Sex Work, Motivations for Entry, and the Combined Impact of Both on Mental Health: A Case Report of Japanese Female Patients within Therapeutic Relationships ()
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study
was to explore the motivations for entry into the sex industry. The narratives
of four Japanese female psychiatric patients with a past experience of sex work
were used for analysis. I identified not only practical factors such as
financial difficulties or lack of job skills, but also various psycho-social
factors, namely: weak emotional ties with their mothers since infancy, their
mothers’ tendency to prioritize sons over daughters, unremitting needs for
maternal care, fear of rejection and object-seeking behavior, desire to control
others, envy and aggressive self-destructive behavior, difficulties in
establishing female peer relationships during adolescence, proneness to
dependency on male objects through sexual relationships, past histories of
crime and delinquency, weak internal motivation, frequent acting out, and
addictive behaviors. In this article I discussed whether their mental
maladjustment was purely the product of their past experiences as sex workers,
or whether in fact both the maladjustment and the motivations for entry were
derived from personality characteristics developed since infancy. Although not
applicable to every Japanese sex worker, this article presents a preliminary
hypothesis regarding the contribution of the above multi-dimensional factors to
the motivations for entry, and the following mental maladjustment.