Stigmatization of Sex Work and Worker Identity among Female Sex Workers

Historically associated with immorality and criminality, prostitution is still, nowadays, the object of moral crusades which maintain its stigmatisation. Confronting this stigma, male and female sex workers either push it away onto others or reject it altogether. Even though the degrading nature of the activity has been said to be the product of an alienation of sexuality which thus alienates identity, and that research studies make this a basic premise, the analysis of sex work practices indicates that it would not be the case. The existing link between sexuality and identity is not inherent, but rather the product of a social construction aiming at controlling sexuality.