One of the questions Aline turned to most often in our interviews with her colleagues and friends in Vila Mimosa was, “What do you think about clients who try to have sex without a condom?”
As the conversation indicates, for many women, it isn’t a question of whether they know the risks associated with having sex with condoms without a client. They frame it in either moral terms, as something they refuse on principle; or in pragmatic terms, recognizing that sometimes, money talks louder, and calculated risks are taken.
For context, prostitution is a federally recognized occupation in Brazil, and prostitutes began mobilizing for civil rights, including their right to work, in the late 1980’s under the leadership of the late activist Gabriela Leite.
Read on about how Brazil’s sex worker rights movement and its Ministry of Health partnered in creating one of the most well-structured and efficient HIV/AIDs prevention programs in the world.
[…] talks about what makes a good client, and what she will and won’t do upstairs, and weighs in on a popular question among her colleagues – are there men offering money for sex without a […]