Prostitute identities - Men, money and violence

This paper is concerned with women's sustained involvement in prostitution. In the late twentieth century it is taken for granted that women's involve ment in prostitution can be explained in terms of poverty and/or vulnerabil ity to predatory men. However, closer examination of the stories that prost itute-women recount reveals that their narratives are marked by a paradox t hat inheres in the contradictory effects of involvement in prostitution and the antithetical representations of prostitution offered by the women. Thu s the question arises: how are the contradictions accommodated in a way tha t permits the women to make sense of (and thus be sustained within) prostit ution, This paper focuses on the discursive strategies that the women deplo yed to do so. One of the hey devices is the construction of a prostitute-id entity which is constituted, within very specific, but shifting, meanings o f 'men', 'money' and 'violence'.