‘I dodged the stigma bullet’: Canadian sex workers’ situated responses to occupational stigma

COVID-19 Prevention and Protecting Sex Workers: A Call to Action

“…Those who exchange sex may regularly experience the social repercussions of stigmatized and criminalized work (Benoit, Jansson, Smith, & Flagg, 2018 ; Lutnick, 2019 ), including a lack of access to health care (Krüsi et al, 2014 ; Shannon et al, 2018 ). Research has shown that some sex workers also report increased experiences of homelessness, unemployment, incarceration, mental illness, drug use, and various forms of personal and structural/systemic violence and abuse (Benoit et al, 2019 ; Human Rights Campaign, 2020 ; Krüsi et al, 2014 ; Platt et al, 2020 ). All of these intersecting experiences impact sex workers’ ability to access health care and limit their ability to adhere to COVID-19 prevention practices.…”

“…All of these intersecting experiences impact sex workers’ ability to access health care and limit their ability to adhere to COVID-19 prevention practices. Furthermore, criminalization, targeted policing, and environments that limit worker agency impact sex workers’ abilities to practice harm reduction and health promotion behaviors (Benoit et al, 2019 ; Herek 2004 ; Shahmanesh, Patel, Mabey, & Cowan, 2008 ; World Health Organization 2014 ). As with successful HIV prevention initiatives with sex workers, targeted COVID-19 prevention efforts must also take into account structural barriers to virus prevention and health promotion.…”

The Relative Quality of Sex Work

“…In regard to employment, most participants had experience in other personal service jobs marked by insecurity, including food preparation/service, sales work and domestic services that lack status shields and have some aspects of ‘dirtiness’ (Ashforth and Kreiner, 2014). Sex work includes all three types of taint and is routinely excluded from occupational prestige scales due to its intense stigmatization (Benoit et al, 2015a, 2015b, 2019a, 2020; Vanwesenbeeck, 2017). One-third of sex workers reported that occupational stigma embedded in society’s laws and social policies had a negative impact not only on their work quality but also their job safety (Benoit et al, 2016b, 2017a).…”

“…Previous publications have addressed some of these topics, including unmet health care needs (Benoit et al, 2016a; Orchard et al, 2020), confidence in the police (Benoit et al, 2016b), views on Canada’s prostitution laws (Benoit et al, 2017a), self-esteem (Benoit et al, 2018), the impact of prostitution stigma at work and in personal lives (Benoit et al, 2019a, 2019c) and responses to prostitution stigma (Benoit et al, 2020). In another article based on a qualitative analysis of motivations for entering sex work, the authors found that participants identified three overlapping structural and agentic reasons for entry: critical life events, desire or need for money and personal appeal of the work.…”

‘I Can Lead the Life That I Want to Lead’: Social Harm, Human Needs and the Decriminalisation of Sex Work in Aotearoa/New Zealand

“…As a stigmatised population, sex workers are clearly impacted by relational harms. The stigma associated with sex work is well-documented (see for example Sallman, 2010;Bruckert, 2012;Benoit et al, 2018Benoit et al, , 2019. While sex workers in a range of legislative environments are impacted by stigma, this is most pronounced when the sex industry is subject to criminalisation, through inferring that those involved in it are dangerous and problematic (Krüsi et al, 2014).…”