engleski

Sex workers' professional experiences in the interplay of structure and agency

While sex work is a multidimensional phenomenon, in feminist theory it has largely been discussed within dichotomous categories of work v. violence- While previously literature which associated prostitution with violence prevailed, recent research has focused more on its work dimension. Most of the recent empirical studies have challenged the dichotomous thinking around agency/victimhood. Drawing on the recent feminist literature on sex work, in this paper we provide an analysis of sex workers’ professional experiences in Croatia, against the background of the criminalised context and gendered socio-economic realities. As a part of the project Regulation of Prostitution in Croatia, we conducted 10 interviews with sex workers from the two largest cities in Croatia. For the purposes of this paper, we analysed motivations for entry, self-perception of sex work ; organisation and professional strategies to enhance security and autonomy ; strategies to cope with criminalisation and stigmatisation. Our preliminary findings show that motivation and self-perception in interplay with socio-economic structures has a significant impact on their everyday experiences of doing sex work and that protective and coping strategies vary significantly depending on the prostitution sites they engage in, as well as their gender. Those participants whose motivation for entry was not purely economic but included interest in sex (which was true for all men), and who had positive understanding of sex work, tended to work in more elite settings and earn more money, exercised more autonomy and had less problems with criminalisation and stigmatisation.

sex work ; motivations ; experiences ; protective strategies

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