ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on sex worker's understanding of work and pleasure, exploring the ways their conceptualization is influenced by day to day struggles and broader aspects of culture such as purity of the female body, notion of honor, and idealization of shongshar. This chapter shows that sex workers understanding of work derives from their survival needs. It also shows that abjection occupies a central role in sex worker's conceptualization of work. Pleasure has varied meaning to the sex workers which often goes beyond sexual pleasure. While some relate sexual pleasure to private sex, others argue that enjoyment in commercial sex is not uncommon. This chapter further highlights that central to sex worker's lives is their desire for a shongshar which is considered to give completeness to Bangladeshi women. Understanding of sex work through the prisms of work and pleasure provides ways of framing critical questions in studies of sex work in a non-Western context.
