Womanhood first: sex workers & infertility in Pune city

Abstract

This qualitative study is based on interviews and group discussions with 107 sex workers from the red‐light district of Pune city, Maharashtra, India. Data were collected on the stigma of infertility and how sex workers deal with it. It was found that because sex workers have sex outside marriage, they are stigmatized for not fitting the ‘ideal’ image of womanhood. They suffer very much from these stigmatizations. They are also stigmatized because they are childless. Like many women and men in India, sex workers have internalized the value that a good woman ‘must’ have children. They try to deal with the stigma of childlessness and conceive children by having sex with a surrogate ‘husband’. Some sex workers who are unable to do this buy a baby from a colleague.