Advertisements that offer accommodation in exchange for sexual or “personal” services are increasingly common, aimed at vulnerable women who are struggling to find a place to live, says Victoria’s Council to Homeless Persons. When a vulnerable person informally exchanges sex for basic needs such as housing or food it’s known as “survival sex”. And a dire lack of affordable housing means young, vulnerable people, usually homeless women, increasingly feel as if they have no other option, says the council’s head, Jenny Smith. “Homelessness services have long reported that women in insecure accommodation, like couchsurfing, can feel an implicit expectation to have sex in order to avoid being kicked out”, says Ms Smith. “But these sex-for-rent ads are a more overt way of exploiting women.”

On both the Melbourne and Sydney Craigslist pages there are about half a dozen advertisements that offer a free or low-cost room to rent in return for some kind of informal sexual relationship. This obviously provides no legal tenure or rights, as there is no lease in place. Some are quite explicit: “I have a very high sex drive. Looking for similar”. Others seem more, well, confused about what they are offering: “Wifi and bills free to a girl for in exchange for an arrangement (pets and smoking permitted). I’m not asking for sex in exchange but would like to arrange something that we are both comfortable with.” For some the alternative can mean sleeping rough. Credit:Cole Bennetts And classified advertisements are not the only way these offers are made, with dating apps and social media groups forums where people offer “free” housing (with considerable strings attached).

Melbourne woman Ella* says that two years ago, when she was 18, she met a man who had advertised on a dating app that he wanted to give his wife the “gift” of a younger woman for sex. Ella was very vulnerable at the time. Her family life had broken down, she had no job, and had been couchsurfing, moving nine times in as many months. The intense stress had taken a toll, and in hindsight Ella knows she was suffering severe post-traumatic stress disorder and her judgment was awry. But, desperate for stable accommodation, she made contact with the husband and they got talking. Eventually Ella agreed she would have sex with him three times a week in return for her bond and rent. He did not mention his wife.

But Ella’s aunt had realised her niece was in the midst of a mental health crisis and offered her a room. Ella no longer felt she had to go through with the man’s proposal “It was really obvious I wasn’t mentally well and he was willing to exploit me,” Ella says. “That was the most horrible thing about it.” Juliet Watson is the Australian expert on survival sex, and the deputy director of the Union Housing Research Lab at RMIT. She wrote a book called Youth Homelessness and Survival Sex, published last year, based on in-depth interviews with 15 young homeless women between the ages of 18 and 25.

They told her they would meet men who told them they had a spare room. Only later would it be clear they were expected to exchange sex for it. “They said it would get later in the night and that creepy feeling would come on,” says Dr Watson. “But they would reason that at least if they were sleeping off the street, they would be safer.” Survival sex and sex work are not the same, says Dr Watson. Sex work involves a financial agreement between both parties and an exchange of sex for money. But survival sex is much more informal and subtle. “The young women talked about going home with men for accommodation but they never said they were doing sex work, at all. If men gave them money it was for things like groceries: he’s looking after me, he’s taking care of me.”