# Hustling and suffering: Male sex workers and HIV interventions in Kenya

## TL;DR

This paper explores how male sex workers in Kenya navigate pride and suffering while engaging in HIV interventions.

## Contribution

The study highlights the interplay between hope, resilience, and suffering in the context of HIV interventions among marginalized male sex workers.

## Key findings

- HIV interventions provide spaces for visibility and mobilization for MSM sex workers.
- Pride and shared suffering are central to the identity and resilience of male sex workers.
- Ambivalences toward health interventions should be considered in building resilience.

## Abstract

Participating in and working for HIV interventions is both a source of both pride and suffering for many men who have sex with men (MSM) who engage in low-paying sex work in Kenya. Drawing on ongoing intermittent ethnographic research conducted among MSM sex workers since 2010, we analyse the relationship between hope and resilience on one hand, and narratives of suffering and hustling on the other. We show how HIV technologies that provide spaces for visibility and mobilising, such as new treatment regimes, accompanying support groups and training programmes, as well as activist led organisations, allow MSM sex workers to contribute to national and global HIV responses with a sense of both pride and shared suffering. We argue that pride, suffering and hustling are central to male sex workers’ identity, solidarity and resilience. Attempts to build resilience among MSM sex workers and other highly marginalised people at continued risk for HIV would be advised to take their complex ambivalences towards health and rights-based interventions into account.