Exploring Sex Work through a Capability Lens: Does the Capability Approach Predict Sex Work Involvement among a Substance-Abusing Sample?

摘要

The daily lives of individuals involved in sex work differ from the mainstream experience in many ways. These individuals experience multiple risks each day, including high rates of poverty, instable housing, high mortality rates, substance abuse and victimization, among other oppressions. Common notions of sex work still revolve around the antiquated view of sex workers as commodities, with little attention paid to the humanistic aspects of sex worker's lives. In order to address this gap, the current study explored the utility of a humanizing conceptual framework, the Capability Approach, in predicting sex work involvement. It is hypothesized that lower capability would predict sex work involvement among a substance-abusing sample. Results suggest that the Capability Approach can be used to differentiate between sex workers and their substance-abusing counterparts, and that gender and race influence how capability predicts sex work. The current findings support recent calls in the literature for the development of tailored services to meet the needs of this population in a humanizing, rather than oppressive, way.