Sexual exploitation is when someone takes advantage of an adult sexually, for their own benefit. That may be through using threats, bribes or violence. Anybody can be a victim of sexual exploitation.

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At Yada, we support women impacted by sexual exploitation whether that be through selling or exchanging sex, grooming, trafficking, cuckooing or within an intimate partner relationship.

Often there is a power imbalance between someone being exploited and a perpetrator, someone who is inflicting the abuse. The power they hold may be because of their gender, age, status, physical strength or because they are paying for sexual services.

Sexual exploitation can be a one-off situation, in which someone has been taken advantage of sexually, or an ongoing situation where a person may identify as being trapped in their situation or trafficked.

Sometimes women who have experienced sexual exploitation have experienced victim blaming. Victim blaming is the idea that there was something a victim could have done, or not done, to prevent the abuse they experienced. This leaves women feeling responsible for the actions of their abuser and increasing feelings of shame, guilt and isolation. It is important that we recognise responsibility always lies with the person choosing to perpetrate the abuse, not with the person experiencing it.

At Yada, we recognise that women’s experiences of sexual exploitation are complex and that there is no one way in which exploitation happens. Our support is centred around listening to women, understanding their individual circumstances and providing a safe, non-judgemental space in which they can access support.
Adults can be sexually exploited in many ways.

Examples include:

• rape
• sexual assault
• being tricked or manipulated into having sex or performing a sexual act
• being trafficked into, out of, or around the UK for the purpose of sexual exploitation
• being forced to take part in or watch pornography
• being victim to revenge porn (when a previously taken video or photograph, which was taken with or without consent, is shared online)

*reference: devonsafeguardingadultspartnership.org.uk/exploitation/sexual-exploitation

 

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Experiences of sexual exploitation in the sex industry

At Yada, many of the women we support are at risk or have experienced sexual exploitation whilst selling or exchanging sex. Not all women who are selling or exchanging sex identify as being exploited. That’s ok.

At Yada, we support women who are escorts, women who sell sex independently online via adult services websites, women who engage in survival sex (who sell/exchange sex for accommodation or other basic needs), women who are working in massage parlours and brothels, and victims of sexual exploitation and coercion.

We recognise the risks of being exploited whilst in the sex industry are high and want to support in reducing this risk. For example, you may have consented to one sexual service and someone did something outside of this. This would be exploitation.

There are many reasons a woman may start selling or exchanging sex. Some women may enter this feeling it is their choice. Other women may feel forced into this or feel they have no other option. 

It can take just one experience to feel you have gone from the ‘green’ of the spectrum of choice, ‘this is my choice, I feel empowered’, to the ‘red’ of ‘I feel exploited, this isn’t in my control’. It may be that, over time, a woman starts to feel exploited.

At Yada, we never judge. We are not an exit service; we are here to offer free support to women who are selling or exchanging sex, to support women to be as safe as possible and to process any experience that may have been exploitative.

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Experiences of sexual exploitation in the sex industry