This article aims to decrypt the imbalance in social relations between people present in an area of travestic prostitution in the south of Lima, the capital of Peru. While young people travelling every evening on the spot are targeted by forms of violence and domination exercised by the police and clients, they react to this situation by putting in place response strategies to enable them to continue in this sex trade and, by doing so, to ensure their own survival. The analysis of these interactions highlights some individual and collective logic characterising extreme poverty, combined with the marginality and deviation resulting from the sexual choice of these adolescents and young adults.