Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Email: gshi cfenet. This article explores strategies and barriers to increase safety among men and trans sex workers and clients of men in Vancouver, Canada. Drawing on a socioecological framework, thematic analysis of interview transcripts was conducted utilizing ATLAS. Narratives indicate that gentrification and urban planning led to social isolation and loss of social support networks among men in the sex industry.
Narratives reveal how the Internet can provide greater opportunities to negotiate terms of sex work and enhanced screening using webcams, reducing risks of violence, stigma, and police harassment for both workers and clients compared with the street. This study highlights how losing Boystown led to a loss of community and solidarity: key protective measures for sex workers. Recent legal reforms in Canada to further criminalize sex work raise significant concern for human rights and health of individuals in the sex industry, and point to the critical need to include voices of men and trans sex workers and buyers in policy discussions.
Keywords: men sex workers, trans individuals, clients, violence prevention, displacement, criminalization, online sex work.
Men who buy and sell sex worldwide are vastly heterogeneous and while they may experience an increasing burden of health and social inequities, the current understanding of various contexts, needs, and risk or protective practices among men sex workers and men sex buyers is very limited Baral et al.
This latter point signifies that men sex workers have been largely excluded from the majority of research that tends to focus on men who have sex with men MSM , trans women, and women sex workers.
