Experiences Of Prostitutes Research Articles

Been There Done That

ABSTRACT Women in prostitution and those in the process of exiting prostitution experience many barriers to social services traditionally encountered by other marginalized populations, including discrimination, alienation, stigmatization, victim-blaming and inaccessibility to social services. Compounding these problems are the wariness and distrust that result from years of sexual and emotional trauma. Standing Against Global Exploitation (The SAGE Project) is a human rights non-profit survivor-run drug, mental health, and trauma treatment center that offers job training and placement and other forms of advocacy to women, girls, men, and transgender survivors in the San Francisco sex industry. SAGE has developed a survivor-centered model of peer counseling and harm reduction. SAGE trains and employs survivors of prostitution at all levels of management, development, and service provision in order to build trust and empathy among its clients and staff.

A culture that cultivates the prostitution of teenage women 1 : based on the experiences of prostitution among teenage women

(2003). A culture that cultivates the prostitution of teenage women 1 : based on the experiences of prostitution among teenage women. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 337-352.

Sex Workers and Violence Against Women: Utopic visions or battle of the sexes?

Laura MaAgustin uncovers some of the myths around sex workers and the men engaging their services within the context of building a movement to end violence against women (VAW). She argues that totalizing all experiences of prostitution with a view to punishment and criminalization does not work and advocates a much more visionary and pluralistic approach.

Women on the Boundary: Prostitution, Contemporary and in the Bible

'Women on the Boundary' examines the issue of prostitution both as it is represented in the Bible, and as it is manifested in contemporary society -particularly Asia. Contemporary commercial sex work is a complex phenomenon, and women who engage in prostitution do so for a variety of reasons. It is no longer possible to describe prostitution as either simply or solely involving the oppression of women by men. The ambivalence of feminist attitudes towards sex workers, and the false assumptions that can inform discussions of the topic, can be overcome by listening to the experiences of prostitutes and re-assessing the theological justifications for their condemnation.

Antecedents to Prostitution

Many adolescents who run from intolerable home situations depend on prostitution for survival. The accumulated body of research on the topic suggests particular family experiences and adolescent behaviors are characteristic of prostitutes. Although a link between childhood sexual victimization and prostitution has been suggested in the literature, some previous findings are contradictory. Forty-five adolescent prostitutes and 37 adolescents who were not prostitutes were interviewed regarding their experiences related to childhood physical and sexual abuse, leaving home, family functioning, parental alcohol use, marital violence, adolescent alcohol and drug use, and level of self-esteem. Although the results of this study replicated previous findings about background experiences of prostitutes, when an appropriate comparison group was considered, these same factors failed to discriminate between prostitute and nonprostitute youth. This suggests that these factors may not be critical for entry into prostitution.

Female Prostitution in Glasgow: Drug Use and Occupational Sector

Ethnographic research undertaken between 1992 and 1996 aimed to discover in what ways the varieties of social and commercial (including drug using) experiences of prostitutes are related to the forms of prostitution in which they engage. Females working in each of the Glasgow prostitution sectors (street, sauna, flat, escort and sugar daddy) were recruited by a multiple snowball sampling method which relied largely on research by privileged access. Data gathering was naturalistic and fieldwork extensive. Injecting, and acceptance of drug addiction as a rationale for prostituting amongst street prostitutes continues to be contrasted with intolerance of routine drug use by indoor prostitutes. However, findings are that traditional demarcations between street drug users and indoor non-users have diminished. Recreational drug use has become popular amongst some indoor sector workers. Differing environmental conditions and the various ‘social’ demands of prostitution were linked with both contrasting applications and negative associations of at-work drug effects. Indoor prostitutes use drugs to enhance work performance in the socialising aspect of their interactions with customers, and to counteract boredom. Street prostitutes use drugs to cope with the dangerous environment and harsh working conditions. Negative associations of drug use in indoor sectors were with loss of business acumen while on the street concern was with physical danger. By drawing attention to the range of social contexts in prostitution and showing the flexibility of norms these findings suggest that the health and education needs of prostitutes may vary between sectors and over time.

Rape myths and violence against street prostitutes

The experiences of prostitutes have been missing from studies of violence and rape, as has the problem of violence from studies of prostitution. Interviews here with 16 street prostitutes, most of whom are crack users, reveal an enormous amount of rape and violence against these women. Further, it is found that rape myths generally discussed in the literature uniquely come together around prostitutes to fuel both the violence and the devaluation that allows us to ignore such violence. Themes emerging from the interviews include: that people often see prostitutes as unrapeable; that no harm is done; that prostitutes deserve to be raped; and that all prostitutes are the same. This paper sees violence against prostitutes as an extreme case that sheds light on violence against women generally.