Notes about violence implications in the psychosocial of women’s prostitution in Fortaleza city

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the psychosocial implications of violence in the context of low prostitution in the city of Fortaleza (Ceará), by trying to analyse the dynamics of violence and identify the psychosocial expressions of violence in the daily life of prostitutes. Violence against prostitutes is veiled in the universe of gender violence, reproducing the silencing that involves violence against women even when it occurs in the public sphere. The research has an ethnographic perspective, with the participation of seven formal interlocutors, using the “Content Analysis” as reference. The analysis shows that the dynamics of low Prostitution is crossed by the territorial arrangements, with the codes and rules of a prostitution zone in constant dispute with the territory. Violence is structured as a relational web that seeks to prevent the recognition of the other (class, gender or race/ethnicity) through the use of physical and/or symbolic forces, undermining the possibilities of dialogue, on one hand, and creating other codes, forms of social interaction and performances, on the other.