The Influence of Significant Others on the Course of the Process of Leaving Sex Work

The purpose of the article is to present the barriers to leaving sex work which are related to the influence of significant others on decisions made by sex workers. The analysis was applied in the case of two categories of significant others (organizational and intimate), which through interactions in escort agencies and on family grounds, respectively, may exert a destructive influence on sex workers’ intentions, referring to their life and the act of leaving sex work. Therefore, the relationships with significant others described in the article interfere in the process of these women’s identity transformation, hindering the development of a self-concept outside prostitution. The article is based on qualitative research carried out in escort agencies in one of the biggest Polish cities.


Introduction
Scientific deliberations over prostitution are usually focused on one of two stages -entry into or leaving prostitution. There have been numerous studies devoted to the conditions that are advantageous for the decision to get involved in the sex business, https://doi. org/10.18778/1733-8069.11.3.08 and make an attempt to leave sex work. What is more, the author strongly emphasized that the process of leaving prostitution and social reintegration is highly dependent on the legal framework in the United Kingdom that criminalizes many aspects of sex work (Sanders 2007:92). It would appear that this conclusion may be expanded also to other coun-tries where the current legal systems are based on solutions derived from prohibition or abolitionist systems. Such solutions support the fact that the deviant status and identity of sex workers is maintained during and after their involvement (Sanders 2007:93). In other words, criminalization is one of the trapping factors, hindering the act of leaving prostitution.
Highly interesting results are brought by the research performed by Julie Bindel et al., which was focused on going beyond the barriers related to leaving prostitution, both in the on-street and offstreet groups in Great Britain (2012). The researchers highlighted the nine most difficult barriers which make it harder for sex workers to leave prostitution. These were: problematic drug use; problems with housing; physical and mental health problems; having had experiences of violence as a child (childhood violence, including emotional, physical, verbal and sexual violence); criminalization; conviction for crimes connected with prostitution (as many as 49% of those researched); the role of money (managing debts or high levels of disposable income); experiencing coercion from others (a partner, pimp, relative or another person, being a victim of human trafficking) to remain in prostitution; a lack of qualifications or training; and entering prostitution at a young age (Bindel et al. 2012:7-9). As observed by the authors, the listed barriers were often present together, strengthening one another, hence the support to women desiring to leave prostitution ought to be coordinated and holistic (Bindel et al. 2012:7).
As a result of the research, the process of leaving prostitution was also reconstructed, taking place in phases that begin at the point at which women be- Izabela Ślęzak gin to express an interest and take steps, however tentative, towards exiting, through to the final stage in which the women come to adopt a non-prostitution related identity and develop a new sense of self (Bindel et al. 2012:11). Furthermore, the researchers highlighted the significance of formal and informal networks of support, and if those are insufficient, also on the possibilities to use more intensive forms of institutional aid (e.g. treatment programs) (Bindel influence of significant others on the self-concept and, as a result, on taken or non-taken actions, in this case the change of a life career. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to analyze the influence of significant others on the course of the process of leaving sex work. In my deliberations I focus on those aspects of the influence that limit the process of leaving, mute it and cause individuals to stay in sex work for a longer time. Hence, the topic of the article is not composed of "objective" features of the social situation of sex workers, but rather their identity which results from particular actions and interactions with social actors from the closer and further social surroundings. Although in the literature of the subject much attention is devoted to the criminal side of the sex business, related to keeping women against their will and forcing them to provide sexual services with violence and threats, this phenomenon does not constitute the main field of interest in this article. The article will refer to far more subtle processes which are interconnected with the redefinition of sex workers' roles and their self-concept in such a manner that, against their desires, they remain in prostitution, and are incapable of performing the process of leaving effectively. In the research referring to the process of leaving prostitution and to the barriers in its realization, factors relating to interaction and identity are often treated far more superficially than the "hard" indexes pointing to the percentage of addicted sex workers, the level of poverty or the mismatch of their educational profile to the requirements of the labor market. However, much as the process of getting involved in sex work is of a collective charac-ter (Ślęzak 2014), the act of leaving is closely related to the social surroundings of a given sex worker -professionally (connected with the kind of prostitution, which she is involved in), as well as with her family and origin, relationships with a partner or husband, and the circle of friends from outside the world of the sex business. In other words, to render the process successful it is important who the significant other for the sex workers is, and what influence they exert on making and realizing the decision about leaving. It is important whether a given worker has support networks, allowing for a relatively smooth leaving process, or whether she feels she has been left to her own devices and has no strength to take up this challenge.
A theoretical concept that is especially useful to explain the process of the influence of others on the decisions (taken and abandoned) in the process of leaving sex work is symbolic interactionism. This perspective, from the beginning of its existence, is interconnected with the performance of research which is focused on the processes of change, status passages, turning points and role changes (Månsson and Hedin 1999:68). According to this theory, it is assumed that "human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them," "the meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction than one has with one's fellows" and "these meanings are handled in, and modified through, own interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters" (Blumer 1986:2). Therefore, this perspective provides a set of principles that seeks to find understanding about the world and social interactions by exploring the meaning that people attach to their behaviors, interactions and experiences (Sanders 2007:77).
The adoption of such an analytical perspective allows us to notice the process of leaving sex work, first of all its barriers, in another light. As in the article I will be dealing with those processes that are created through interactions with significant others, I would like to focus on this concept a little closer here.
The concept of other has a long tradition in interactionist sociology, which is based on the assumption that a human learns a definition of himself, as well as definitions of other social objects, within the course of interactions with various social classes of others, among which there are individuals that play the especially important role of significant others. Their influence is not limited to the process of primary socialization (Berger and Luckman 1966), but it is visible also during secondary socialization throughout the whole life of an individual (Ziółkowski 1981). Significant others provide a cognitive perspective, which allows an individual to define, i.e. to classify and evaluate the world, acting in accordance with those definitions of situations (Shibutani 1962). These are the ones that the individuals are identified with, thanks to which the significant others may exert some influence on the shape of their identity (Hughes 1958;Kuhn 1972). In an adult's life, an individual may interact with various people who become significant others for them, which usually results from the individual's biography and transformations of their identity (Hughes 1958;Shibutani 1962;Denzin 1972).
It is worth highlighting that within the course of the empirical research, two dimensions of the notion of significant others have been distinguished. One of them is orientational significant other, i.e. a person who provides an individual with a cognitive perspective, maintaining certain stability in time, and exerting some influence on their biography. The individual is strongly connected with the person who plays that role, in an emotional and psychological respect. This person is a source of crucial notions and categories applied in relation to themselves and to others, and the identity of the individual is maintained or changed within the process of communicating with that orientational significant other (Kuhn 1964:18).
Another dimension of the significant other is the role-specific significant other. This notion refers to the influence exerted by other people on the currently played and situationally conditioned role of a social actor (Denzin 1972:195). However, as a result of the conducted research, N. Denzin put forward a hypothesis that, in some cases, the role-specific significant other may gradually, under the influence of biographical transformations, change into an orientational significant other. A reverse situation is also possible (Denzin 1972:196-197).
The concept of a significant other inspired the analysis of collected empirical data. In the article, I will distinguish two categories of significant others which I developed for the needs of the analysis.
The first one is posed by the organizational significant others, who may be compared to role-specific significant others. They are first of all the workers and visitors of escort agencies, who are guides to Interactions with significant others are strictly connected with the process of building and transforming identity (Strauss 1997). Each newly established concept of oneself undergoes the reckoning of significant others, who may acknowledge it or deny acknowledgment. All discrepancies in this respect require an individual to take actions -to adopt a self-concept imposed by other, to reject it or to make an attempt to make actions of compromise. However, an individual is not always capable of ignoring the reckoning of significant others and risks separation (Berger and Luckman 1966;Strauss 1997). Therefore, in the article I will draw much attention to such situations. The process of leaving sex work may be interpreted as a biographical action scheme (Schütze 1981) that a given individual needs to imagine, formulate, plan, and

Techniques and Methods
The article is based on data collected during empirical studies that I performed in escort agencies in

Significant Others in the Specific Landscape of Social Relationships of Sex Workers
While deliberating the social surroundings of the subjects involved in prostitution for a longer time, its considerable erosion may be observed. Most of the researched women were willing to maintain a closed awareness context (Glaser and Strauss 1972), where nobody outside the agency knew about the work. As a result, for many of them, the commencement of sex work caused a limitation or the breakdown of relations with family members or friends for them to be able to keep the secret. In turn, some interviewees' lack of (or dysfunctional) relationships that created the support networks posed a factor that encouraged them to get into the sex work. In such cases, the women often perceived this step as the only effective manner to manage in a difficult situation: The results of research by other researchers also point out that women experienced housing problems and homelessness during their involvement in prostitution. These problems became visible through for example being forced to seek an apartment from pimps or abusive partners to prevent homelessness, or involvement in prostitution to pay the rent or a mortgage installment. Apartment problems cause the feeling of isolation and result in living far from family support networks, or staying together with women involved in prostitution (Bindel et. al. 2012:8) who may to some extent take on the role that should be played by relatives.
On the other hand, the group of researched women encompassed plenty of such people who not only believed that they could not and should not count on their family, but even on the contrary, they are the ones who should support them (first of all in the financial respect), through their involvement in sex work. In such situations, relationships with relatives did not always go according to the pattern of the closed awareness context (Glaser and Strauss 1972 if the sex work did not refer to them). In the relationships of the researched women, these situations adopted a form of various pressures to continue the sex work, even against the will of the interested parties.
In a further part of the article I will discuss those two basic patterns, focusing on the relationships of the researched women, first of all with organizational significant others, i.e. workers and visitors of escort agencies, which cause them to stay in sex work. Afterwards, I will move to a discussion of the relationships with intimate significant others, family members and partners who apply more or less subtle manners of exerting influence on women trying to leave sex work.

Organizational Significant Others
Women who, upon starting to work in an agency, break any ties with their relatives fill the resulting social emptiness with people met in the world of the agency. Regular interactions, remaining in the same space, sharing analogous problems and challenges related to everyday work in the premises and to their personal lives, bring the workers closer. As a consequence, they stop seeing each other in a stereotypical manner, through the prism of internalized and socially common beliefs on what a "typical prostitute" is like. Each position in the society is related to a collection of social expectations towards the people that occupy it. They describe stereotypical definitions of features ("auxiliary characteristics of status"), which, according to social beliefs, are held by a given individual (Hughes 1958:102-115 The meaning of relationships maintained with coworkers from the agency is greater, as in the face of narrowed support networks outside the sex work, For the women who hide from their relatives the fact that they are prostitutes, it may provide a great relief. However, the interactional "safety" experienced in the agency environment may, in the long run, close the workers only in this particular circle of friends, and incline them to limit their relations with people from the outside. Establishing and maintaining relationships outside the agency may be perceived as risky, for example regarding the anxiety of evaluation and rejection.
A highly significant element of the shared perspective is provided by the justifications and rationalizations which are created and maintained in the group of workers and which enable the development of involvement that supports the worker's presence in the agency. This process is especially intensive in the case of the socialization of a novice by a more experienced worker who becomes an organizational significant other for her. She may encour-age the woman to stay in sex work, or even torpedo attempts to leave it, discouraging her "charge" directly, listing reasons for which the woman should stay in prostitution. There are several actions of that kind that may be distinguished here.
The first of them is taming prostitution as work, which is carried out for money and because of money (Ślęzak 2014 A confirmed prediction may provide a turning point, as a result of which the worker starts thinking of herself in a different manner, accepting the transformation of her identity (Strauss 1997:96). Although she previously thought she had a plan of a limited-in-time involvement in sex work, it turns out in the agency that it is seldom the case that they leave prostitution quickly and without any problems.
Therefore, the worker starts to gradually perceive herself as a representative of this group of women who may not be successful in leaving, according to her plan. This belief, properly strengthened by organizational significant others, may become a self-ful- Therefore, the coworkers become a reference group which determines the scope of financial aspirations, showing the standard of living that may be achieved 2 In the concept of symbolic interactionism, the reference group provides the individual with a cognitive perspective and a system of values (Shibutani 1962:128-147). Hence, it is a group through the eyes of which the individual sees, classifies and evaluates reality and themselves (Ziółkowski 1981:76). Here, I make a reference to the concept spread by R. Merton (1968 It also needs to be emphasized that some women, under the influence of interactions with clients, started to perceive the agency as an opportunity to find a partner or a husband (Ślęzak 2014)  However, it ought to be noticed that organizational significant others may also keep the women in prostitution in a considerably more direct manner.
It consists in the women being forced, blackmailed, terrorized or violated by their bosses (less frequently by their coworkers). In these cases, changes in identity are brutally forced, and as a result, a woman may become a victim, incapable of taking effective actions in her defense. What is disturbing is the fact that the group of my interviewees comprised women who in the past were influenced by such actions, and despite it all, after regaining freedomdirectly or after a break -they would often return to prostitution, often regardless of the problems they would have to deal with mentally from previous experiences (cf. Szulik 2006).

Intimate Significant Others
The second pattern of the discouraging influence of  Such relationships trigger transformations in the identities of the women involved in prostitution. We learn to value ourselves for what others value in us.
Therefore, a woman becomes convinced that recog-work and ceasing to financially support to her family was harder than staying in the agency, although at the moment when the interview was conducted, she was deeply tired.
On the other hand, the potential act of leaving sex work is related to the anxiety about the necessity to reconstruct the identity and to learn to value oneself and others for different features than the material success achieved in the agency: In the case of the cited interviewee, the comparative reference group is located outside the agency. It is created by friends or family members, with "normal" jobs, and apart from that, when compared to her standard of living, they had achieved less. Such a situation is a source of pride experienced by herself and her family, which means that she finds it hard to plan and carry out the change of her professional path.
At the same time, the relatives may take more or less subtle actions, which are intended to steer the workers away from the attempts to leave sex work. It is related to worries of family members about their own standard of living. Regarding the fact that the relationships with significant others often remain in a mutual pretense context (Glaser and Strauss 1972 Relationships with intimate significant others may also adopt the form of more direct obligations, revealed as threats and violence, including physical, sexual, emotional and financial, as a manner of maintaining power over a woman, to force her to continue provision of sexual services (Bindel et al. 2012:9). As a result, it may block the attempts to leave sex work and stay in destructive relationships with the relatives. A frequent pattern was also leaving a violent relationship, which at the same time to keep the status quo in relationships with relatives and coworkers. However, these relationships come with a certain ambivalence, as the worker is aware that the significant others value her for her financial resources, which she is able to earn (and, on that basis, occupy a proper place in the hierarchy of workers -Ślęzak 2014) or spend (e.g. fulfill-3 The meaning of constructing and keeping the new identity in the process of leaving prostitution permanently was also emphasized by Bindel et al. (2012). Women, who at this stage made attempts to build a new lifestyle, created new relationships with friends, partners and coworkers, took part in new forms of employment, training or education, felt more sure in the process of leaving prostitution, trusted in their abilities to a greater extent and took more effective actions not to go back to prostitution (Bindel et al. 2012:12, c.f. Månsson andHedin 1999:72).
ing the family needs). However, the very manner of earning the resources itself may be used during a quarrel as an argument that depreciates a given woman (which I witnessed in the agency, and heard of during the interviews, when women talked about family disputes). Therefore, even if the organizational and, most importantly, intimate significant others discourage the workers from leaving prostitution, it does not mean that the relationships will become a source of further identity problems. If the relationships took place in a closed awareness con- The purpose of the article was to present the hindering influence of significant others on the process of leaving sex work. It is obvious in the literature of the subject, and in my research, that the opposite influence may also be observed. In numerous cases, a child or a partner posed a factor of transformation, motivating a woman to leave sex work (Månsson and Hedin 1999:74;Sanders 2007). It's interesting that in the interviews that I conducted there was no mention of social workers or streetworkers from organizations that support women providing sexual services, who would play the role of a strongly positive figure (e.g. a significant other), balancing the destructive influence of organizational or intimate others described above. A highly interesting element of the leaving sex work program, although practically not realized in Poland, would be peer-support for sex workers. It would support the creation of the vision of leaving as real and achievable (Bindel et al. 2012:14), which for many women may not be obvious. Peer educators would provide a counterbalance for the influence of significant others who encourage these people to stay in sex work.
It is worth emphasizing that such organizations have a lot to do in Poland, both in the scope of counseling and supporting actions, but also those which are of a more structural character. If the process of leaving is to end successfully, it is worth working through the various kinds of barriers, as they overlap and strengthen each other.