Note: This page may contain content that is offensive or inappropriate for some readers.

prostitution

(common usage) a practice involving sexual services for payment or other reward.
(legalistic usage) a sex-specific offence; although in England and Wales prostitution has technically been regarded as behaviour open to both women and men, in practice only women have been legally defined as common prostitutes and only women are prosecuted for the offences of loitering and soliciting related to prostitution. Legalistic definitions of prostitution, however, are culturally and historically relative. Prostitution is not always subject to criminalization and in some cultures the practice may be regarded as a sacred rite. In those societies where prostitution and related behaviours are criminalized it is typically the prostitute rather than the client whose behaviour is regulated, reflecting double standards of sexual morality
(extralegal usage) an economic contract intrinsically equal to the practice of a man and woman contracting marriage primarily for economic reasons (see ENGELS, 1884). Such attempts to go beyond the legal definitions of prostitution have been influential in feminist theory. Marx drew parallels between the economic prostitution of the worker and that of the prostitute. In doing so he neglected to consider the specific sexual exploitation and oppression experienced by women. Feminist theorists have also likened prostitution to marriage. Millet (1970) maintains that prostitution should be defined as the granting of sexual access on a relatively indiscriminate basis for payment. These approaches, however, fail to account for the particular stigmatization encountered by those women who work as prostitutes.

Traditionally, the sociological study of prostitution has taken place within the context of the sociology of crime and deviance (see CRIMINOLOGY and DEVIANCE). Thus sociologists have often uncritically accepted that prostitution should be regarded as primarily an example of rule-breaking behaviour or female deviancy. More recently, the impact of feminism has led to prostitution being examined within the context of wider gender relations and the socioeconomic position of women, particularly working-class and minority women. Sociologists have increasingly acknowledged accounts of prostitution given by prostitutes themselves, particularly those which present prostitution as part of the sex trade or sex industry. Arguably, it may therefore, be as useful to examine prostitution in the context of the SOCIOLOGY OF WORK and occupations rather than in the context of deviant behaviour.

The rise of the prostitutes’ rights movement since the late 1970s and the contradictory relationship with feminism and the women's movement has led to a shift in the contexts in which prostitution is studied and enters the public imagination (Scwambler and Scwambler, 1995). Aided by feminists, the discourse on prostitution has moved out of a legal/deviance framework and into a feminist framework which focused initially upon pornography and violence and latterly upon health issues in the AIDS era and prostitution as work (see V. Jennes, 1993). The prostitutes’ rights movement emphasizes the profession of prostitute, and the rights, needs and civil liberties of adult women working in the sex industry including the need for grassroots movements organized and managed by prostitutes and supported by ‘experts’ and ‘professionals’.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

Prostitution

a type of socially deviant behavior. Prostitution is a historically conditioned social phenomenon that arose in antagonistic class society and is organically inherent in it. It is known to have existed in slaveholding states as early as the third and second centuries B.C. It was widespread in ancient Greece and Rome, and brothels (lupanaria) were numerous. It also existed in the feudal period. Prostitution is widespread in the modern bourgeois states, despite formal measures to restrict it.

In the USSR, the Great October Socialist Revolution eliminated the fundamental causes of prostitution. In the very first years of its existence, the Soviet state initiated a purposeful program of educational, medical, and legal measures designed to provide social assistance for women who had previously engaged in prostitution and to eliminate the circumstances that led to prostitution. In late 1919 the Commission to Combat Prostitution was created under the People’s Commissariat of Public Health. Later the Interdepartmental Commission to Combat Prostitution was established under the People’s Commissariat of Social Security, with branches in the provinces. In the 1930’s prostitution as a widespread social phenomenon was liquidated. Individual instances of prostitution are of a local character and are regarded as a form of parasitism. Soviet legislation establishes criminal responsibility for drawing minors into prostitution, procuring, maintaining dens of vice, and spreading venereal disease.

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

"In order to really [step out of] prostitution [the women involved] have to have their primary needs met, including housing and a proper job," Ghada Jabbour, co-founder of Kafa, told The Daily Star.

Women in prostitution face abuse, exploitation

Critique: Informed and informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking, "Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade" is a compelling and exceptional read from beginning to end, making it very highly recommended for community and academic library Contemporary Social Issues reference collections.

Prostitution Narratives

- sanctioning the phenomenon with administrative tools, in its whole or taking into consideration only some of its manifestations that would affect public order (for example activities like attracting clients, practicing prostitutions in locations situated near public authorities headquarters, schools, cultural or religious establishments etc.) or public behavior (for example obtaining incomes from high class prostitution and not subjecting them to public taxes);

Proposals for establishing the legal settlement of prostitution

With its concrete, hands-on approach, there is a good chance that Exiting Prostitution will soon guide Canadian front-line organizations, as it already does in New Zealand.

Exiting Prostitution: A Study in Female Desistance

In a joint statement yesterday, the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies, the Cyprus Family Planning Association, the Socialist Women's Movement and Hands Across the Divide said Mappouridis was arbitrarily assuming that women were engaged in prostitution of their own free will "ignoring the fact that the majority are victims of violence".

Uproar over call to legalise prostitution

As a solution, the terms 'sex worker' and 'sex work' are increasingly used to refer to prostitution in the ancient world.

Beyond courtesans and whores: sex and labor in the Greco-Roman world

Charged with possession of cannabis; possession of mephedrone; supply of mephedrone; permit the use of premises for supply of drugs; causing or inciting prostitution for gain.

. THE ACCUSED AND THEIR CHARGES

It is an eye-opening historical exposition that demonstrates the parallel between the growing phenomenon of global trafficking of humans (with its underlying and enabling system of prostitution) and the transatlantic slave trade of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Book unmasks global sexual exploitation

(5) Number of justices on Canada's Supreme Court who voted to strike down laws prohibiting prostitution in December 2013:9.

Number crunch: prostitution

Alan Young was not trying to solve the social problem of trafficking when he launched the constitutional challenge of the previous prostitution laws in Bedford v.

All sex workers can't be lumped into one category