Why Is Prostitution Wrong
The World’s Oldest Profession
Prostitution is when someone sells sex for money, food or other necessary gains. The people who sell sex are called prostitutes and they can consist of both male and females but females are the most common worker. Prostitutes are also called sex workers, but there are a multitude of different terms they go by, depending on the time period and place. Prostitution has been legal for decades and is recently becoming illegal and shameful. In the old time periods prostitution was considered a job that gains a lot and was not shamed upon. It was even a way to show their respect to their gods. Many people argue that prostitution is bad, that it is against god, human morals and are dangerous. Although there are many reasons …show more content…
why prostitution should be legalized and not be looked down upon. Participating in prostitution either being a prostitute or being the one that is paying for, should not be look downed upon or shamed because of it. Prostitution should be legalized because not many people know the true history behind it, why prostitutes do their work, their legal rights, that making it illegal is making it dangerous, making it illegal causes more bad things than good things, and solutions to the problems. Prostitution has been a part of the world for centuries and because of that it is considered to be one of the world’s oldest professions. Even before money was invented there were people using foods or tools to pay for sex. Prostitution was considered a job, a job that made cities richer because so many tourists would stop to the city for it. Many men including the wealthy and high status could go to a prostitute and they will not be shamed for it. In Rome there are many different types of prostitutes. There were ones that where slaves, others did it for money and others for enjoyment but there was also some who did it in honor of the goddess Venus. You had to have been registered and have a license to be a prostitute or else it would be illegal. Some people had their own spot to work and others worked with other prostitutes in a brothel. Now days prostitution is illegal in most states, even though it is illegal there are people still acting out on it. It is illegal mostly because of the large amount of people, who are Christian, they believe that it is against their religion. They seek to make society puritan like. Most prostitutes are females, and the males are mostly ignored when the discussion of prostitutes are involved but “research on male prostitutes and their background motives for sex work is only beginning to constitute somewhat more than the proverbial needle in the haystack.”(Vanwesenbeeck) Although research are being done “The population size and geographic distribution of
MSWs is largely unknown. There are many reasons for people to go into prostitution some of them are money, enjoyment, and because they are forced to but “the number one motive for engaging in commercial or exchange sex is, without a doubt, earning money.”(Vanwesenbeeck) Some prostitutes are people of lower class that need money. The lower class people do not have a wide choose of work. They are willing to do anything to get money; they either go into sex work or they can choice another hard labor job that does not pay as much. People usually do not care how they earn the money but as long as they get it and it supports them and their family they are willing to do it. People decide on jobs that pay the most that:
Those coming to sex work from other labour markets, they have often experienced equally harsh (or worse) conditions of highly labour-intensive work for much lower incomes. It is from these background cases that the significance of sex work as a site of higher incomes or livelihoods emerges.(Bishakha)
People usually choose jobs that they enjoy and prostitution is not an exception. Some people are good at making art, others are good at building and some people are good at sex. People tend to go into fields that they are most skillful at, so that they can get more money more quickly. They can even find the job enjoyable; if they are good at it and enjoy it then it’s the perfect job for them. It is not the safest job but there are jobs that are not safe at all yet are still considered a job that does not cause harassment from others. For example, there are females sex works in Bangladeshi who enjoy their job: although treated in the popular press as victims, they often appear to enjoy a peculiar autonomy denied to other women: they mix freely with men, they speak their minds assertively on television, they live on their own earnings, have children outside marriage and bring them up without male guardians, and even, occasionally declare an active sexuality.(Huq) Prostitutes have rights like everyone else, and prostitution is no different than any other job, but prostitutes are being deprived of their rights.
There are groups that try to help prostitutes get their rights back like COYOTE, who is “one of the United States’ most active and vocal sex worker rights organizations.”(Beloso) Prostitutes are no different from any other worker, they are not criminals and are not hurting anyone yet they are treated lowly. They are treated wrongly just because of their profession. There are people who had a lot of sexual intercourse with many different people, some who they do not even know and it is perfectly fine but when you have money involved it is considered a crime. People need to listen and hear what prostitutes have to say because when they do they will hear that “All over the world, women in sex work are demanding that adult sex work be decriminalized and that they be given rights, respect and recognition.”(Bishakha) These people want to be treated like everyone else; they want to have health services and no harassment from others. People consider them criminals, but for what reason? What are the differences between a regular worker and a prostitute? There are hardly any at all and yet they are being treated like criminals. Because of this people misinterpret sex workers and treat them wrongly. By giving them their rights back they will be able to take away from the criminal state and more people will consider them as any other worker. People who usually fight for prostitutes are feminists, who believe that all genders should be treated
equally. One of the biggest dangers that prostitutes face is violence and sexually transmitted diseases. Today prostitution is very dangerous because of its criminal status. It is widely considered that prostitution is so dangerous because of the act itself which is not true. Most of people ignore them so they do not get their full view on it so, “When women say the harm in sex work comes not from the act of selling sex, but from the stigma and violence surrounding it because of its illegal nature, we must hear them.”(Bishakha) They get attacked by their clients, and sometimes because it is illegal the clients do not wear protection, so that it is quicker to finish. Resulting in unwanted pregnancies, which is another problem with the work. When sex work is being held in a shady place, the clients do not test for any type of sexual transmitted diseases so the worked have high risks of getting AIDs or HIVs. There is also the problem of not all prostitutes are willing prostitutes. These people have no other choice they are either forced to do this or they have no other option to get money. A lot of prostitutes are murdered and do not live as long as they should. This is because of them being forced to do their jobs in places that are not well protected, and their clients are not safe. Currently prostitution is a really dangerous job and:
A Canadian report on prostitution …. concluded that girls and women in prostitution have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average. The average life span for a woman after entering prostitution is four years, with 50 per cent of the deaths due to murder. (Dianne)
Due to the fact that it is illegal the only people willing to risk it are people who are dangerous and people who do not care for the prostitute and will kill them off so that they would not be found out by anyone. When something is illegal it just makes more people want to do it. For example drugs are illegal and people will do dangerous stuff to get it just because it is illegal. No matter what people will do illegal things and it is the same for prostitution. If prostitution was legal then it would be much safer but because it is not then people will do anything to get it, they will disregard safety and abuse the prostitutes. The more you push it away from people the more they want it, so there is no point in making it illegal. It causes more harm than good, more people are getting hurt. The only thing that happens when making it illegal is that innocent people are being sent to jail for trying to get money they desperately need. All they want is to “be given the right to be human, like anyone else.”(Bishakha) By making it illegal they are causing pain and suffering to people who are just trying to get money like any other person in this country. For every problem there is a solution, if the mindset is put then anything can be fixed. Prostitutes are very vulnerable to many different dangers especially female sex workers who” are at high risk of both HIV infection and unintended pregnancy” (Yam). Sexually transmitted diseases like HIV or AIDs are spread through the act of sex, and they are life threatening diseases. Prostitutes end up getting these diseases because they know nothing of their clients, and they cannot check their medical history to see if they have them. By making it so that the clients have to do tests for sexually transmitted diseases, then the amount of sex workers getting them will greatly decrease. Another problem that are common for sex workers are unwanted pregnancies. Due to its illegal status and it being risky, clients tend to want it to be fast so they do not use protection. Some workers cannot deny the client because they are in need of the money, and let it happen which leads into an unwanted pregnancies. This can be solved by using dual protection or female condoms. Female condoms can solve a lot of problems because “the female condom could increase sex workers ' overall number of protected sex acts and protect them from STIs (including HIV) and pregnancy.”(Mack) Female prostitutes will not have to worry if their client will use protection or not because they will be in charge of the protection. Another plus would be that the condom will not interfere with their work and comfortable “for both women and men because the female condom was well lubricated. They said that this made it less likely to break, precluded the need to purchase extra lubricant and made the female condom less irritating than the male condom.”(Mack). In the end, People need to know the history, why people become prostitutes, their rights, what happens to him, and the solution prostitution. Prostitutes are the workers that sell their services. In these current times prostitution is shamed upon and illegal. It is due to the fact that there is a large amount of Christian believers in this country who think that the act of prostitution is immoral and goes against their religion. It was not always like this. In the old times during the Roman and Greek times, prostitution was considered a job that was important to cities. It would make cities richer by making tourist stop at the city and buy their services. At these times there were many types of prostitutes that all went by different names, they were not shamed upon for their job and even the people who went to them never got harassed. Anyone could go to prostitute even high status wealth men and they would not be looked down upon. People even did prostitution in honor of one of their gods, Venus who is the goddess of love and seduction. They would have brothels dedicated for the god and work there. Today prostitution is illegal because they lack the knowledge about it, they do not understand the reasons why people go into prostitution, their rights, and solutions that could fix the problems that are in prostitution. Only once people fully understand it that they can no longer put shame upon them and prostitution can be legalized.
Works Cited
Beloso, Brooke Meredith. "Sex, Work, And The Feminist Erasure Of Class." Signs: Journal Of Women In Culture & Society 38.1 (2012): 47. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
Bunwaree, Ranjita "Prostitution : the social and legal implications." Africa News Service 22 Sept. 2004. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
Datta, Bishakhapost, Dianne. "Should Prostitution Be Legalized?." New Internationalist 461 (2013): 28. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Huq, Shireen. "My Body, My Life, Whose Rights ? – Bangladeshi Women 's Struggle For A Fair Deal." Contemporary South Asia 20.1 (2012): 11. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Mack, NatashaGrey, Thomas G.Amsterdam, AlexisWilliamson, NancyMatta, Claudia Interiano. "Introducing Female Condoms To Female Sex Workers In Central America." International Perspectives On Sexual & Reproductive Health 36.3 (2010): 149. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Minichiello, VictorScott, JohnCallander, Denton. "New Pleasures And Old Dangers: Reinventing Male Sex Work." Journal Of Sex Research 50.3/4 (2013): 263.MasterFILE Premier. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
Vanwesenbeeck, Ine. "Prostitution Push And Pull: Male And Female Perspectives." Journal Of Sex Research 50.1 (2013): 11. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
Yam, Eileen A.Mnisi, ZandileMabuza, XolileKennedy, CaitlinKerrigan, DeannaTsui, AmyBaral, Stefan. "Use Of Dual Protection Among Female Sex Workers In Swaziland." International Perspectives On Sexual & Reproductive Health 39.2 (2013): 69. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
Prostitution is when someone sells sex for money, food or other necessary gains. The people who sell sex are called prostitutes and they can consist of both male and females but females are the most common worker. Prostitutes are also called sex workers, but there are a multitude of different terms they go by, depending on the time period and place. Prostitution has been legal for decades and is recently becoming illegal and shameful. In the old time periods prostitution was considered a job that gains a lot and was not shamed upon. It was even a way to show their respect to their gods. Many people argue that prostitution is bad, that it is against god, human morals and are dangerous. Although there are many reasons …show more content…
why prostitution should be legalized and not be looked down upon. Participating in prostitution either being a prostitute or being the one that is paying for, should not be look downed upon or shamed because of it. Prostitution should be legalized because not many people know the true history behind it, why prostitutes do their work, their legal rights, that making it illegal is making it dangerous, making it illegal causes more bad things than good things, and solutions to the problems. Prostitution has been a part of the world for centuries and because of that it is considered to be one of the world’s oldest professions. Even before money was invented there were people using foods or tools to pay for sex. Prostitution was considered a job, a job that made cities richer because so many tourists would stop to the city for it. Many men including the wealthy and high status could go to a prostitute and they will not be shamed for it. In Rome there are many different types of prostitutes. There were ones that where slaves, others did it for money and others for enjoyment but there was also some who did it in honor of the goddess Venus. You had to have been registered and have a license to be a prostitute or else it would be illegal. Some people had their own spot to work and others worked with other prostitutes in a brothel. Now days prostitution is illegal in most states, even though it is illegal there are people still acting out on it. It is illegal mostly because of the large amount of people, who are Christian, they believe that it is against their religion. They seek to make society puritan like. Most prostitutes are females, and the males are mostly ignored when the discussion of prostitutes are involved but “research on male prostitutes and their background motives for sex work is only beginning to constitute somewhat more than the proverbial needle in the haystack.”(Vanwesenbeeck) Although research are being done “The population size and geographic distribution of
MSWs is largely unknown. There are many reasons for people to go into prostitution some of them are money, enjoyment, and because they are forced to but “the number one motive for engaging in commercial or exchange sex is, without a doubt, earning money.”(Vanwesenbeeck) Some prostitutes are people of lower class that need money. The lower class people do not have a wide choose of work. They are willing to do anything to get money; they either go into sex work or they can choice another hard labor job that does not pay as much. People usually do not care how they earn the money but as long as they get it and it supports them and their family they are willing to do it. People decide on jobs that pay the most that:
Those coming to sex work from other labour markets, they have often experienced equally harsh (or worse) conditions of highly labour-intensive work for much lower incomes. It is from these background cases that the significance of sex work as a site of higher incomes or livelihoods emerges.(Bishakha)
People usually choose jobs that they enjoy and prostitution is not an exception. Some people are good at making art, others are good at building and some people are good at sex. People tend to go into fields that they are most skillful at, so that they can get more money more quickly. They can even find the job enjoyable; if they are good at it and enjoy it then it’s the perfect job for them. It is not the safest job but there are jobs that are not safe at all yet are still considered a job that does not cause harassment from others. For example, there are females sex works in Bangladeshi who enjoy their job: although treated in the popular press as victims, they often appear to enjoy a peculiar autonomy denied to other women: they mix freely with men, they speak their minds assertively on television, they live on their own earnings, have children outside marriage and bring them up without male guardians, and even, occasionally declare an active sexuality.(Huq) Prostitutes have rights like everyone else, and prostitution is no different than any other job, but prostitutes are being deprived of their rights.
There are groups that try to help prostitutes get their rights back like COYOTE, who is “one of the United States’ most active and vocal sex worker rights organizations.”(Beloso) Prostitutes are no different from any other worker, they are not criminals and are not hurting anyone yet they are treated lowly. They are treated wrongly just because of their profession. There are people who had a lot of sexual intercourse with many different people, some who they do not even know and it is perfectly fine but when you have money involved it is considered a crime. People need to listen and hear what prostitutes have to say because when they do they will hear that “All over the world, women in sex work are demanding that adult sex work be decriminalized and that they be given rights, respect and recognition.”(Bishakha) These people want to be treated like everyone else; they want to have health services and no harassment from others. People consider them criminals, but for what reason? What are the differences between a regular worker and a prostitute? There are hardly any at all and yet they are being treated like criminals. Because of this people misinterpret sex workers and treat them wrongly. By giving them their rights back they will be able to take away from the criminal state and more people will consider them as any other worker. People who usually fight for prostitutes are feminists, who believe that all genders should be treated
equally. One of the biggest dangers that prostitutes face is violence and sexually transmitted diseases. Today prostitution is very dangerous because of its criminal status. It is widely considered that prostitution is so dangerous because of the act itself which is not true. Most of people ignore them so they do not get their full view on it so, “When women say the harm in sex work comes not from the act of selling sex, but from the stigma and violence surrounding it because of its illegal nature, we must hear them.”(Bishakha) They get attacked by their clients, and sometimes because it is illegal the clients do not wear protection, so that it is quicker to finish. Resulting in unwanted pregnancies, which is another problem with the work. When sex work is being held in a shady place, the clients do not test for any type of sexual transmitted diseases so the worked have high risks of getting AIDs or HIVs. There is also the problem of not all prostitutes are willing prostitutes. These people have no other choice they are either forced to do this or they have no other option to get money. A lot of prostitutes are murdered and do not live as long as they should. This is because of them being forced to do their jobs in places that are not well protected, and their clients are not safe. Currently prostitution is a really dangerous job and:
A Canadian report on prostitution …. concluded that girls and women in prostitution have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average. The average life span for a woman after entering prostitution is four years, with 50 per cent of the deaths due to murder. (Dianne)
Due to the fact that it is illegal the only people willing to risk it are people who are dangerous and people who do not care for the prostitute and will kill them off so that they would not be found out by anyone. When something is illegal it just makes more people want to do it. For example drugs are illegal and people will do dangerous stuff to get it just because it is illegal. No matter what people will do illegal things and it is the same for prostitution. If prostitution was legal then it would be much safer but because it is not then people will do anything to get it, they will disregard safety and abuse the prostitutes. The more you push it away from people the more they want it, so there is no point in making it illegal. It causes more harm than good, more people are getting hurt. The only thing that happens when making it illegal is that innocent people are being sent to jail for trying to get money they desperately need. All they want is to “be given the right to be human, like anyone else.”(Bishakha) By making it illegal they are causing pain and suffering to people who are just trying to get money like any other person in this country. For every problem there is a solution, if the mindset is put then anything can be fixed. Prostitutes are very vulnerable to many different dangers especially female sex workers who” are at high risk of both HIV infection and unintended pregnancy” (Yam). Sexually transmitted diseases like HIV or AIDs are spread through the act of sex, and they are life threatening diseases. Prostitutes end up getting these diseases because they know nothing of their clients, and they cannot check their medical history to see if they have them. By making it so that the clients have to do tests for sexually transmitted diseases, then the amount of sex workers getting them will greatly decrease. Another problem that are common for sex workers are unwanted pregnancies. Due to its illegal status and it being risky, clients tend to want it to be fast so they do not use protection. Some workers cannot deny the client because they are in need of the money, and let it happen which leads into an unwanted pregnancies. This can be solved by using dual protection or female condoms. Female condoms can solve a lot of problems because “the female condom could increase sex workers ' overall number of protected sex acts and protect them from STIs (including HIV) and pregnancy.”(Mack) Female prostitutes will not have to worry if their client will use protection or not because they will be in charge of the protection. Another plus would be that the condom will not interfere with their work and comfortable “for both women and men because the female condom was well lubricated. They said that this made it less likely to break, precluded the need to purchase extra lubricant and made the female condom less irritating than the male condom.”(Mack). In the end, People need to know the history, why people become prostitutes, their rights, what happens to him, and the solution prostitution. Prostitutes are the workers that sell their services. In these current times prostitution is shamed upon and illegal. It is due to the fact that there is a large amount of Christian believers in this country who think that the act of prostitution is immoral and goes against their religion. It was not always like this. In the old times during the Roman and Greek times, prostitution was considered a job that was important to cities. It would make cities richer by making tourist stop at the city and buy their services. At these times there were many types of prostitutes that all went by different names, they were not shamed upon for their job and even the people who went to them never got harassed. Anyone could go to prostitute even high status wealth men and they would not be looked down upon. People even did prostitution in honor of one of their gods, Venus who is the goddess of love and seduction. They would have brothels dedicated for the god and work there. Today prostitution is illegal because they lack the knowledge about it, they do not understand the reasons why people go into prostitution, their rights, and solutions that could fix the problems that are in prostitution. Only once people fully understand it that they can no longer put shame upon them and prostitution can be legalized.
Works Cited
Beloso, Brooke Meredith. "Sex, Work, And The Feminist Erasure Of Class." Signs: Journal Of Women In Culture & Society 38.1 (2012): 47. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
Bunwaree, Ranjita "Prostitution : the social and legal implications." Africa News Service 22 Sept. 2004. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
Datta, Bishakhapost, Dianne. "Should Prostitution Be Legalized?." New Internationalist 461 (2013): 28. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Huq, Shireen. "My Body, My Life, Whose Rights ? – Bangladeshi Women 's Struggle For A Fair Deal." Contemporary South Asia 20.1 (2012): 11. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Mack, NatashaGrey, Thomas G.Amsterdam, AlexisWilliamson, NancyMatta, Claudia Interiano. "Introducing Female Condoms To Female Sex Workers In Central America." International Perspectives On Sexual & Reproductive Health 36.3 (2010): 149. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Minichiello, VictorScott, JohnCallander, Denton. "New Pleasures And Old Dangers: Reinventing Male Sex Work." Journal Of Sex Research 50.3/4 (2013): 263.MasterFILE Premier. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
Vanwesenbeeck, Ine. "Prostitution Push And Pull: Male And Female Perspectives." Journal Of Sex Research 50.1 (2013): 11. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
Yam, Eileen A.Mnisi, ZandileMabuza, XolileKennedy, CaitlinKerrigan, DeannaTsui, AmyBaral, Stefan. "Use Of Dual Protection Among Female Sex Workers In Swaziland." International Perspectives On Sexual & Reproductive Health 39.2 (2013): 69. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.