual compromise (8.2%), as well as a decrease in access to medical services (16.4%). Being transgender female was positively associated with increased food insecurity (aPR = 1.23, 95% CI [1.08, 1.41]), housing insecurity (aPR = 1.28, 95% CI [1.03, 1.60]), and decreased access to medical services (aPR = 1.74, 95% CI [1.23, 2.46]); being a venue-based sex worker was positively associated with increased food insecurity (aPR = 1.46, 95% CI [1.00, 2.13]), and being a non-Singaporean citizen or permanent resident was positively associated with increased housing insecurity (aPR = 2.59, 95% CI [1.73, 3.85]). Our findings suggest that COVID-19 has led to a loss of income for sex workers, greater food and housing insecurity, increased sexual compromise, and reduced access to medical services for sex workers. A lack of access to government relief among sex workers exacerbated such conditions. Efforts to address such population health inequities should be implemented.

scholarly journals Unfinished Decriminalization: The Impact of Section 19 of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 on Migrant Sex Workers’ Rights and Lives in Aotearoa New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
Calum Bennachie ◽  
Annah Pickering ◽  
Jenny Lee ◽  
P. G. Macioti ◽  
Nicola Mai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Fear Of Deportation ◽  
Permanent Residency ◽  
The Impact

In 2003, Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) passed the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (PRA), which decriminalized sex work for NZ citizens and holders of permanent residency (PR) while excluding migrant sex workers (MSWs) from its protection. This is due to Section 19 (s19) of the PRA, added at the last minute against advice by the Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers’ Collective (NZPC) as an anti-trafficking clause. Because of s19, migrants on temporary visas found to be working as sex workers are liable to deportation by Immigration New Zealand (INZ). Drawing on original ethnographic and interview data gathered over 24 months of fieldwork, our study finds that migrant sex workers in New Zealand are vulnerable to violence and exploitation, and are too afraid to report these to the police for fear of deportation, corroborating earlier studies and studies completed while we were collecting data.

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