Sex Work: A service behind closed doors
Escort girls in Haifa provide one or more services in return for cash or products, including sexual favors. But the community of sex workers as a whole is not uniform. While indoor sex workers are hired to work in brothels, massage parlors, or as escort ladies, street sex workers are mostly undocumented employees who meet customers on the street and service them in alleys or the clients’ cars. Both street and indoor sex workers have been found to frequently face significant levels of maltreatment as children and adults, according to previous study. Although indoor sex workers experience less abuse and trauma than street sex workers, they nonetheless have greater rates of abuse and trauma than the overall population.
No matter where they work, escort girls frequently face significant stigma-related barriers as a result of their perceived gendered norm violations, including having sex with multiple partners and strangers, exercising sexual initiative and control, arousing male desires, and being paid for having sex. An acute concern of others “finding out” about their profession because of the stigma attached to it sometimes goes hand in hand with stigma, which can be internalized or externalized through the discrimination of others.
While there are some similarities between those who perform sex on the streets and those who perform it indoors, in general there are dramatically distinct problems and circumstances surrounding their profession. Compared to outdoor sex workers, indoor sex workers are much less likely to report using inject-able drugs or having health problems. Due to laws and limitations in the legal sex industry, they are also less likely than outside workers to report worries about their personal safety or to face workplace violence. Additionally, indoor sex workers are more likely to consider their employment a profession rather than a temporary job, stay in the field for an extended period of time, and indicate a variety of worries about their work, such as issues concerning their personal relationships.
