Sex Work and the City

Contents

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Preface

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pp. ix-xii

I grew up in California near a town called Nevada City. Established in 1849, Nevada City was a prosperous gold mining town, one of many in California. As a young girl, I visited its historic buildings and Victorian houses and marveled at the luxurious hand-carved stairways and dark red carpets of its stagecoach hotel. Just a few doors...

Acknowledgments

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pp. xiii-xiv

Introduction

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pp. 1-16

This book is based on eighteen months of intensive anthropological field research conducted in Tijuana, Mexico (2000–2001). My primary goals were, first, to document the experiences of a diverse range of sex workers who live and work on the U.S.–Mexican border, and, second, to understand the impact of one’s location in the social hierarchy on occupational health and safety. Although municipal laws, policies...

Chapter One. Tijuana’s Origins

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pp. 17-21

Long before Las Vegas emerged from the desert as a glittering haven for gambling and sex work, Tijuana, Mexico, had established itself as a frontier version of Sin City. Located on the western hemisphere’s only first world third world border, Tijuana is estimated to be the busiest international border crossing in the world (Ganster 1999). Like its border cousins...

Chapter Two. Tijuana Today

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pp. 23-38

Residents in the U.S.-Mexico border regions have overlapped economically, socially, and culturally for over 150 years. An estimated forty thousand residents of Tijuana travel to and from San Diego to work each day, spending an estimated one to three billion dollars on retail goods and services while in the United States (Lorey 1999). Family...

Chapter Three. Milk Money, Drug Money, and the Sexual Entrepreneur

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pp. 39-59

Milk money, drug money, and the sexual entrepreneur are three loosely defined categories that describe the motivations cited by the majority of participants in this study for engaging in sex work. They would probably apply in nearly any setting, in different proportions depending on economic climate, employment opportunities, welfare services

Chapter Four. Commercial Sex and the Social Landscape

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pp. 61-69

My first exposure to the commercial sex industry in Tijuana happened on Avenida Revoluci�n. A busy avenue attracting mostly U.S. tourists, this street has a number of strip clubs and bars that resemble those found in the United States. The visible presence of sexual commerce in this area normalizes the purchase of sex as just another...

Chapter Five. Legal Status and Policing

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pp. 71-111

In Tijuana, fear of sex workers as vectors of sexually transmitted infection (STI ) has led to calls for their increased regulation via registration, mandatory testing, and criminal penalties. Though this system is intrusive, it does benefit those who work legally in that their legal status allows them access to the safest and most profitable venues

Chapter Six. Gender Diversity

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pp. 113-142

The public’s collective knowledge about sex work is largely formed by stereotypes of and research conducted on female street prostitutes, particularly drug-addicted prostitutes, who often have a difficult time negotiating transactions with customers, are frequently taken advantage of, and are generally viewed as being out of control as...

Conclusions and Recommendations

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pp. 143-152

The implications of legal status on working conditions and occupational risk are clear. Although previous research on sex work in Mexico suggests a statistical correlation between work venues and risk for STIs,¹ I have demonstrated how work venues...

Notes

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pp. 153-159

Glossary

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pp. 161-

Bibliography

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pp. 163-171

Index

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pp. 173-174