Leaving Prostitution

Getting Out and Staying Out of Sex Work

While street prostitutes comprise
only a small minority of sex workers, they have the highest rates of physical
and sexual abuse, arrest and incarceration, drug addiction, and stigmatization,
which stem from both their public visibility and their dangerous work settings.
Exiting the trade can be a daunting task for street prostitutes; despite this,
many do try at some point to leave sex work behind. Focusing on four different
organizations based in Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Hartford that
help prostitutes get off the streets, Sharon S. Oselin’s Leaving
Prostitution explores the difficulties, rewards, and public responses to
female street prostitutes’ transition out of sex work.

Through in-depth
interviews and field research with street-level sex workers, Oselin illuminates
their pathways into the trade and their experiences while in it, and the host
of organizational, social, and individual factors that influence whether they
are able to stop working as prostitutes altogether. She also speaks to staff at
organizations that aid street prostitutes, and assesses the techniques they use
to help these women develop self-esteem, healthy relationships with family and
community, and workplace skills. Oselin paints a full picture of the difficulties
these women face in moving away from sex work and the approaches that do and do
not work to help them transform their lives. Further, she offers
recommendations to help improve the quality of life for these women. A powerful
ethnographic account, Leaving Prostitution provides an essential
understanding of getting out and staying out of sex work.