TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2008//
TI  - A "Perversion" of Choice
JO  - Journal of contemporary ethnography
A1  - Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi
A1  - Rosen, Eva
SP  - 417
EP  - 441
VL  - 37
IS  - 4
N2  - 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 "satisfices" 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 /> 
LA  - 
SN  - 0891-2416
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891241607309879
ID  - ref1
ER  -