Gender and Sexual Practice in Structural Context

Condom Use among Women Doing Sex Work in Southern India

Bibliographic Data

ID2368087
AuthorsGay Young (0000-0001-8584-6096, American University, USA, corresponding author), Mona J E Danner (Old Dominion University), Lucía Fort (Independent Gender & Development Consultant, USA), Lucı́a Fort, Kim M Blankenship (0000-0003-4736-0225, American University, USA)
Year2018
Volume32
Issue6
Pages860-888
Publication date2018-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGender & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0891-2432 • E-ISSN: 1552-3977
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0891243218787757
OpenAlexW2883641970
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited46

In this study, we elaborate connections among gender, structure, and practice to suggest how social structural relations shape social sexual practice and, in the process, reshape gender relations. Using survey data from a study of a community mobilization intervention, we investigate the connection between institutional arrangements and condom use practice in sexual encounters with commercial clients and intimate partners among 410 women engaged in sex trade in a semiurban town in southern India. Multinomial logistic regression analysis uncovers the effects of 16 measures of gendered structural relations in three contexts-livelihood resources, household circumstances, and community mobilization intervention priorities. We compare women who practice either consistent or inconsistent condom use with both clients and partners with a reference group of women who practice consistent condom use with clients but not with partners. Results reveal the importance of household and community relations for consistent safer sex practice over and above the organization of sex trade. Our analysis advances gender theory in two interrelated ways: We contribute to gender theorizing in the implementation of health interventions, and to gender change more generally by thinking through possibilities emerging from recursive influences between reordered institutional configurations and altered expectations in interaction

Condom · Geography · Human sexuality · Multinomial logistic regression · Political science · Population · Psychological intervention · Reproductive health · Sex work · Sociology · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health · Demography · Gender Studies · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · Medicine · Psychology · Sex work and related issues · Social Psychology