Survival Sex Work

Survival sex work is a term that appears self-explanatory as meaning sex for survival, but I have had to rethink its utility over the decades. In 1995, I began working as an outreach and advocacy worker with sex workers in Vancouver, British Columbia, at a charity called PACE Society. The organization’s mandate was to “eliminate the conditions that led to prostitution.” Around 2000, not only did the mandate shift to recognition of sex work as work, but we also tried to improve how we articulated the circumstances of diverse populations of sex workers. We had to communicate the plight of sex workers to politicians, policy actors, and funders to get support and investment while challenging stereotypes of sex workers as deviants, hapless victims, or worse, as responsible for their own victimization. Active and former sex workers within practitioner groups began using the term survival sex work as part of...