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Students in the Sex Industry: Motivations, Feelings, Risks, and Judgments

Student sex work is a current phenomenon all over the world, increasingly reported by the media in recent years. However, student sex work remains under-researched in Germany and is lacking direct first-hand reports from the people involved. Further, sex work remains stigmatized, and therefore, stud...

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Autores principales: Ernst, Felicitas, Romanczuk-Seiferth, Nina, Köhler, Stephan, Amelung, Till, Betzler, Felix
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7950320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33716855
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.586235
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author Ernst, Felicitas
Romanczuk-Seiferth, Nina
Köhler, Stephan
Amelung, Till
Betzler, Felix
author_facet Ernst, Felicitas
Romanczuk-Seiferth, Nina
Köhler, Stephan
Amelung, Till
Betzler, Felix
author_sort Ernst, Felicitas
collection PubMed
description Student sex work is a current phenomenon all over the world, increasingly reported by the media in recent years. However, student sex work remains under-researched in Germany and is lacking direct first-hand reports from the people involved. Further, sex work remains stigmatized, and therefore, students practicing it could be at risk of social isolation and emotional or physical danger. Therefore, this study examines students working in the sex industry focusing on their personal experiences and attitudes toward them. An online questionnaire was completed by 4386 students from Berlin universities. Students who identified themselves as sex workers (n = 227) were questioned with respect to their motivations to enter the sex industry, characteristics of their job, feelings after the intercourse, and perceived risks. Student non-sex workers (n = 2998) were questioned regarding knowledge of and attitudes toward student sex workers. Most student sex workers reported that they entered the sex industry due to financial reasons (35.7%). The majority reported offering services involving direct sexual intercourse. Disclosing their job to friends, family, or others was associated with less problems with social isolation and in romantic relationships. With a total of 22.9%, student non-sex workers reported never having heard about students working in the sex industry. The most frequent emotions mentioned by them with regard to student sex workers were compassion and dismay (48.9%). There was no difference in happiness between student sex workers and non-sex working students. Through this research, it becomes evident that there are similarities between the student’s motivations to enter the sex industry, their feelings, and the problems they have to face. Moreover, prejudices still prevail about the life of student sex workers. Increasing understanding of student sex work might help those sex workers to live a less stigmatized life and thereby to make use of support from others. The universities as institutions could form the basis for this, e.g., by openly supporting student sex workers. This could help to encourage the rights of student sex workers and to gain perspective with respect to the sex industry.
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spelling pubmed-79503202021-03-12 Students in the Sex Industry: Motivations, Feelings, Risks, and Judgments Ernst, Felicitas Romanczuk-Seiferth, Nina Köhler, Stephan Amelung, Till Betzler, Felix Front Psychol Psychology Student sex work is a current phenomenon all over the world, increasingly reported by the media in recent years. However, student sex work remains under-researched in Germany and is lacking direct first-hand reports from the people involved. Further, sex work remains stigmatized, and therefore, students practicing it could be at risk of social isolation and emotional or physical danger. Therefore, this study examines students working in the sex industry focusing on their personal experiences and attitudes toward them. An online questionnaire was completed by 4386 students from Berlin universities. Students who identified themselves as sex workers (n = 227) were questioned with respect to their motivations to enter the sex industry, characteristics of their job, feelings after the intercourse, and perceived risks. Student non-sex workers (n = 2998) were questioned regarding knowledge of and attitudes toward student sex workers. Most student sex workers reported that they entered the sex industry due to financial reasons (35.7%). The majority reported offering services involving direct sexual intercourse. Disclosing their job to friends, family, or others was associated with less problems with social isolation and in romantic relationships. With a total of 22.9%, student non-sex workers reported never having heard about students working in the sex industry. The most frequent emotions mentioned by them with regard to student sex workers were compassion and dismay (48.9%). There was no difference in happiness between student sex workers and non-sex working students. Through this research, it becomes evident that there are similarities between the student’s motivations to enter the sex industry, their feelings, and the problems they have to face. Moreover, prejudices still prevail about the life of student sex workers. Increasing understanding of student sex work might help those sex workers to live a less stigmatized life and thereby to make use of support from others. The universities as institutions could form the basis for this, e.g., by openly supporting student sex workers. This could help to encourage the rights of student sex workers and to gain perspective with respect to the sex industry. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-02-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7950320/ /pubmed/33716855 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.586235 Text en Copyright © 2021 Ernst, Romanczuk-Seiferth, Köhler, Amelung and Betzler. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Ernst, Felicitas
Romanczuk-Seiferth, Nina
Köhler, Stephan
Amelung, Till
Betzler, Felix
Students in the Sex Industry: Motivations, Feelings, Risks, and Judgments
title Students in the Sex Industry: Motivations, Feelings, Risks, and Judgments
title_full Students in the Sex Industry: Motivations, Feelings, Risks, and Judgments
title_fullStr Students in the Sex Industry: Motivations, Feelings, Risks, and Judgments
title_full_unstemmed Students in the Sex Industry: Motivations, Feelings, Risks, and Judgments
title_short Students in the Sex Industry: Motivations, Feelings, Risks, and Judgments
title_sort students in the sex industry: motivations, feelings, risks, and judgments
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7950320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33716855
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.586235
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