The Sex Workers Outreach Project defines sex work as "any type of labor where the explicit goal is to produce a sexual or erotic response in the client", but many government entities and organizations have different definitions. Sex work is an umbrella term that may or may not include penetrative acts, trades, emotional labor, affiliation with the larger sex sector or industry, pornography, phone sex, street-based work, internet-based work, etc.. Not all exotic dancers consider themselves to be sex workers.
Sex work is like any other work: typically performed in the context of capitalist exchange. Most workers exist somewhere between loving their job and hating it, just like in any other industry.

Stigma and lack of legal rights continue to make access to health, legal, and social services difficult for many sex workers in the United States.


The United Nations advocates for voluntary STD testing for sex workers, and Amnesty International has recently come out in favor of decriminalization of all sex work.


The federal government in the United States currently does not legislate sex work. However, the vast majority of U.S. states have criminalized it. Folks who plan to migrate across international borders to work in this industry may want to know information about legality and visas in their destination country, as well as taking a glance at the State Department’s TIP Reports. Additionally, in 2003, George W. Bush’s administration wrote that any organization seeking funding for HIV/AIDS prevention through PEPFAR needed to adopt an organizational policy against sex work. This “anti-prostitution pledge” was ruled to be a violation of the first amendment, regardless of an organization’s location, in 2015.


Guam’s local prostitution laws state that: “A person who engages in, or agrees to engage in, or offers to engage in, sexual penetration or sexual contact or in any sexual conduct or act with another person in return for a fee or in consideration of a pecuniary benefit commits the crime of prostitution.” However, the Department of Public Health and Social Services mysteriously requires STD testing for workers in massage parlors. In 1996, the department also created a massage therapy designation for “legitimate” massage establishments. Owners quickly slipped through this legal loophole, avoiding the cost of testing their employees. After a bar raid in 2008, there was also a high-profile sex trafficking case in Guam. Bar owner Song Ja Cha was eventually convicted of bringing women from Chuuk to do non-consensual sex work at her karaoke bar, the Blue House Lounge. Several Guam police officers were also implicated in the case. There have been several legislative efforts to promote sign censorship and create a red light district, which have not been successful. Only tacitly acknowledging the sex industry legislatively makes it almost impossible to regulate it.