Prevalence and correlates of sexual risk among male and female sex workers in Tijuana, Mexico

Abstract

We investigated prevalence and correlates of sexual risk behaviours among male and female sex workers in Tijuana, Mexico, the busiest border crossing area on the US – Mexico border, analysing survey data from a purposive, cross-sectional sample of male and female sex workers who worked in a range of indoor and outdoor settings. Logistic regression was used to determine factors that were associated with sexual risk-taking, defined as failing to use a condom with last client. In bivariate regression models, gender, work setting (e.g., indoor vs. outdoor), poverty, engaging in survival sex, marital status and perceived drug addiction were correlated with sexual risk. When controlling for work location, housing insecurity, poverty, survival sex, marital status and perceived drug addiction, male sex workers were still 10 times more likely than female sex workers (FSW) to engage in sex without a condom during their last encounter with a client. And, although FSW were significantly more likely than males to have used a condom with a client, they were significantly less likely than males to have used a condom with their regular partner. Future research should further examine how gender shapes sexual risk activities in both commercial and non-commercial relationships.

Keywords:

• sex work
• gender
• condom use
• sexual risk
• Mexico

Notes

1. No female-to-male transgender sex workers were known to clinic officials, nor were any identified during the time period of this study.

2. Data were also collected from transgender sex workers, but the sample size was too small to make statistical comparisons, therefore, this data are not included in the present analysis.

3. Since the time of this study, research on the Tijuana sex industry has become a veritable cottage industry for researchers, particularly those in the San Diego area (see e.g., Patterson et al. 2008). Although methamphetamine use has become increasingly popular, there is no indication that the general social landscape of the area changed over the past decade. There continue to be no published studies comparing male and female sex workers in this area. The analysis presented in this article is based on the first (and to our knowledge, only) anthropological study of the Tijuana sex industry, making it unique in its methods, findings and overall approach.