@article{ref1,
title="A "Perversion" of Choice",
journal="Journal of contemporary ethnography",
year="2008",
author="Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi and Rosen, Eva",
volume="37",
number="4",
pages="417-441",
abstract="In an apartment building on Chicago's Southside, fifty of the seventy-five residents are sex workers. Our study uses in-depth interviews and participant observation of Chicago's sex work economy to argue that sex work is one constituent part of an overall low-wage, off-the-books economy of resource exchange among individuals in a bounded geographic setting. To an outsider, the decision to be a sex worker seems irrational; in this article we argue that specific localized conditions invert this decision and render it entirely rational. For the men and women in our study, sex work acts as a short-term solution that &quot;satisfices&quot; the demands of persistent poverty and instability, and it provides a meaningful option in the quest for a job that provides autonomy and personal fulfillment.<p />",
language="",
issn="0891-2416",
doi="10.1177/0891241607309879",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891241607309879"
}