“Going Hand-in-Hand”: Connections Between Women's Prostitution and Substance Use

Abstract

Little is known about the impact of prostitution involvement on women's substance use and recovery. Interpretive phenomenological data analysis was used to analyze transcribed, in-depth interviews conducted with 14 women recruited from a Midwestern program providing prostitution-specific services. Interviews focused on what it means to be a woman who has engaged in prostitution. Participants described patterns of using substances and exchanging sex as “going hand-in-hand,” highlighting unique ways women understand the relationships between these phenomena and how they construct meaning. What emerges is a deeper understanding of the complexity and impact of these relationships, an issue not adequately addressed in existing literature.

KEYWORDS:

• addiction
• interpretive phenomenology
• prostitution
• women

The author would like to thank project participants and the administrators of the recruitment site program for making this project possible.

Notes

¹ For the purposes of this article, prostitution is defined as the exchange of sex or sexual contact for money, drugs, or other material goods, such as shelter or clothing. Included are both traditional (sex for money or drugs) and de facto (sex for other survival goods) exchanges. “Prostitution,” rather than “sex work,” is used throughout this article because that is how participants label their own experiences.

² The lengthier identifier of “prostitution-involved women” is chosen over the simpler term “prostitutes” to avoid the potential objectification and colloquial exclusivity of the term.

³ For the quotes presented in this article, pauses in speech are noted with a dash (—). Ellipses ( … ) indicate material has been omitted from the original quotation. Italicized words denote changes in the pitch, tone, volume, or inflection of the participant's voice.

⁴ “The stroll” commonly refers to a public area where prostitution occurs. To “walk the stroll” means to engage in soliciting customers in such areas, usually literally from the streets.

⁵ For this participant, “turn to the street” meant exchanging sex for money or drugs.

⁶ For example, the Grella, Etheridge, et al. (2000) study demonstrated that DATOS inquired about participants' prostitution involvement in the 12 months prior to entering treatment. However, despite a plethora of treatment outcomes publications based on this data set, to date none have utilized that measure to examine outcomes for prostitution-involved women.