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"Whore" redirects here. For other uses, see Whore (disambiguation)

Prostitution is the sale of sexual services for money or other kind of return.

A sex worker in Germany.

Most prostitutes are women who offer their services to men, although there are male prostitutes, too. Customers of prostitutes are known as clients in Quebec, Canada, johns in the United States, punters in the UK, whilst in Sweden they are known as "Torskar", which means cod or loser.

The English word whore, referring to (female) prostitutes, is taken from the Old English word hōra (from the Indo-European root kā meaning "desire") but usage of that word is widely considered pejorative and prostitute is a less value-laden term. On the other hand, in Germany most prostitutes' organizations deliberately use the word Hure (whore) since they feel that prostitute is a bureaucrats' term and an unnecessary euphemism for something not in need of euphemisms. See also: call girl, courtesan, escort.

Male prostitutes offering their services to male customers are called "escorts", "hustlers", "rent boys", "punks" (US), "trade," or "boy toys." Male prostitutes offering services to female customers are comparatively rare and are known as "escorts" or "gigolos."

Organisers of prostitution are typically known as pimps (if male), madams (if female), and mama-sans if female and Asian.

Prostitutes are stigmatised in most societies and religions; their customers are typically stigmatised to a lesser degree.

The term prostitution is sometimes used in the more general meaning of having sex in order to achieve a certain goal different from procreation or pleasure. This includes forms of religious prostitution in which sex is practiced in compliance with religious precepts. Prostitution in this broader sense is also used in espionage.

Another generalisation is using the term or an equivalent to mean any form of earning well in an unscrupulous degrading manner, e.g. quote whore, media whore. The term pimp is also sometimes similarly used figuratively, as in poverty pimp.


Prostitution today occurs in various different settings.

  • In street prostitution the prostitute solicits customers while waiting at street corners or "walking the street".
  • Brothels are establishments specifically dedicated to prostitution, often confined to special red-light districts in big cities. Other names for brothels include Bordello, Whore-house and Cathouse. Prostitution also occurs in some massage parlours, and in Asian countries in some barber shops where sexual services may be offered for an additional tip.
  • In escort prostitution, the act takes place at the customer's place of residence or more commonly at his or her hotel room (currently referred to as "out-call"), or at the escort's place of residence or in a hotel room rented for the occasion by the escort (called "incall"). This form of prostitution often shelters under the umbrella of escort agencies, who ostensibly supply attractive escorts for social occasions. While escort agencies claim never to provide sexual services, very few successful escorts are available exclusively for social companionship. Even where this prostitution is legal, the euphemistic term "escort service" is common. (See call girl) In the US, escort agencies advertise frequently on the World Wide Web and example advertisements can be readily found on any major search engine and on open forum sites such as Craigslist. In the case of prostitutes using the internet to place ads, or prospective customers advertising for a prostitute, a long list of abbreviations and "code words" are used to describe how much a service may cost, or what specific act is being requested (see List of prostitution-related jargon terms).
  • Alternately, an escort may work independently of an agency and place advertisements on the internet or in newspapers and magazines for his or her own services, communicating with clients directly and setting up appointments on his or her own.
  • In sex tourism, travellers from rich countries travel to poorer countries such as Thailand in search of sexual services that may be unavailable in their own countries, or simply too expensive there. Other popular sex tourism destinations are Brazil, the Caribbean, and former eastern bloc countries.
  • The setting common in Russia and other countries of the former USSR takes the form of an open-air girl market. One prostitute stands by a roadside, and directs cars to a so-called "tochka" (usually located in alleyways or carparks), where lines of women are paraded for customers in front of their car headlights. The client selects a prostitute, whom he takes away in his car. This leaves the woman (often very young girls) particularly open to abuse. Prevalent in the late 1990s, this type of service has been steadily declining in the recent years.
  • A "lot lizard" is a commonly-encountered special case of street prostitution. Lot lizards mainly serve those in the trucking industry at truck stops and stopping centers. Prostitutes will often proposition truckers using a CB radio from vehicle parked in the non-commercial section of a truck stop parking lot, communicating through codes based on commercial driving slang, then join the driver in his truck.

High class prostitution can be extremely lucrative.

In many countries, illegal immigrants work in prostitution, sometimes against their will and generally in circumstances such that they feel they have no other choice. Often these prostitutes are kept in financial debt by the brothel owners, who charge them for their travel and other costs. The arrangement may be such that the prostitutes can never earn enough to pay off the debt. The term used for forcing people into prostitution is "sexual slavery".

Street prostitution

A stereotypical street-walker.
Main article: Street prostitution

In outside prostitution, the prostitute solicits customers while waiting at street corners, usually dressed in skimpy clothing. The act is performed in the customer's car, in a nearby alley, or in a rented room (motels that service prostitutes commonly rent rooms by the half or full hour).

Escort/Out-call prostitution

Calling cards in phone boxes advertise the services of call girls
Main article: Call girl

In the U.S. and some other western nations, those who work for an escort agency may obtain the position by responding to an employment advertisement, usually placed in the back of a magazine or newspaper. Escort agencies maintain a database or "stable" of employees of different types in order to cater to a wider client base. Some agencies may specifically deal in a certain type of prostitute. There are male-for-male, female-for-male, and female-for-female escort agencies, as well as a few male-for-female agencies. Agencies commonly specialise in only one sex. Transsexual prostitutes are available from some escort agencies.

Escort agencies typically advertise in regional publications and even telephone listings like the Yellow Pages. Many of them maintain websites with photo galleries of their employees. An interested client contacts an agency by telephone and offers a description of what kind of escort they are looking for. The agency will then suggest an employee who might fit that client's need.

The agency collects the client's contact information and calls the escort. Usually, to protect the identity of the escort and ensure effective communication with the client, the agency arranges the appointment. Sometimes it may be up to the escort to contact the client directly to make arrangements for location and time of an appointment. Generally the escort is also expected to call the agency upon arrival at the location and upon leaving to assure his or her safety.

The purpose of these details is to attempt protect the escort agency (to some degree) from prosecution for breaking the law. If the employee is solely responsible for arranging any illegal aspects of their professional encounter the agency could try to maintain plausible deniability should an arrest be made. However in practice, the use of undercover police evidence or the use of links to reviews of the agencies escorts usually results in this failing.

The amount of money that is made by an escort is different depending on race, appearance, age, experience (eg. pornography and magazine work), gender, services rendered, and location. Generally male escorts command less on an hourly basis than do women, while white women quote higher rates than black women, and youth can be as much a premium. For one point of reference reflecting trends in the gay community, the gay escort agency "TOPPS", based in Washington, D.C., charges $150 an hour for male escorts, and $250 an hour for transsexuals. That agency takes $50 an hour from the contractor. In larger metropolitan areas such as New York City, extremely attractive female escorts can charge $1000-$2000 per hour. The agency takes 40-50%.

Typically, an agency will charge their escorts either a flat fee for each client connection or a percentage of the prearranged rate. In San Francisco, it is usual for typical heterosexual-market agencies to negotiate for as little as $100, up to a full 50 percent of a lady's reported earnings (not counting any gratuity received). Most transactions occur in cash, and optional tipping of escorts by clients in most major US cities is customary but not compulsory. Credit card processing offered by larger scale agencies is often available for a service charge.

Independent escorts, also known as providers, have differing fees depending on many factors. For example; different seasons bring about different costs, as do regular and semi-regular customers. An escort who works less often may be able to command a premium for their exclusivity. One who sees several clients each day may charge less, but earn more in the end. Independent escorts tend to see clients for extended meetings involving dinner or social activities whereas escorts who work through agencies generally provide only sexual services.

Whilst the vast majority of escort agencies are sex related, there are some non-sexual escort agencies, where escorts provide companionship for business and social occasions.

Sex tourism

Main article: Sex tourism

Sex tourism is tourism, partially or fully for the purpose of having sex, usually with prostitutes. Sex tourism destinations are typically poor countries, where poverty drives people into prostitution. Examples of these countries are: Thailand, Cuba, and Ukraine. In the last few years, Argentina and Brazil have both become home to a number of sexpats who have emigrated there to avail of the cheap local currency and the opportunities for inexpensive sexual services afforded them by Argentina's depressed economy.

Some sex tourists organize themselves around a number of web sites where they boast about their conquests, share photos of their sex partners, discuss tips on finding prostitutes at the best possible rates in foreign countries and how to avoid detection both at home and abroad. Although most countries with a major sex tourism industry are working on attempting to reduce or eliminate sex tourism, the sex tourists have vested interests to promote their cause. Cities like Angeles City in the Philippines and Pattaya in Thailand, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands can be seen as catering to foreigners who go there to buy sexual services.

Socio-economic and legal status of prostitution

There is a superficial class divide between street walkers and high-end escorts. The services do tend to all be very similar. However, though locations may vary slightly, differences in price may be large. For example, a street-based sex worker who is paid $100 for sex may only take 15 minutes in the back seat of a client's car, however a brothel worker may have to do a full half-hour sex job for less.

The main difference in western countries between different forms of sex work is the legality. Street-based sex work is illegal all over the world except for Brazil, New South Wales, and New Zealand, and enforcement of prostitution laws falls to police vice units. Another major factor is migration status. Illegal immigrants from fellow western countries can travel freely and work without attention from authorities. However migrants such as Asians, Eastern Europeans or citizens of countries in Latin America tend to be the focus of anti-trafficking attention and subject to being detained and deported. In Australia recent Senate inquiries have even heard about the un-investigated deportation of sex workers who may have actually been working legally in the sex industry. Although the motivation of many governmental and NGO efforts to end human trafficking in this way is sincere, some have levelled criticism at the amount of effort put in to ending the trafficking of women and children for sex when compared with the trafficking of people for non-sex labor, which is a far larger enterprise, touching on hundreds of different industries.

In addition to the first world, this also takes place in countries of South Asia such as India and Thailand, where young girls are sometimes sold to brothel owners. In modern day Thailand and India this is becoming much rarer.

Female prostitutes, especially street prostitutes, are commonly associated with a pimp, a man who lives off the proceeds of several prostitutes and may offer some protection in return. The relationship between pimp and prostitute is often abusive, and is a source of much violence against prostitutes. Pimping is one way in which powerless or impoverished young women are recruited into sex work; the pimp will provide financial and emotional support, acting as boyfriend/friend, but eventually ask the young woman to perform sex acts for money. In areas where legal restrictions on prostitution are lighter, the power of pimps over prostitutes normally decreases, as the prostitutes are able to seek the protection of the law against their abusers.

There are other commercial sexual activities that are generally not classified as prostitution. These include acting and modeling for pornographic materials, even if this involves engaging in sexual intercourse; exotic dancing, which is naked, sexually provocative acting (sometimes involving masturbation) without physical contact with the customer; lap dancing, where the dancer may come into contact with the customer in sexually provocative but strictly limited ways; and commercial telephone sex.

In the case California v. Freeman, the California Supreme Court ruled that adult film makers could not be prosecuted under state laws against prostitution.

Legality of selling sex

File:Prostitutesinfrance.JPG
Prostitutes working in their vans in Lyon, France. This form of prostitution is often referred to as 'BMC'.

At one end of the legal spectrum, prostitution carries the death penalty in some Muslim countries; at the other end, prostitutes are tax-paying and unionised professionals in the Netherlands and brothels are legal and advertising businesses there (however, prostitutes must be at least 18 and the age of consent is 16 in other contexts). The legal situation in Germany, Switzerland (where the issue of legal age is a source of avid dispute, some insisting that one can legally be a prostitute as of one's sixteenth birthday, other maintaining it is eighteen), Greece, and New Zealand is similar to that in the Netherlands (see prostitution in the Netherlands, prostitution in Germany and prostitution in New Zealand). In the Australian state of New South Wales, any person over the age of 18 may offer to provide sexual services in return for money. In Victoria, a person who wishes to run a prostitution business must have a licence. Prostitutes working for themselves in their own business, as prostitutes in the business, must be registered. Individual sex workers are not required to be registered or licensed. In some countries the legal status of prostitution may vary depending on the activity; in Japan, for example, vaginal prostitution is against the law and fellatio prostitution is legal, as women who perform fellatio for money are not considered prostitutes in Japan.

In Turkey, street prostitution is illegal. There are government-run brothels in most cities, which house sex workers. Private brothels must have a license.

In the United Kingdom, prostitution is not formally illegal, but several activities surrounding it are outlawed. In England and Wales, the legal situation is :

  • for a prostitute to loiter or conduct solicitation in a street or public place is illegal, therefore outlawing street prostitution.
  • it is also illegal for a potential client to solicit persistently, or solicit from a motor vehicle ("kerb crawling").
  • owning or running a brothel is illegal.
  • child prostitution is specifically illegal for the person paying (where child is defined as younger than 18, although the age of consent is 16)
  • controlling prostitution for gain is an offence, banning pimping.

There has been long and widespread debate as to whether the a toleration of prostitution similar to that seen in The Netherlands and Germany should be extended. Local police forces have historically flipped between zero tolerance of prostitution and unofficial red light districts. The Government announced on January 17, 2006, that in England and Wales it was considering allowing small brothels, whilst continuing the crackdown against kerb-crawling, which is seen as a nuisance. A similar situation exists in Scotland, with prostitution itself not illegal but associated activities are. A Prostitution Tolerance Zones Bill was introduced into the Scottish Parliament but failed to become law.

In all but two U.S. states, the buying and selling of sexual services is illegal and usually classified as a misdemeanor. Regulated brothels are legal in several counties of Nevada (see prostitution in Nevada). In Rhode Island, the act of sex for money is not illegal, but street solicitation and operating a brothel are.

In Canada, prostitution itself is legal, but most other activities around it are not. It is illegal to live "off the avails" of prostitution (this law is intended to outlaw pimping) and it is illegal (for both parties) to negotiate a sex-for-money deal in a public place (which includes bars). To maintain a veneer of legality, escort agencies arrange a meeting between the escort and the client. Similarly, in Bulgaria prostitution itself is legal, but most activities around it (such as pimping) are outlawed.

Rules vary as to which roles in prostitution are illegal: being a prostitute, being a client, or being a pimp. In Sweden it is legal to sell sex, but it is illegal to be a pimp and since 1999 also to buy sexual services. The reason for this law is to protect prostitutes, as many of them have been forced into prostitution by someone or by economic necessity. Prostitutes are generally viewed by the government as oppressed, while their clients are viewed as oppressors. In the case of a prostitute under 18 in the Netherlands, being the client or pimp is illegal, but being the prostitute is not, except if the client is also underage (under 16). In most countries with criminalized prostitution, prostitutes are arrested and prosecuted at a far higher rate than their clients.

In Brazil and Costa Rica prostitution per se is legal, but taking advantage or profit from others' prostitution is illegal.

Prostitution is legal for citizens in Denmark, but it is illegal to profit from prostitution. Prostitution is not regulated as in the Netherlands; instead, the government attempts through social services to bring people out of prostitution into other careers, and attempts to lessen the amount of criminal activity and other negative effects of prostitution.

In Thailand, prostitution is illegal as stated in the Prevention and Suppression Act, B.E. 2539 (1996) .

Establishments engaged in sexual slavery or owned by organized crime are the highest priority targets of law enforcement actions against prostitution. Police also frequently intervene when prompted by local resident complaints, often directed against street prostitution. In most countries where prostitution is illegal, at least some forms of it are tolerated. This ambiguous status allows the police to extort money or services, particularly information on criminal activities that prostitutes are often well-placed to obtain, from prostitutes in exchange for "looking the other way".

A sign asking prostitutes to find customers discreetly.

Pimping is a sex crime in almost all jurisdictions. Some other countries retain the ill-defined offence of "living off the proceeds of others' prostitution", one of the prima facie evidences of which is co-habiting with a prostitute.

In 1949, the UN General Assembly adopted a convention stating that forced prostitution is incompatible with human dignity, requiring all signing parties to punish pimps and brothel owners and operators and to abolish all special treatment or registration of prostitutes. The convention was ratified by 89 countries but Germany, the Netherlands and the United States did not participate.

Some municipalities in the Netherlands would like a "zero tolerance policy" for brothels, i.e. not allow any, on moral grounds, but by law this is not possible. However, regulations, including restrictions in number and location are common. Whether a zero policy on urban planning grounds is allowed is still unclear.

Advertising prostitution

In countries where prostitution is legal, advertising it may be legal (as in the Netherlands) or illegal (as in Germany). In countries where prostitution is illegal, advertising it is usually also illegal.

Covert advertising for prostitution can take a number of forms:

  • by cards in newsagents' windows
  • by cards placed in public telephone enclosures: so-called tart cards
  • by euphemistic advertisements in regular magazines and newspapers (for instance, talking of "massages" or "relaxation")
  • in specialist contact magazines
  • via the World Wide Web

Regulated prostitution

Main article: Regulated prostitution

In some jurisdictions, such as Nevada (see prostitution in Nevada), Switzerland and in three Australian states or territories (Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory), prostitution is legal but heavily regulated.

Such approaches are taken with the stance that prostitution is impossible to eliminate and thus these societies have chosen to regulate it in ways that reduce the more undesirable consequences. Goals of such regulations include controlling sexually transmitted disease, reducing sexual slavery, controlling where brothels may operate and dissociating prostitution from crime syndicates.

The Dutch legalisation of prostitution has similar objectives, as well as improving health and working conditions for the women and weakening the link between prostitution and criminality.

Daily Planet is a brothel in Melbourne, Australia whose shares were listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2003, before listing difficulties - investors were asked to undergo police checks before buying shares - forced the listed company to divest the brothel back into private ownership (the company remained listed and continues its other business interests). There are various regulatory regimes governing prostitution in Australia and a level of increasing professionalism is being seen in the industry with the establishment of business associations like the Queensland Adult Business Association that ascribe to a strict ethical code which entrenches the independence of service providers.

Prostitution of children

Main article: prostitution of children

Regarding the prostitution of children the laws on prostitution as well as those on sex with a child apply. If prostitution in general is legal there is usually a minimum age requirement for legal prostitution that is higher than the general age of consent (see above for some examples). Although some countries do not single out patronage of child prostitution as a separate crime, same act is punishable as sex with an underage.

Some pedophiles use sex tourism to have access to sex with children that is unavailable in their home country. Cambodia has become a notorious destination for these pedophiles. Several western countries have recently enacted laws with extraterritorial reach punishing citizens who engage in sex with minors in other countries. These laws are rarely enforced since the crime usually goes undiscovered.

Prostitution and illegal immigration

A difficulty in many developed countries is the situation where persons immigrate illegally and work in the sex trade. (This is not quite the same issue as kidnapping and sex slavery). These people face deportation, and so do not have recourse to the law. Hence there are brothels that do not adhere to the usual legal standards intended to safeguard public health and the safety of the workers.

Violence against prostitutes

Prostitutes are at risk of violent crime , as well as possibly at higher risk of occupational mortality than any other group of women ever studied. For example, the homicide rate for female prostitutes was estimated to be 204 per 100,000 (Potterat et al, 2004), which is some times higher than that for the riskiest legitimate occupations in the United States during a similar period (4 per 100,000 for female liquor store workers and 29 per 100,000 for male taxicab drivers) (Castillo et al., 1994). However, there are substantial differences in rates of victimization between street prostitutes and indoor prostitutes who work as escorts, call girls, or in brothels and massage parlors (Weitzer 2000, 2005). Perpetrators include violent clients, pimps, and corrupt law-enforcement officers. Prostitutes (particularly those engaging in street prostitution) are also sometimes the targets of serial killers, who may consider them easy targets, or use the religious and social stigma associated with prostitutes as justification for their murder. Being criminals in most jurisdictions, prostitutes are less likely than the law-abiding to be looked for by police if they disappear, making them favored targets of predators. The unidentified serial killer (or killers) known as Jack the Ripper is said to have killed at least five prostitutes in London in 1888. More recently, Robert Pickton, a Canadian who lived near Vancouver, made headlines after DNA supposedly matching that of several missing prostitutes was found buried on his farm. He now stands charged with the murder of 26 Vancouver area women, and is suspected by police of killing at least four more (though no charges have been laid).

Human (or sex) trafficking

Main article: Trafficking in human beings

The trafficking in human beings includes recruiting, harbouring, obtaining, and transporting people by use of force, deception, fraud or intimidation for the purpose of subjecting them to involuntary acts, such as prostitution. Perpetrators may use physical force, debt bondage, abuse, or even force-feeding with drugs to control their victims. The trafficking in human beings is not the same as people smuggling. A smuggler will facilitate illegal entry into a country for a fee, but on arrival at their destination, the smuggled person is free; in people trafficking, the trafficking victim is kidnapped and enslaved. Victims do not agree to be trafficked: they are tricked and lured by false promises or physically forced.

Due to the illegal nature of trafficking (in this context, the illegal forced transportation of people), the exact extent of women and children forced into prostitution is unknown. A US Government report published in 2004, estimates that as many as 600,000 to 800,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year . These figures have been disputed by some (see International Review of Victimology, v.11, 2004). Whilst there is significant evidence of an increase in trafficking of women and children for forced prostitution, it is impossible to find reliable figures because of the clandestine nature of international trafficking and migration for purposes of prostitution.

The 1996 report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography estimates that about one million children in Asia alone are victims of the sex trade. According to the International Labour Organization, the problem is especially alarming in Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal and India.

Human trafficking is profitable. Globally, forced labour generates $31bn, half of it in the industrialised world, a tenth in transition countries, the International Labour Organization says in a report on forced labour ("A global alliance against forced labour", ILO, 11 May 2005). Trafficking in people has been facilitated by porous borders and advanced communication technologies, it has become increasingly transnational in scope and highly lucrative within its barbarity.

Many women unknowingly enter the sex trade when they respond to newspaper ads for jobs like waitressing, and nannys. Traffickers may own legitimate travel agencies, modeling agencies and employment offices in order to gain women's trust. Many people do find legitimate jobs abroad, so most women feel more or less safe when they are hired.

Many women are forced into the sex trade after answering false advertisements and others are simply kidnapped. Thousands of children are sold into the global sex trade every year. Often times they are kidnapped or orphaned, and sometimes they are actually sold by their own families. These children often come from Asia, Africa, and South America.

Traffickers mostly target developing nations where the women are desperate for jobs. The women are often so poor that they can not afford things like food and health care. When the women are offered a position as a nanny or waitress, they often jump to the opportunity.

Prostitution & Sex Crimes

Some studies suggest that prohibition encourages sex crime rates. One study in particular in 1991 derived an equation for rape as it relates to monthly prostitution income rates:

R = 12.414 − 0.1087 ∗ I . {\displaystyle R=12.414-0.1087*I.}

Where R {\displaystyle R} is rapes per 100,000 and I {\displaystyle I} is the monthly income of prostitutes.

One studyin particular by Kirby Cundiff has shown this relationship in different nations and suggests that for a US population of 275 million, legalization could decrease the amount of rapes by approximately 25,000 annually.

Medical situation

Prostitution has often been associated with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as AIDS. However, this is disputed by empirical data. Although prostitutes are not regularly studied as a group by the CDC or other recognized institutions, what little has been done on the subject suggests that female prostitutes have either HIV rates similar to the population or lower. Nevertheless, intravenous drug using prostitutes carry very high rates of HIV relative to the population. Studies on non-intravenous drug using prostitutes are scarce to non-existent.

Typical responses to the problem are:

  • banning prostitution completely
  • introducing a system of registration for prostitutes that mandates health checks and other public health measures
  • educating prostitutes and their clients to encourage the use of barrier contraception and greater interaction with health care

Some think that the first two measures are counter-productive. Banning prostitution tends to drive it underground, making treatment and monitoring more difficult. Registering prostitutes makes the state complicit in prostitution and does not address the health risks of unregistered prostitutes. Both of the last two measures can be viewed as harm reduction policies.

In Australia where sex-work is largely legal, and registration of sex-work is not practiced, education campaigns have been extremely successful and the non-intravenous drug user (non-IDU) sex workers are among the lower HIV-risk communities in the nation. In part, this is probably due both to the legality of sex-work, and to the heavy general emphasis on education in regard to Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). Safer sex is heavily promoted as the major means of STI reduction in Australia, and sex education generally is at a high level. Sex-worker organisations regularly visit brothels and home workers, providing free condoms and lubricant, health information, and other forms of support.

The encouragement of safer sex practices, combined with regular testing for sexually transmitted diseases, has been very successful when applied consistently. Prostitution appears to have little effect as a vector of STDs when safer sex practices are applied consistently. However, in countries and areas where safer sex precautions are either unavailable or not practiced for cultural reasons, prostitution appears to be a very active disease vector for all STDs, including HIV/AIDS.

How common is prostitution?

According to the paper "Estimating the prevalence and career longevity of prostitute women" (Potterat et al., 1990), the number of full-time equivalent prostitutes in a typical area in the United States (Colorado Springs, CO, during 1970–1988) is estimated at 23 per 100,000 population (0.023%), of which fraction some 4% were under 18. The length of these prostitutes' working careers was estimated at a mean of 5 years. A follow-up paper entitled "Prostitution and the sex discrepancy in reported number of sexual partners" (Brewer et al., 2000) goes on to estimate a mean number of 868 male sexual partners per prostitute per year of active sex work, and offers the conclusion that men's self-reporting of prostitutes as sexual partners is seriously under-reported.

A 1994 study found that 16 percent of 18 to 59-year-old men in a U.S. survey group had paid for sex (Gagnon, Laumann, and Kolata 1994).

A number of reports over the last few decades have suggested that prostitution levels have fallen in sexually-liberal countries, perhaps because of the increased availability of non-commercial non-marital sex.

Politics

Legal issues

Roughly speaking, the possible attitudes are:

  • abolition: "prostitution should be made to disappear"
    • "prostitution is immoral and prostitutes and their clients should be prosecuted": the prevailing attitude in much of the United States with a few exceptions like Nevada.
    • "prostitution is a sad reality of exploitation of the prostitutes, especially women, but prostitutes should not be criminalized", the current situation in Turkey.
      • "the clients of prostitutes exploit the prostitutes": prostitutes are not prosecuted, but their clients and pimps are, which is the current situation in Sweden.
      • prostitution is legal, but discouraged, while pimping is prohibited, the current situation in the United Kingdom and France among others;
  • regulation: prostitution may be considered a legitimate business; prostitution and the employment of prostitutes are legal, but regulated (with respect to health etc. concerns); the current situation in the Netherlands, Germany and parts of Nevada.
  • legalization: "prostitution is a victimless crime, and should be made completely legal so that it is no longer an underground activity, allowing the normal checks and balances of society and existing laws to apply"
  • decriminalization: "prostitution is labor like any other. Sex industry premises should not be subject to any special regulation or laws" such as in Australia and New Zealand. Proponents of this view often cite instances of government regulation under legalization that they consider intrusive, demeaning, or violent, but feel that criminalization adversely affects sex workers.

In some countries, there is controversy regarding the laws applicable to sex work. For instance, the legal stance of punishing pimping while keeping sex work legal but "underground" and risky is often denounced as hypocritical; opponents suggest either going the full abolition route and criminalize clients or making sex work a regulated business.

Many countries have sex worker advocacy groups which lobby against criminalization and discrimination of prostitutes. These groups generally oppose Nevada-style regulation and oversight, stating that prostitution should be treated like other professions. In the United States of America, one such group is COYOTE (an abbreviation for "Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics";;) and another is the North American Task Force on Prostitution. In Australia the lead sex worker rights organisation is Scarlet Alliance, . International prostitutes' rights organizations include the International Committee for Prostitute's Rights and the Network of Sex Work Projects .

Other groups, often with religious backgrounds, focus on offering women a way out of the world of prostitution while not taking a position on the legal question.

Feminism

Since most prostitutes are women, prostitution is a significant issue in feminist thought and activism. Some feminists argue that the act of selling sex need not inherently be exploitative, but that attempts to abolish prostitution - and the attitudes that lead to such attempts - lead to an abusive climate for sex workers that must be changed. In the new discourse, the redefinition of prostitution as "sex work" saw the development of the sex worker activism movement, comprising organisations such as the Australian Prostitutes Collective and COYOTE.

Feminists who believe that prostitution is inherently exploitative, such as authors like Andrea Dworkin, herself an ex-prostitute, argued in the 1980s that commercial sex is a form of rape enforced by poverty (and often overt violence by pimps). Proponents reject the idea that prostitution can be reformed. These feminists believe that the assumptions that women exist for men's sexual enjoyment, that all men "need" sex, or that the bodily integrity and sexual pleasure of women is irrelevant underlie the whole idea of prostitution, and make it an inherently exploitative, sexist practice. One feminist argument against Dworkin's position is that prostitution, in so far as it colludes with the perception of an inherent 'need' on the part of men for sexual release, is exploiting men more than it exploits women.

Sweden's 1999 law forbidding the purchase (but not sale) of sex was a natural extension of this view; the Swedish legal approach represents an attempt to understand prostitution from the prostitute's point of view, rather than that of the buyer. Many prostitutes in Sweden have decried the laws targeting clients, as they say the laws just drive the industry further underground and reduce sex workers' incomes without providing greater safety.

Some jurisdictions have responded to sex worker activism by decriminalising prostitution. The rationale for these legal reforms has been to extend to sex workers the same health and safety standards that apply to other professions involving close bodily contact, for example dentistry, nursing or hairdressing.

History

Prostitution is often described as "the world's oldest profession." It has been thought prostitution (at least in the modern sense) cannot have emerged before the emergence of money, which can only have taken place after the emergence of several trades, and it has been claimed that - when counting out hunting - midwifery, or perhaps gardening or teaching, are really the world's oldest professions. However, prostitution in exchange for goods or services may have been common for many thousands of years and may date to early man. Additionally, prostitution has been noted in Bonobo chimpanzee behavior based around access to food and gifts of food, and in penguins in regard to access for suitable stones for nest building. Until the age of industrialization the world was basically agrarian, so goods and services were most often obtained by barter.

In the ancient world

A type of religious prostitution was practiced in Cyprus (Paphus) and in Corinth, where the temple counted more than a thousand prostitutes (hierodules), according to Strabo. It was widely used in Sardinia and in some of the Phoenician cultures, usually in honour of the goddess ‘Ashtart. Presumably by the Phoenicians, this practice was developed in other ports of the Mediterranean Sea, such as Erice (Sicily), Locri Epizephiri, Croton, Rossano Vaglio, and Sicca Veneria. Other hypotheses regard Asia Minor, Lydia, Syria and Etruscans.

Near East

Prostitution was common in ancient Israel, despite being tacitly forbidden by Jewish Law. Some prophets, like Hosea and Ezekiel, strongly fought it. The religious cults of Canaan, where a significant portion of prostitutes were male, was likely a large influence.

In the Bible there is a story in which a woman (Tamar) poses as a false prostitute to seemingly commit incest with her father-in-law (Judah). In actuality, she wanted to become pregnant from Judah's family. Since Judah would not allow her to marry his youngest son Sheylah, for which Tamar was legally allowed to do under the levirate marriage law, she decided to pose as a prostitute in order to sleep with Judah himself. But Judah, taking her for a harlot, promised to give her a kid from the flock in order to sleep with her. In Jericho, a prostitute named Rahab assisted Israelite spies and she eventually married a member of the Jewish people. Rahab is supposed to be the great-great-grandmother of the famed Jewish king, King David. However this claim is not verified as being truthful.

Greece

Main article: Prostitution in Ancient Greece
Customer and a prostitute illustrated on an ancient Greek wine cup.
Roman hetaera, relief, around 2nd century—head is missing

In ancient Greek society, prostitutes were independent and sometimes influential women who were required to wear distinctive dresses and had to pay taxes. Some similarities have been found between the Greek hetaera and the Japanese oiran, complex figures that are perhaps in an intermediate position between prostitution and courtisanerie. (See also the Indian tawaif.) Some prostitutes in ancient Greece, such as Lais were as famous for their company as their beauty, and some of these women charged extraordinary sums for their services.

In Greece, Solon instituted the first of Athens' brothels (oik`iskoi) in the 6th century BC, and with the earnings of this business he built a temple dedicated to Aprodites Pandemo (or Qedesh), patron goddess of this commerce. The Greek word for prostitute is porne, derived from the verb pernemi (to sell), with the evident modern evolution. The procuring was however severely forbidden.

Each specialised category had its proper name, so there were the chamaitypa`i, working outdoor (lie-down), the perepatetikes who met their customers while walking (and then worked in their houses), the gephyrides, who worked near the bridges. In the 5th century, Ateneo informs us that the price was of 1 obole, a sixth of a drachma and the equivalent of an ordinary worker's day salary. The rare pictures describe that sex was performed on beds with covers and pillows, while triclinia usually didn't have these accessories.

Rome

In ancient Rome, while there were some commonalities with the Greek system, as the Empire grew prostitutes were often foreign slaves, caught, bought, or raised for that purpose, sometimes by large-scale "prostitute farmers". Enslavement into prostitution was sometimes used as a legal punishment against criminal free women. A large brothel found in Pompeii called the Lupanar attests to the widespread use of prostitutes in Rome around the turn of the century. Life expectancy for prostitutes was generally low, but some managed to get free and establish themselves e.g. as folk doctors. Like Greece, Roman prostitution was highly categorized, with titles for prostitutes and their places of trade including:

Ælicariae, Amasiae, Amatrix, Ambubiae, Amica, Blitidae, Busturiae, Casuaria, Citharistriae, Copae, Cymbalistriae, Delicatae, Diobolares, Diversorium, Doris, Famosae, Forariae, Fornix, Gallinae, Lupae, Lupanaria, Meretrix, Mimae, Noctiluae, Nonariae, Pergulae, Proseda, Prostibula, Quadrantariae, Scorta erratica, Scortum, Stabulae, Tabernae, Tugurium, and Turturilla.

Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages prostitution was commonly found in urban contexts. Although all forms of sexual activity outside of marriage were regarded as sinful by the Roman Catholic Church, prostitution was tolerated because it was held to prevent the greater evils of rape, sodomy, and masturbation (MCCall, 1979). Augustine of Hippo held that prostitution was a necessary evil: just as a well-ordered palace needed a good sewer, so a well-ordered city needed brothels (Aquinas, Summa Theologica).

After the decline or organised prostitution of the Roman empire, many prostitues were slaves. However, religious campaigns against slavery, and the growing marketisation of the economy, turned prostitution back into a business. By the High Middle Ages it is common to find town governments ruling that prostitutes were not to ply their trade within the town walls, but they were tolerated outside if only because these areas were beyond the jurisdiction of the authorities. In many areas of France and Germany town governments came to set aside certain streets as areas where prostitution could be tolerated. In London the brothels of Southwark were even owned by the Bishop of Winchester! (MCCall) Still later it became common in the major towns and cities of Southern Europe to establish civic brothels, whilst outlawing any prostitution taking place outside these brothels. In much of Northern Europe a more laissez faire attitude tended to be found. Prostitutes also found a fruitful market in the Crusades.

16th century

By the very end of the fifteenth century attitudes seemed to have begun to harden against prostitution. With the advent of the Protestant Reformation numbers of Southern German towns closed their brothels in an attempt to eradicate prostitution. The prevalence of sexually transmitted disease from the earlier sixteenth century may also have influenced attitudes.

Köçek troupe at a fair. Recruited from the ranks of colonized ethnic groups, köçeks were entertainers and sex workers in the Ottoman empire.

In some periods prostitutes had to distinguish themselves by particular signs, sometimes wearing very short hair or no hair at all, or wearing veils in societies where other women did not wear them. Ancient codes regulated in this case the crime of a prostitute that dissimulated her profession. In some cultures, prostitutes were the sole women allowed to sing in public or act in theatrical performances.

18th century to present

In the 18th century, presumably in Venice, prostitutes started using condoms, made with catgut or cow bowel.

Many of the women who posed in 19th and early 20th century vintage erotica were prostitutes. The most famous were the New Orleans women who posed for E. J. Bellocq.

In the 19th century, legalized prostitution became a public controversy as France and then the United Kingdom passed the Contagious Diseases Acts, legislation mandating pelvic examinations for suspected prostitutes. Many early feminists fought for their repeal, either on the grounds that prostitution should be illegal and therefore not government regulated or because it forced degrading medical examinations upon women. This legislation applied not only to the United Kingdom and France, but also to their overseas colonies.

Originally, prostitution was widely legal in the United States. Prostitution was made illegal in almost all states between 1910 and 1915 largely due to the influence of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union which was influential in the banning of drug use and was a major force in the prohibition of alcohol. In 1917 the legally defined prostitution district Storyville in New Orleans was closed down by the Federal government over local objections. Prostitution remained legal in Alaska until 1953 (though not yet a US state), and is still legal in some counties of Nevada.

Beginning in the late 1980s, many states increased the penalties for prostitution in cases where the prostitute is knowingly HIV-positive. These laws, often known as felony prostitution laws, require anyone arrested for prostitution to be tested for HIV, and if the test comes back positive, the suspect is then informed that any future arrest for prostitution will be a felony instead of a misdemeanor. Penalties for felony prostitution vary in the states that have such laws, with maximum sentences of typically 10 to 15 years in prison. An episode of COPS which aired in the early 1990s detailed the impact of HIV/AIDS among prostitutes to which the felony prostitution laws is deemed as part of HIV/AIDS awareness.

In the 1970s some religious groups were discovered practicing religious prostitution as an instrument to make new adepts.

Other meanings

In colloquial usage, the word "prostitute" is sometimes generalized to mean the selling of one's services for a cause thought to be unworthy, in the sense of "prostituting oneself" or "whoring oneself". In this sense, the services or acts performed are typically not sexual. For instance, in the book, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield claims that his brother is in Hollywood, prostituting himself. In fact, he is writing screenplays.

See also

References

  1. Norman Davies (1996). Europe: A History. pp. p. 413. ISBN 0-19-820171-0. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  • Campbell, Russell. Marked Women: Prostitutes and Prostitution in the Cinema, 2005 University of Wisconsin Press.
  • Castillo DN, Jenkins EL. Industries and occupations at high risk for work-related homicide. J Occup Med 1994;36:125–32.
  • D. Brewer et. al. Prostitution and the sex discrepancy in reported number of sexual partners. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000 24 October; 97(22): 12385-12388.
  • McCall, Andrew: "The Medieval Underworld". Hamish Hamilton, 1979. ISBN 75095727
  • Michael, R. T., Gagnon, J. H.,.Laumann, E. O., & Kolata, G. Sex in America, Boston: Little, Brown, 1994.
  • Phoenix, J. Making Sense of Prostitution, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001.
  • Preston, John. Hustling, A Gentlemen's Guide to the Fine Art of Homosexual Prostitution, Badboy Books, 1997.
  • Perlongher, Néstor Osvaldo. O negócio do michê, prostituição viril am Sao Paulo, 1.a edição 1987, editora brasiliense.
  • Potterat JJ, Woodhouse DE, Muth JB & Muth SQ. Estimating the prevalence and career longevity of prostitute women. Journal of Sex Research 1990; 27: 233 243.
  • Potterat JJ, Brewer DD, Muth SQ, Rothenberg RB, Woodhouse DE, Muth JB, Stites HK & Brody S. Mortality in a long-term open cohort of prostitute women. American Journal of Epidemiology 2004; 159(8) 778-785.
    • Full text:
  • The UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949)
  • Weitzer, Ronald (ed.), Sex For Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry. New York: Routledge, 2000.
  • Weitzer, Ronald. "New Directions in Research on Prostitution," Crime, Law, and Social Change, v.43, no.4-5, 2005.
  • Weitzer, Ronald. "Moral Crusade Against Prostitution," Society, March-April, 2006.

External links and other resources

Prostitution advocacy & prostitution resources

Websites critical of prostitution

Feminist & left links critical of prostitution

Religious & right-wing links critical of prostitution

  • CatholicNews.com contains anti-prostitution articles, have put out anti-prostitution efforts

Government & NGO links critical of prostitution

Media reports critical of prostitution

Articles critical of prostitution

Other

  • Ine Vanwesenbeeck (2001), "Another decade of social scientific work on sex work: A review of research 1990-2000", Annual Review of Sex Research, 12, p. 242
  • realaudio stream of Philosophy Talk: Stanford professors discuss Is prostitution morally objectionable? Should it be illegal? Or is it simply a market transaction, where one party sells a service for a price that another party is willing to pay, and no third party is harmed?
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