Sex Workers’ Professional Experiences in the Interplay of Structure and Agency in Croatia

Abstract

There are still relatively few studies on job satisfaction and the quality of work among sex workers, partly due to the ideologies surrounding sex work. In this paper we move away from dichotomous thinking and investigate the professional experiences of indoor independent sex workers in Croatia against the background of criminalised context and gendered socio-economic realities. We look into sex workers’ motivations, perceptions and experiences, their control and safety strategies. The study shows that despite many structural constraints on the sex work-ers’ agency, all participants exercise some degree of autonomy and control over their working lives. The factors that seem to be the most relevant in terms of their ability to set up their own conditions, which in turn influences their ex-periences, are their economic situation, motivation and self-perception. Nega-tive experiences mostly stem from criminalisation and stigmatisation of sex work, which affects women primarily, and creates more risks to their health and safety. The results of the study call for integrative policy approaches, which presuppose full decriminalisation of adult voluntary sex work.