Business Women and Exit Programs

Contemporary research on prostitution tends to treat it either as a social problem that needs to be solved by criminalizing customers and supportive social programs (exit programs) or as a manifestation of female agency. This article analyzes Danish ethnographic interview and observations with the so-called dominatrices. The theoretical concepts, boundary markers and body schema, are applied to identify dominatrices’ perception of themselves as businesswomen not representing a social problem. The dominatrices are used to discuss tailoring of exit programs, and the article concludes that core elements in these programs need to change if the dominatrices should be provided relevant opportunities to pursue a different profession.