Prostitution

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Prostitution is the sale of sexual services, such as oral sex or sexual intercourse, for money. A person selling sexual services is a prostitute, a type of sex worker. In a more general sense of the word, anyone selling their services for a cause thought to be unworthy can be described as prostituting themselves.

Overview and definitions

While prostitutes and their clients represent both sexes and all sexual orientations, the overwhelming majority of clients are male. Prostitution is rejected by most religions as being improper or sinful, and prostitutes are considered to be shameful or individuals of low standing in most societies; their customers are typically also looked down upon but are usually tolerated to a greater degree than the prostitute.

The English word whore, referring to (female) prostitutes, is taken from the Old English word hōra (from the Indo-European root kā meaning "to like, desire") but usage of that word is widely considered pejorative and prostitute is a less value-laden term. It could also come from the islamic term houri, the name for an attentive female virgin in the afterlife, but this derivation is unlikely given the presence of cognates of the Old English word in other Germanic languages. On the other hand, in Germany most prostitutes' organizations deliberately use the word Hure (whore) since they feel that prostitute is an unnecessary euphemism for something not in need of euphemisms. The term sex worker is becoming the label of choice in Australia. Prostitutes may also be called hookers. It was rumoured to be first used during the American Civil War to describe the women who followed the Union army of General Hooker, however the term appeared in print as early as 1845, well before Hooker came into the public light.See also: call girl, courtesan, escort.

Male prostitutes offering their services to male customers are called "gigolos", "hustlers", "rent boys", "punks", "trade", "man ho", "boy toys" or "bitches." Male prostitutes offering services to female customers are known as "escorts", "giglis", or "gigolos." Though there is a stereotype that such male prostitutes are rare, a comprehensive study by Nither Tinnakul of Chulalongkorn University at Bangkok found the number in Thailand alone to be at least 30,000, versus an estimated 100,000 female prostitutes. Male prostitutes serving both men and women are known as "taxi boys."

Organizers of prostitution are typically known as pimps (usually male, and most often with regard to street prostitution), madams (female, general today but traditionally related to brothel prostitution), and mama-sans (if female and East Asian.)

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 spying or graft. Ancient China is replete with well-known instances of using sex to undermine an enemy. (See Xi Shi, Diao Chan)

Another generalization 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, karma whore, attention whore. The term pimp is also sometimes similarly used figuratively, as in poverty pimp. Among modern day youth, a pimp can mean both a manager of prostitutes or a guy that attracts female attention easily.

Types of prostitution

Prostitution today occurs in various different settings.

In street prostitution the prostitute solicits customers while waiting at street corners or walking alongside a street.

Prostitution occurs in some massage parlors and in Asian countries in some barber shops where sexual services may be offered for an additional tip.

Where prostitution is more out in the open, solicitation is done at bars, even open-air bars. Thailand is famous world-wide for these establishments.

Brothels are establishments specifically dedicated to prostitution, often confined to special red-light districts in big cities. Other names for a brothel include bordello, whorehouse and cathouse. Historical and rarer slang terms for brothels include bordel (from the French), bovril, case (compare Spanish casa or Italian casa chiusa), common-house*, creep, crib, demimonde (from the Frence for underworld), dress-house, drum, flash-house, flesh-shambles, gaff, harlot-house, hook shop, hot house*, house of ill/evil repute/fame, house of accommodation, house of assignation, house of joy, house of horizontal refreshment, joy-house, juke, kip, knocking-shop, leaping house, lupanar (from Latin), maison close (French closed house), maison de passe (house of passage), maison de tolérance (tolerated house, i.e. licensed), massage parlour, meat house, moll-shop, notch-house, nunnery*, panel-house, parlour-house, peg house, picked hatch*, public house, rap club, rib-joint, slaughter-house, smuggling-ken, sporting-house, stew, trugging house/place, vaulting house, warren and whore-shop/sty. (* used by Shakespeare) Many of these are or originated as euphemisms, and their variety is affected in part by the euphemism treadmill. !

Prostitution can also take place in the prostitute's apartment and in many countries this is the only legal form of prostitution. A hybrid between brothel and apartment prostitution exists in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, China and the Netherlands: female prostitutes rent tiny one-room apartments and solicit customers from behind windows or through advertising. (A handful of websites are kept to advertise these one-woman brothels. e.g. sex141.com.)

In escort or out-call prostitution, the customer calls an agency and the act takes place at the customer's place of residence or more commonly at his or her hotel room. This form of prostitution often shelters under the umbrella of escort agencies, who supply attractive escorts for social occasions. While some escort agencies provide non-sexual services only, many turn a blind eye to escorts who provide additional sexual services or actively encourage them. Alternately, an escort may work independently of an agency and place advertisements in newspapers and magazines for his or her own services. 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.

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 90s, 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.

Street prostitution

In street prostitution, the prostitute solicits customers while waiting at street corners or walking alongside a street, usually dressed in skimpy, suggestive clothing. Often the prostitute (commonly called a "hooker", "street hooker", or "street walker" to distinguish them from other sex workers) appears to mind his or her own business and waits for the customer to initiate contact. The act is performed in the customer's car or in a nearby alley or rented room (motels that service prostitutes commonly rent rooms by the half or full hour).

Escort/Out-call Prostitution

Those who work for an escort agency may obtain the position by responding to an employment advertisement, usually placed in a regional 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 cater to 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 the client's need.

The agency collects the client's contact information and calls the escort. It is then up to the escort to contact directly the client to make arrangements for an appointment. It is during this telephone call that details of the business arrangement are discussed—i.e., whether or not (and what) sex acts will be incorporated into the "date". The escort then makes a call to the agency to confirm the appointment's location and time. 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 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 can maintain plausible deniability should an arrest be made.

The amount of money that is made by an escort is different depending on gender, service rendered and location. Generally male escorts make less than women, and women make less than transsexuals. For a point of reference, the gay escort agency "TOPPS", based in Washington, D.C., charges $150 an hour for male escorts, and $250 an hour for transsexuals. The agency takes $50 an hour from the employee.

Socio-economic and legal status of prostitution

There is a significant range in the socioeconomic status of prostitutes in Western countries. At the low end, a significant number of prostitutes are also drug addicts who use prostitution to pay for their habit, sometimes referred to as 'crack whores' because of the prevalence of this behavior among some communities of crack cocaine users. At the other end of the spectrum, 'high class' prostitutes may charge very high prices for their services and may be very selective about their clients.

In many countries, illegal immigrants work in prostitution, sometimes against their will and generally in circumstances where 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".

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.

Thailand is a destination of sex tourists, travellers from rich countries in search of cheap sexual services. Other popular sex tourism destinations are Brazil, the Caribbean, and former eastern bloc countries.

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. In areas where legal restrictions on prostitution are greatest, the power of pimps over prostitutes can actually be increased by the illegality of prostitution. For example, in Finland, the immigration law allows the state to deport immigrants suspected of prostitution without a trial; thus in cases of physical abuse by the pimps, the prostitutes cannot even resort to the police.

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 the services of professional dominants.

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

In many countries, buying and selling sex among adults is legal, but many associated activities are not. These include advertising, solicitation and pimping, as well as owning, operating or working in a brothel.

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 and New Zealand is almost as liberal as in the Netherlands (see prostitution in the Netherlands, prostitution in Germany and prostitution in New Zealand). 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.

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 a number of counties of Nevada (see prostitution in Nevada). In Rhode Island, the bare act of sex for money is not illegal, but street solicitation and operating a brothel are.

Rules vary as to which roles in prostitution are illegal: being a prostitute, being a client, or being a pimp. In Sweden is it legal to sell sex, but not to buy it, according to the Swedish Law (Brottsbalken "Criminal Code" 1962:700, 6 kap, 11 §). 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).

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".

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 making co-habiting with a prostitute.

In 1949, the United Nations adopted a convention stating that 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

In some jurisdictions, such as Nevada (see prostitution in Nevada), Switzerland and several Australian states, 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 have been listed on the Australian Stock Exchange since 2003. 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 [1]that ascribe to a strict ethical code which entrenches the independence of service providers.

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.

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 you get brothels that do not adhere to the usual legal standards intended to safeguard public health and the safety of the workers.

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, Vietnam, Mexico, Philippines, Cuba and Brazil. Some pedophiles use sex tourism to have access to sex with children that is unavailable in their home country. Most countries with a major sex tourism industry are working on attempting to reduce or eliminate sex tourism.

Several western countries have recently enacted laws punishing citizens who, as sex tourists, engage in sex with minors in other countries. These laws are rarely enforced since the crime usually goes undiscovered.

Violence against prostitutes

Prostitutes are frequently victims of violent crime by a small number of violent clients and corrupt law-enforcement officers. Prostitutes (particularly those engaging in street prostitution) are also sometimes the targets of serial killers who see themselves as justified in killing prostitutes by the religious and social stigma associated with prostitution. Robert Pickton, a Canadian who lived near Vancouver, made headlines after the bodies of several prostitutes were found buried on his farm. He now stands charged with the murder of 27 Vancouver area women.

Human (or Sex) trafficking

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 2003, estimates that 800,000-900,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year. [2] Between 80% and 90% of victims trafficked across international borders are female and the majority of those are women and girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation, forced into prostitution. In addition, internal passport controls in Russia and Ukraine have lead to widespread internal sex trafficking.

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 and Nepal. [3]

Human trafficking is so common now that it is the third most profitable criminal activity in the world after illegal drugs and arms trafficking. Globally, forced labour - which includes sexual exploitation - 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. Unlike drugs or arms, women and children can be "sold" several times. 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.

Medical situation

Since prostitutes tend to have large numbers of sexual partners, prostitution has often been associated with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as AIDS.

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 Tranmitted 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 health information and free condoms and lube, 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 "Prostitution and the sex discrepancy in reported number of sexual partners", 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 paper 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. The length of these prostitutes' working careers was estimated at a mean of 5 years.

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). Unscientifically comparing the rates given by the two studies cited here alone, assuming a steady-state model, and adjusting for the five-year working career of women prostitutes, this can be used to estimate that [have-ever-been] male clients outnumbered [have-ever-been] female prostitutes by a ratio of roughly 80:1.

A number of reports over the last few decades have suggested that prostitution levels have fallen in sexually-liberal countries, perhaps as 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 and Muslim countries;
- "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 are prosecuted, 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, or at least an unavoidable evil; prostitution and the employment of prostitutes are legal, but regulated (with respect to health etc. concerns).
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 inevitable, but exploitative; laws should target violent pimps and traffickers, not prostitutes." 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 prostitutes.

In some countries, there is controversy regarding the laws applicable to prostitution. For instance, the legal stance of punishing pimping while keeping prostitution legal but "underground" and risky is often denounced as hypocritical; opponents suggest either going the full abolition route and criminalize clients or making prostitution 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 North American Task Force on Prostitution. An international prostitute's rights organization is the International Committee for Prostitute's Rights.

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

On prostitution, many schools of thought are prevalent among feminists. Some, like Grisélidis Réal, theorize prostitution as an act of sexual self-determination, decry discrimination and demand destigmatization and decriminalization; women are supposed to be adults who can choose what they wish to do with their bodies. In that view, the moral prohibition of prostitution is just mere masked patriarchal moralism, with a traditional view of considering women to be incapable of making decisions for themselves. Others, exemplified by the American radical feminist and ex-prostitute Andrea Dworkin, consider it to be sexual abuse or even rape; the prostitutes are then victims, who must be protected from the abuse of the clients and pimps. The former group pushed a law reform in Germany, resulting in January 2002 in the recognition of prostitution as a regular profession, making it possible for prostitutes to join the social security and health care system and to form trade unions. The latter faction of feminists was able in Sweden in 1999 to implement the law outlawing the buying of sexual favors but not the selling.

In the United States, the only political party that favors legalization of prostitution is the United States Libertarian Party. The USLP believes all consensual crimes (any act that is against the law where all parties involved voluntarily consent to engage in the activity) should be legalised.

History

Prostitution is often described as "the world's oldest profession". 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 midwives are really the world's oldest profession. However, 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. Any item normally exchanged for other goods was likely acceptable for a prostitute's services.

One of the first forms is sacred prostitution, supposedly practiced among Sumerians. In ancient sources (Herodotus, Thucydides) there are many traces of sacred prostitution, starting perhaps with Babylon, where each woman had to reach, once in their lives, the sanctuary of Militta (Aphrodites or Nana/Anahita) and there have sex with a foreigner as a sign of hospitality for a symbolic price.

A similar type of 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 in use 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, like in Erice (Sicily), in Locri Epizephiri, Croton, Rossano Vaglio, Sicca Veneria and other towns. Other hypotheses regard Asia Minor, Lydia, Syria and Etruscans.

It was common in Israel too, but some prophets, like Hosea and Ezekiel strongly fought it; it is assumed that it was part of the cults of Canaan, where a significant portion of prostitutes were male.

In the Bible there is a story in which (Tamar) poses as a false prostitute to seemingly commit incest with her father-in-law (Judah). In actuality, she was performing a Levirate Marriage; 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 the prophet Joshua.

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 Geisha, 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.

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.

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 Catholic Church, prostitution was tolerated because it was held to prevent the greater evils of rape and sodomy. Augustine of Hippo held that prostitution was a necessary evil: just as a well-ordered palace needed good sewers, so a well-ordered city needed brothels. 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 the Languedoc region of France town governments came to set aside certain streets as areas where prostitution could be tolerated. Still later it became common in the major towns and cities of Southern Europe to establish civic brothels, whilst outlawing prostitution taking place outside these brothels. In much of Northern Europe a more laissez faire attitude tends to be found. 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.

File:Turkish - Dancing Kocek - Late 19th c - wiki.jpg

Kocek with tambourine
Recruited from the ranks of colonized ethnic groups, köçeks were cross-dressing entertainers and sex workers in the Ottoman empire. Photograph, late 19th c.

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.

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 Britain 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 Britain 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, and still is 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.

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

References

Russell Campbell, Marked Women: Prostitutes and Prostitution in the Cinema, University of Wisconsin Press 2005
John Preston : Hustling, A Gentlemen's Guide to the Fine Art of Homosexual Prostitution, Badboy Books, 1997
Néstor Osvaldo Perlongher: O negócio do michê, prostituição viril am Sao Paulo, 1.a edição 1987, editora brasiliense
The UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949)
- Full text: Status of ratifications, reservations and declarations

External links

Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) - big list of resources
Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others at Law-Ref.org - fully indexed and crosslinked with other documents
Radford, Robert, La prostitution féminine à Rome, entre -200 et 200 après Jésus-Christ : une approche pédagogique utilisant les N.T.I.C.. Sherbrooke, Université de Sherbrooke, 2000.
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
Sexual Freedom Coalition guide to UK prostitution law
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): 1238512388.
Arabian Sex Tourism by Daniel Pipes, on the abuse of Nikah as a front for prostitution.