Stop Calling It Survival Sex If You're Going to Call It a Choice

When I first started working at CEASE, the term "survival sex" was unfamiliar to me. I thought I understood exploitation, but I quickly realized there was an entire reality experienced by vulnerable people that I had never truly considered. Learning about survival sex changed not only my understanding of exploitation, but also my understanding of choice itself.

Researchers Toney-Butler, Ladd, and Mittel define survival sex as situations where a person "trades sex for basic needs, food, a place to sleep, clothing, transportation, drugs, or money, because every other way of meeting those needs has broken down."

I will no longer call survival sex a choice.

Not because people don't make decisions. They do.

But because there is a world of difference between making achoice and doing what is necessary to survive.

When most people hear the term survival sex, theyimmediately begin evaluating the person involved. They ask why someone agreed.Why they didn't leave. Why they didn't find another way. What they could havedone differently.

What they rarely ask is what circumstances led them there inthe first place.

I've noticed that society is often far more comfortablejudging the survival strategy than examining the conditions that made thatstrategy necessary.

A person exchanges sex for a place to sleep and we questiontheir morals.

A person exchanges sex for food and we question theirjudgment.

A person exchanges sex because they are hungry, homeless,fleeing violence, or trying to avoid withdrawal and we question theircharacter.

Yet somehow we rarely question why anyone should be placedin that position at all.

That doesn't make sense to me.

Research on survival sex repeatedly points to powerimbalances, coercion, and limited agency. When someone's access to food,shelter, safety, or basic necessities depends on another person, the ability tofreely choose becomes increasingly complicated. Many individuals who haveexperienced survival sex describe feeling that they had few or no realisticalternatives.

The word "choice" suggests freedom.

Freedom to accept.

Freedom to refuse.

Freedom to walk away.

But when the alternatives are hunger, homelessness, danger,or desperation, that freedom begins to disappear.

Most of us have never had to make those calculations.

Most of us have never wondered where we would sleep thatnight.

Most of us have never had to choose between our immediatesurvival and our personal boundaries.

That matters.

Because it is easy to imagine what we would do when we haveoptions.

It is much harder to know what we would do when thoseoptions disappear.

I think stigma exists because it creates distance. It allowsus to believe that people experiencing survival sex are fundamentally differentfrom us. Different values. Different priorities. Different lives.

But vulnerability is not a character flaw.

And exploitation is not something that only happens to"other people."

The individuals most affected by survival sex are oftenthose already facing some of society's greatest inequities: youth experiencinghomelessness, Indigenous women and girls, 2SLGBTQ+ youth, survivors of violenceand childhood trauma, people living in poverty, and those struggling withhousing instability or substance use challenges.

These are not groups that need more judgment.

They need more understanding.

Compassion asks us to see the person before we see thecircumstance.

Compassion asks us to listen before we judge.

Compassion asks us to recognize that no one wakes up hopingto exchange sex for a meal, a bed, or a sense of safety.

People do what they must when survival is at stake.

The more I have learned about survival sex, the lessinterested I have become in asking, "Why did they do that?" and themore interested I have become in asking, "What happened that left themwith so few options?"

That question feels far more honest.

Behind every label is a person.

A person with a story.

A person with needs.

A person with fears.

A person trying to survive circumstances most of us hope wenever face ourselves.

Words matter.

When we describe survival sex as though it is simply anotherlifestyle choice, we ignore the desperation, vulnerability, and inequality thatoften surround it. We reduce complex human experiences to a single decision andoverlook everything that came before it.

I believe we need less stigma and more compassion.

Less judgment and more curiosity.

Less blame and more humanity.

Because nobody should be defined by the hardest thing theydid to survive.

And nobody deserves to be shamed for staying alive.

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Your Call to Action

CEASE offers real ways to help: from survivor support to youth programs and advocacy. Ready to make a difference? Start here. Let’s build a safer world, together.

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References:

- Toney-Butler,T. J., Ladd, M., & Mittel, O. (2023). Human Trafficking. StatPearls. NCBIBookshelf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430910/

- Czechowski,K. (2025). Sexual and romantic relationships among people experiencinghomelessness (Doctoral dissertation, University of Ottawa). uO Research. https://ruor.uottawa.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/6e69b4a6-b842-4ee1-a152-a3dfe6192261/content

- VoiceFound & Department of Justice Canada. (2023). Finding Our Voices: LivedExperiences in Human Trafficking. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/trafficking-traite/docs/rsd_rr2023_finding-our-voices_en.pdf

- TheTrevor Project. (2022). Homelessness and housing instability among LGBTQ youth.The Trevor Project. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Trevor-Project-Homelessness-Report.pdf

- Governmentof Canada. (2024).  Impact assessment& MMIWG Calls for Justice. https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/iaac-acei/documents/research/impact-assessment-missing-murdered-indigenous-women-girls-calls-justice.pdf

- Zhu, J., Exner-Cortens, D., Dobson, K., Wells, L., Noel, M., &Madigan, S. (2024). Adverse childhood experiences and intimate partnerviolence: A meta-analysis. Development and Psychopathology, 36(3), 929-943.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579423000196

- ScienceDirect. Adverse Childhood Experiences. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/adverse-childhood-experiences

- Housing,Infrastructure and Communities Canada. (2025). Homelessness data snapshot:Homelessness and immigration in Canada from 2020-2023. https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2025/licc-hicc/T94-60-6-2025-eng.pdf

- CanadianPublic Health Association. (2014). Sex work in Canada. https://www.cpha.ca/sites/default/files/assets/policy/sex-work_e.pdf