Tricking and Tripping Essay

The article Tricking and Tripping by Sterk was an interesting article about prostitution. I found it interesting because she was actually integrating herself into prostitution without actually prostituting and how some of the prostitutes accepted and befriended her, and one pimp was actually nice and had her back. When Sterk said, “I’m sorry for you,” to one of the prostitutes, she got offended thinking that Sterk meant she felt sorry for the prostitute because she was a failure when Sterk really meant she was genuinely concerned for the prostitute.

I think fieldwork would be an extremely difficult job because you have to actually go out and basically get your hands dirty and put your life in dangerous situations. Sterk had to deal with most of the things that prostitutes had to like pimps, crack-heads, other prostitutes, rude costumers, and weather along with barely an access to a restroom.

I think that the fact that Sterk grew up in Amsterdam, where prostitution is legal, didn’t affect her research because even though she grew up where it was legal she was doing research where it wasn’t.

On the other hand, I could see how it may have affected her research and maybe even started her interest in it because if prostitution was legal, then she would probably see more STD infected women therefore, making her more interested in why women are risking their lives for money. I think all the themes that she listed were important but two that really stuck out to me were themes one and six. Theme one is basically what got the prostitute to decide to enter the business and theme six is how she escaped.