HIV and the social world of female commercial sex workers.

This research, based on repeated interviews with 12 female commercial sex workers (SWs) in Perth, Australia, attempts to explain why SWs in that city are not a source of transmitting HIV to clients during sexual intercourse. Perth SWs report that they routinely use condoms during work-sex. But it was also found that they are at risk of being infected with HIV through sexual intercourse with boyfriends and husbands because use of condoms during sexual intercourse with these men is reportedly rare. This pattern of selective condom use is part of the larger social world within which SWs use, with varying degrees of success, six strategies to demarcate work-sex from nonwork-sex. Within this social world SWs also construct six rationales to help them cope with the threat of HIV infection during nonwork-sex. Further research into this social world may help to lessen the threat of HIV infection to these women.