Sex work is work. This is the starting premise that, with influences from the work of Ana Lopes on the unionization of sex workers in England and the works of Alexandra Oliveira in Portugal, this article will focus on: the sex work in Portugal, the use of contraceptive methods by sex workers, their clients, and a new concept: contraceptive responsibility for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

This new concept came from conversations and interviews with sex workers that referred that some clients call to know if they do their work without protection (condom). This specific question from the clients was what made me think: why you should risk yourself and, worse, why put another person at risk without even caring or thinking about her. Even if they think that this is their job and they choose to do it, you are still putting someone on the spotlight making them choose between safety or earnings. But this is the daily life of a sex worker, constantly being put on the spotlight, whether it is for being a sex worker or having to choose between safety and earnings.

Before the last change in the Portuguese law, we had a regulatory model in 1853 while we were on a constitutional monarchy. There were regulations addressed to sex workers where specified what it meant to be a sex worker (with names like harlot, tolerated and public woman), the various measures to which they were subjected, such as the prohibition of staying in certain places that could offend public morality, like churches or squares, the obligation to register as a sex worker and periodic inspections, as well as a book to register the inspections (Oliveira, 2004). Like in Portugal during this time and in other countries with the regulatory model implemented, their aim is to enact measures to prevent offences to public morals and protect public health. However, this vision is reductive because once more the clients are set aside and protected by the state, while sex workers are declared the immoral group that fills the society and their men with venereal diseases.

After this chapter in the Portuguese law history, we changed from a regulatory model to a different one. In 1963, during the dictatorship in Portugal (1933-1974), sex work was criminalized, along with pimping, resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of sex workers imprisoned. This legislative model isn’t either prohibitionist, or abolitionist, or even like the Nordic model. It doesn’t condemn all the actors involved, like the prohibitionist model, it doesn’t condemn just pimping, like the abolitionist model, or it sanctions just the clients, like the Nordic model. It was an attempt to extinguish sex work and to show the population that if you choose to be a sex worker, you know the consequences. However, despite being criminalized in 1963, in 1967 Portugal saw itself in the British news because of a case that involved pedophilia, prostitution and child abuses involving high figures of the dictatorship, the Ballet Rose case. This is the main dish in many countries where there are attempts to extinguish sex work, it’s one of the many ways to push sex work to underground and make it impossible for sex workers to achieve basic human rights, to report sexual abuses, or even to report situations of traffic and sexual exploitation.

The abolitionist model was implemented in Portugal in 1982, this means that sex work is not illegal, apart from pimping, but there is no legislative position from the state, leading to its legal exclusion (Oliveira, 2017; L. Ferreira, 2018). This means that sex work is not illegal, but there is no regulation to support it, apart from the decriminalization of sex work and the criminalization of pimping. This model sees sex workers as victims and their work as unworthy, Marta Lamas (2014) accuses this ideological model of promoting an image of women in sex work based on victimization and their inability to take their own decisions, remaining a passive human being.

And so, since 1982, Portugal hasn’t changed the law, or made any amendments. The last attempt to change the law was in 2022, when the Centre-left political organization Juventude Socialista, which emerges as the youth party of the Socialist Party, tried to change from an abolitionist model to a regulatory model by regulating sex work as the best way to protect this group of citizens and safeguard their rights. However, the Movimento dxs Trabalhadores do Sexo (Sex Workers’ Movement in Portugal) made a judgement about the law project of Juventude Socialista, appreciating the highlight and visibility they want to bring to sex work, but their attempt would put sex workers in an even worst place, making it illegal for workers to work in praças (squares), which is the majority of this type sex work. This attempt didn’t move on, perhaps because of the Socialist Party, which has a strong opinion about not totally decriminalizing sex work.

As for the case in Portugal about sex work and pimping, the law is ambiguous, giving rise to various interpretations. An example is the attempt of the Movimento dxs Trabalhadores do Sexo to legalize their organization. Because of this ambiguous law, they can’t legalize the organization because they can be charged with pimping. So, in Portugal, there isn’t any syndicate of sex work because they all can be charge with pimping. Another example of this was with a woman, one of the many sex workers inside Movimento dxs Trabalhadores do Sexo, who was charged with pimping because she took her colleagues (also sex workers) to their workplace. With this ambiguous law, many other problems arise, for example: raising rents in apartments where sex workers work. In an interview that I had, the sex worker told me that the rent in the apartment where she and her colleague where working, costs 200€ a week. If we do the math, she will need to receive 5 clients in one week, imagining that the average price of each session is 40€, without adding basic needs such as food, water, or the need for a contraceptive method like condoms or pills, or even both. And, of course, without counting the numerous calls to joke or to ask if the job is made without protection.

So, despite of being legal, sex workers are still a marginalized community that needs to hide their faces or hide the fact that they are sex workers. They hide themselves from society, from their families, and even from the bodies designated for protection and shelter. And in the worst case, you are a migrant sex worker in a country where sex work is legal, but you don’t have the right to basic human rights, such as protection, support, or basic healthcare. Unless you are a normal migrant worker, and even then, nowadays in Portugal, you will still need to deal with racism or xenophobia.

How can they receive some kind of support? In Portugal, we have nongovernmental organizations that help sex workers. There are two different kinds of organizations: ones in favor of decriminalizing of sex work and others against it. The ones against decriminalizing sex work have an exit program, where the aim is to take those women out of the streets or out of such “unworthy” work. They don’t use and reject any term that suggests that sex work is work, usually using terms as the prostituted woman, and always sees sex workers as victims and objects of pimps. On the other hand, the organizations in favor of decriminalizing of sex work aim to help these women without deducting what they search for by giving them condoms and screening for sexually transmitted diseases. They also have exit programs for those who want to, never implying from the start that the exit program is why sex workers look for them.

Despite criticizing the non-governmental organization against decriminalization of sex work, I don’t want to take away their credit; however, there should be drawn lines in this type of organizations, especially when talking about trafficking women for purposes of sexual exploitation. Most of this organizations don’t believe in the autonomy and capacity of sex workers, painting them as victims who were forced by their pimps to lie to people about their “real” situation. In an interview with Movimento dxs Trabalhadores do Sexo, they talked about how sex workers and even themselves are constantly being put in the spotlight as liars and receiving questions such as, who is your pimp? Who told you to come here and say that?

This is a line that should be drawn. Life is not straight, and the acknowledgment that we know can be wrong, and there is nothing bad in being wrong, but not admitting or not listening to people just because of who they are – that is something to think about.

Apart from this support networks, we have the Movimento dxs Trabalhadores do Sexo, as mentioned earlier, and the Rede sobre Trabalho Sexual (Sex Work Network in Portugal). Rede sobre Trabalho Sexual was founded in 2011, incorporating members of the sex work network as sex workers and members of the academy. Their aim is to share acknowledgment and promote debates between the institutions in the field, sex workers, governmental bodies, and political decision-makers about the politics that affect sex workers, as well as their rights and duties. Movimento dxs Trabalhadores do Sexo was founded in 2018, a year before Covid-19, and they were born from Rede sobre Trabalho Sexual because their aim is to have a mediator, a bridge between the organization and sex workers. Also, they want to give sex workers the voice to speak for themselves without having an organization talk for them, and from that thought, Movimento dxs Trabalhadores do Sexo was born.

But their path was and is still not the easiest. Right after Movimento dxs Trabalhadores do Sexo was founded, they found themselves inside bureaucracies to legalize their organization. Because of the pimping law, anyone who facilitates the prostitution of another is to be accused of pimping, and that is precisely why they can’t legalize their organization. However, it’s not the end. When Covid-19 pandemic came, there were a lot of sex workers in precarious situations, without clients, without work, without money, without food to live on or to share with their children or partners. And during this time, Movimento dxs Trabalhadores do Sexo tried their best to give food baskets to sex workers and received a lot of help from other organizations, but not from all. Some of the abolitionist organizations refused, stating that they don’t do social work, even if the ones in need are women or children. Even if these organizations do help these women in need, they didn’t. Nevertheless, Movimento dxs Trabalhadores do Sexo said that, besides non-governmental organizations, other ones that helped, even with money, were the sex workers’ clients.

In a country where we fought for our freedom, where we are rising to fight for what we think is wrong because we have and feel empathy for one another, we still don’t seem to find the empathy for these communities. We have a lot of academics stating that criminalizing sex work is not the solution. We have New Zealand, which decriminalised sex work in 2003, and their fear of raising the industry or generating more violence within the group was refuted, and the lives of sex workers were considerably better than before.

The world of sex work, when criminalized or decriminalised but without a legislative position of the state, generates a separated economy within the country. Also sex workers don’t have the rights that a normal worker does; they don’t take vacations (if they take them, they don’t receive anything, and without working, they don’t have any money); they don’t have the right to slack off; they don’t have the right to stop their job if they feel ill because if they do, they won’t have enough money to treat themselves from the illness. Even when pregnant, where are they going to get their paternity leave? And let’s not forget that if a sex worker has children, they carry the risk of seeing their children taken away from them by the Comissão Nacional de Promoção dos Direitos e Proteção das Crianças e Jovens (commission for child and youth protection in Portugal). Also, the continuous harassment and blackmailing by the cops toward sex workers, making them choose between keeping their work or doing sexual favours in return for protection or for not harassing them.

This is the reality for most sex workers, especially migrant sex workers. Sex work is considered a job with inherent violence and abuse, but the psychological part of the job is sometimes forgotten. The stigma from society or even family members has consequences for the mental health of sex workers, making them develop strategies to impose limits between their job and their personal lives, taking the risk of causing negative emotional effects like detachment from friends and/or family, and dissociation.

So, it’s not always the nature of the job, but the negative social behaviour.

Erving Goffman (1982) says that stigma, as a stereotype and prejudice exerted by society on the stigmatised person, leads to isolation. Existing stereotypes are used to stigmatise others, and stigma doesn’t exist from an individual point of view but in a social context. By saying this, it’s society that creates stigma and isolates people that are counternature. We lack empathy and community sense. We talk about loving each other and being good to our peers, whether it’s in church, school or even at work, but we still haven’t found the empathy towards sex workers, or even the care to hear what they have to say to us or to teach us because we treat them as outsiders and avoid seeing them as human beings, or even as active agents in our society.