Editing Sex worker (section)

== Risk reduction ==
Risk reduction in sex work is a highly debated topic. "Abolitionism" and "nonabolitionism" or "empowerment" are regarded as opposing ways in which risk reduction is approached.<ref name="Traffic Violations">{{Cite journal |last=Saunders |first=Penelope |date=March 2005 |title=Traffic Violations: Determining the Meaning of Violence in Sexual Trafficking versus Sex Work |url=http://myweb.dal.ca/mgoodyea/Documents/Migration%20studies/Determining%20the%20meaning%20of%20violence%20in%20sexual%20trafficking%20versus%20sex%20work%20Saunders%20J%20Interpers%20Viol%202005%2020(3)%20343-360.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Journal of Interpersonal Violence |volume=20 |issue=3 |pages=343–360 |doi=10.1177/0886260504272509 |pmid=15684141 |archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120915113821/http://myweb.dal.ca/mgoodyea/Documents/Migration%20studies/Determining%20the%20meaning%20of%20violence%20in%20sexual%20trafficking%20versus%20sex%20work%20Saunders%20J%20Interpers%20Viol%202005%2020(3)%20343-360.pdf |archive-date=2012-09-15 |access-date=24 April 2014 |s2cid=42875911}}</ref> While abolitionism would call for an end to all sex work, empowerment would encourage the formation of networks among sex workers and enable them to prevent STIs and other health risks by communicating with each other.<ref name="Reframing Sex Worker Health">{{Cite journal |last1=Tucker |first1=Joseph |last2=Astrid Tuminez |year=2011 |title=Reframing the Interpretation of Sex Worker Health: A Behavioral–Structural Approach |journal=Journal of Infectious Diseases |volume=204 |issue=5 |pages=S1206–10 |doi=10.1093/infdis/jir534 |pmc=3205084 |pmid=22043033}}</ref> Both approaches aim to reduce rates of disease and other negative effects of sex work.

In addition, sex workers themselves have disputed the dichotomous nature of abolitionism and nonabolitionism, advocating instead a focus on sex workers' rights. In 1999, the Network of Sex Worker Projects claimed that historically, anti-trafficking measures have been more concerned with protecting 'innocent' women from becoming prostitutes than with ensuring the human rights of those in the sex industry.<ref name="Traffic Violations" /> Penelope Saunders, a sex workers' rights advocate, claims that the sex workers' rights approach considers more of the historical context of sex work than either abolitionism or empowerment. In addition, Jo Doezema has written that the dichotomy of the voluntary and forced approaches to sex work has served to deny sex workers agency.<ref name="Global Sex Workers Kempadoo">{{Cite book |last=Kempadoo |first=Kamala |author-link=Kamala Kempadoo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rnx0DwAAQBAJ |title=Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition |date=1998 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317958673 |location=New York, NY}}</ref>

=== Health ===
Sex workers are unlikely to disclose their work to healthcare providers. This can be due to embarrassment, fear of disapproval, or a disbelief that sex work can have effects on their health.<ref name="Sex Worker Health: San Francisco" /> The criminalization of sex work in many places can also lead to a reluctance to disclose for fear of being turned in for illegal activities. There are very few legal protections for sex workers due to criminalization; thus, in many cases, a sex worker reporting violence to a healthcare provider may not be able to take legal action against their aggressor.<ref name="Violence + Condom Negotiation" />

Health risks of sex work relate primarily to sexually transmitted infections and to drug use. In one study, nearly 40% of sex workers who visited a health center reported illegal drug use.<ref name="Sex Worker Health: San Francisco">{{Cite journal |last=Cohan |first=D |date=Oct 2006 |title=Sex Worker Health: San Francisco Style |journal=Sexually Transmitted Infections |volume=82 |issue=5 |pages=418–422 |doi=10.1136/sti.2006.020628 |pmc=2563853 |pmid=16854996}}</ref> In general, transgender women sex workers have a higher risk of contracting [[HIV]] than [[cisgender]] male and female sex workers and transgender women who are not sex workers.<ref name="Sex Work HIV Transgender Women">{{Cite journal |last=Operario |first=Don |date=May 1, 2008 |title=Sex Work and HIV Status Among Transgender Women: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis |url=http://www.igh.org/Cochrane/Operario_etal.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=97–103 |doi=10.1097/qai.0b013e31816e3971 |pmid=18344875 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140428143743/http://www.igh.org/Cochrane/Operario_etal.pdf |archive-date=28 April 2014 |access-date=24 April 2014 |s2cid=20298656}}</ref>

The reason [[transgender women]] are at higher risk for developing [[HIV]] is their combination of risk factors. They face biological, personal, relational, and structural risks that all increase their chances of getting HIV. Biological factors include incorrect condom usage because of [[erectile dysfunction]] from hormones taken to become more feminine and receptive anal intercourse without a condom which is a high risk for developing HIV. Personal factors include mental health issues that lead to increased sexual risk, such as anxiety, depression, and substance abuse provoked through lack of support, violence, etc. Structural risks include involvement in sex work being linked to poverty, substance abuse, and other factors that are more prevalent in transgender women based on their tendency to be socially marginalized and not accepted for challenging gender norms. The largest risk for HIV is [[unprotected sex]] with male partners, and studies have been emerging that show men who have sex with transgender women are more likely to use drugs than men that do not.<ref name="Potiat-2015">{{Cite journal |last=Potiat |first=Tonia |date=January 23, 2015 |title=HIV risk and preventive interventions in transgender women sex workers |journal=The Lancet |volume=385 |issue=9964 |pages=274–286 |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60833-3 |pmc=4320978 |pmid=25059941}}</ref>

Condom use is one way to mitigate the risk of contracting an [[Sexually transmitted infection|STI]]. However, negotiating condom use with one's clients and partners is often an obstacle to practicing safer sex. While there is not much data on rates of violence against sex workers, many sex workers do not use condoms due to the fear of resistance and violence from clients. Some countries also have laws prohibiting condom possession; this reduces the likelihood that sex workers will use condoms.<ref name="Violence + Condom Negotiation">{{Cite journal |last1=Shannon |first1=Kate |last2=Joanne Csete |date=August 4, 2010 |title=Violence, Condom Negotiation, and HIV/STI Risk Among Sex Workers |journal=JAMA |volume=304 |issue=5 |pages=573–574 |doi=10.1001/jama.2010.1090 |pmid=20682941}}</ref> Increased organization and networking among sex workers has been shown to increase condom use by increasing access to and education about STI prevention. Brothels with strong workplace health practices, including the availability of condoms, have also increased condom use among their workers.<ref name="Violence + Condom Negotiation" />

====Health concerns of exotic dancers====
In order to protect themselves from the stigma of sex work, many dancers resort to othering themselves. Othering involves constructing oneself as superior to one's peers, and the dancer persona provides an internal boundary that separates the "authentic" from the stripper self. This practice creates a significant amount of stress for the dancers, in turn leading many to resort to using drugs and alcohol to cope. Since it is so widespread, the use of drugs has become normalized in the exotic dance scene. {{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

Despite this normalization, passing as nonusers, or covering as users of less maligned drugs, is necessary. This is because strippers concurrently attribute a strong moral constitution to those that resist the drug atmosphere; it is a testament to personal strength and willpower. It is also an occasion for dancers to "other" fellow strippers. Valorizing resistance to the drug space discursively positions "good" strippers against such a drug locale and indicates why dancers are motivated to closet hard drug use.<br>Stigma causes strippers to hide their lifestyles from friends and family alienating themselves from a support system. Further, the stress of trying to hide their lifestyles from others due to fear of scrutiny affects the mental health of dancers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tyndale |first=Maticka |year=2000 |title=Exotic dancing and health |journal=Women & Health |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=87–108 |doi=10.1300/j013v31n01_06 |pmid=11005222 |s2cid=35709367}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Barton |first=B |year=2007 |title=Managing the toll of stripping boundary-setting among exotic dancers |journal=Journal of Contemporary Ethnography |volume=36 |issue=5 |page=571 |doi=10.1177/0891241607301971 |s2cid=140344003}}</ref>

=== Forced sex work ===
{{See also|Sexual slavery|Sex trafficking}}
Forced sex work is when an individual enters into any sex trade due to coercion rather than by choice. Forced sex work increases the likelihood that a sex worker will contract [[HIV/AIDS]] or another sexually transmitted infection, particularly when an individual enters sex work before the age of 18.<ref name="Associations of Sex Trafficking with Sexual Risk">{{Cite journal |last=Silverman |first=JG |date=18 March 2014 |title=Associations of Sex Trafficking History with Recent Sexual Risk among HIV-Infected FSWs in India. |journal=AIDS and Behavior |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=55–61 |doi=10.1007/s10461-013-0564-3 |pmc=4111225 |pmid=23955657}}</ref> In addition, even when sex workers do consent to certain sex acts, they are often forced or coerced into others (often anal intercourse) by clients. Sex workers may also experience strong resistance to condom use by their clients, which may extend into a lack of consent by the worker to any sexual act performed in the encounter; this risk is magnified when sex workers are trafficked or forced into sex work.<ref name="Violence + Condom Negotiation" /><ref name="Violence Against Women - Baltimore">{{Cite journal |last=Decker |first=Michele |date=23 September 2013 |title=Violence against women in sex work and HIV risk implications differ qualitatively by perpetrator |journal=BMC Public Health |volume=13 |issue=876 |pages=876 |doi=10.1186/1471-2458-13-876 |pmc=3852292 |pmid=24060235 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Forced sex work often involves deception - workers are told that they can make a living and are then not allowed to leave. This deception can cause ill effects on the mental health of many sex workers. In addition, an assessment of studies estimates that between 40% and 70% of sex workers face violence within a year.<ref name="Violence + Condom Negotiation" /> Currently, there is little support for migrant workers in many countries, including those who have been trafficked to a location for sex.<ref name="Mobility Sex Work Entry + HIV risk">{{Cite journal |last=Goldenberg |first=S.M. |date=14 June 2013 |title="Right Here is the Gateway": Mobility, Sex Work Entry and HIV Risk Along the Mexico–US Border |journal=International Migration |volume=52 |issue=4 |pages=26–40 |doi=10.1111/imig.12104 |pmc=4207057 |pmid=25346548}}</ref>