ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the key points raised throughout the chapters of this book and suggests areas for future research. This chapter argues that the agent-victim dichotomy in feminist thought shows an essentialist tendency, leaving little scope for recognizing culture-specific understanding of sex work. Highlighting sex workers' continuum of experiences, it argues that there is more to sex work than the dichotomy. In their day-to-day lives, sex workers show resilience, negotiate their working conditions, maintain relationship with family and intimate partners, and strive to cope with hunger by remaining engaged in sex work. Their experiences vary depending on their mode of work and mechanism of entry into sex work. Sex worker's understanding of work is grounded on the gender norms of the Bangladeshi society based on which they consider sex work to be abject. Their relationship with their intimate partners, their adherence to femininity and their day-to-day struggle to escape hunger and survive from violence—all these shape their understanding of risk which is very different from an epidemiological understanding of risk. All these findings indicate that sex work in Bangladesh is different from elsewhere, necessitating an understanding from a Southern perspective.
