Reasons to Work in the Sex Industry during the Coronavirus Pandemic:

The Untold Narratives of Women Working in the Sex Industry

抄録

This paper examines the underlying gender issues that can be found in the reasons for women to work in the sex industry. As observed in previous studies, women working in the sex industry currently face hardships in life and work, with “job shortages and isolation due to the influence of coronavirus （COVID-19）” as well as “wrist cutting and trauma in the past.” The above issues are interrelated and are also linked with social issues resulting from COVID-19 and so forth. The women interviewed chose the sex industry for financial and psychological reasons. The sex industry is a “place where sex is the main theme” which is normally controlled without being uncovered, and the survey revealed that unvoiced “hardships in life” like loneliness and trauma are expressed through “sex work.” It seems that the work of current sex workers has an aspect to offer men as users of the sex industry the “untold background” of survival sex that grew during the coronavirus pandemic. The “reasons to select sex work” have just diversified now, when the world is in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the main reason to select sex work used to be to make a living, including loan repayment and poverty, before the pandemic, the reasons have been multifarious and variegated subsequently.

Ethical consideration: This paper is based on answers obtained from interviews targeting females working at sex trade shops in Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture. The content of the interviews described in this paper may infringe on the privacy of some survey targets. For the purpose to protect the privacy of sex workers to whom stigma might be easily attached, all names of survey targets referred to in this paper are expressed by alphabet letters. Geographical names of shops where they work or their specific ages were also omitted in this paper.