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The term prostitution refers to the act of having sexual intercourse, or performing other sexual acts, explicitly for material compensation—normally money, but also other forms of property, including drugs, expensive clothing, jewelery, or real estate. Having multiple clients at the time is not required for being classified as prostitute, but normally is included. A woman who engages in sexual intercourse with one man for support may be distinguished as a mistress. The term may be used, loosely, to indicate someone who engages in sexual acts that are disapproved of -- whether acts outside of marriage, or as a means to an affluent life style or the status associated with the customer (sometimes inside marriage). Cultural usage varies widely, and the use of the term as a pejorative means that it is used to indicate many acts that are not formally considered prostitution in a cultural context.

Terminology

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 considered a less value-laden term. The French euphemism grande horizontale is sometimes used. In Germany most prostitutes' organizations deliberately use the word Hure (whore) since they feel that prostitute is a bureaucratic term and an unnecessary euphemism for something not in need of euphemisms. See also: call girl, courtesan, escort, female companion.

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

Prostitutes are not the only people who have sex for money. Porn actors and actresses get paid for having sex, but they are both paid by a third party, the porn producer. A prostitute is paid by the person who he/she has sex with.

Organisers of prostitution are typically known as pimps (if male), madams (if female), and mama-sans if female and Asian. More formally, they practice procuring, and are procurers, or procuresses.

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, or as a word that means improve or fix.

Prostitutes are stigmatised in most societies and religions; their customers are typically stigmatised to a lesser degree. The sexual counterparts of prostitutes are known as clients in Quebec, Canada, johns in the United States and either clients or punters in the UK , whilst in Sweden they are known as "Torskar", which means cod or loser . In some places, men who drive around red-light districts for the purpose of soliciting prostitutes are also known as kerb crawlers.

Overview

Prostitution occurs in many varied and different settings. This includes both nightclubs and hotel bars.

Definition

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, Whorehouse 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).

Some escorts may work independently of an agency (indies). This is achieved by advertising the services on offer directly in newspapers, magazines or the internet. Communication with clients is usually made on a telephone and appointments are negotiated without any third party involvement. In some cases advertising may not be necessary if the prostitute sells her services only within a select group, such as a female university student prostituting herself to her male classmates out of economic necessity .

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 a 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, usually dressed in skimpy clothing. Street prostitutes are often called "street walkers" while their customers are referred to as "tricks" . The sex 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

Escort agencies typically advertise in regional publications and even telephone listings like the Yellow Pages. Many maintain websites with photo galleries of the 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. If the agency does not supply transport to and from the client, the escort is also expected to call the agency upon arrival at the location and again upon leaving to assure his or her safe completion of the booking.

The purpose of these details is to attempt 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 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.

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 an escort's reported earnings (not counting any gratuity received). If they work independently doing either incalls or outcalls, prices can range from $200 to over $5,000 for more exclusive services. 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 (and differing levels of demand), as do regular and semi-regular customers. Some may charge by the hour, half hour or even in 15 minute blocks. Time extensions (if offered or requested) are usually priced at the same rate as the original booking. Some escorts pay another individual to act as their personal security, thus providing a level of protection to themselves from violent or abusive clients.

An escort who works less often may be able to command a premium for his or her exclusivity. One who sees several clients each day may charge less, but earn more in the end. A female university student working as a prostitute might charge less for sexual intercourse with male classmates in her dorm room, and more for clients from off-campus . Independent escorts might 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.

Window Prostitution

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Sex tourism

Sex tourism is travelling for sexual intercourse with prostitutes or to engage in other sexual activity. The World Tourism Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations defines sex tourism as "trips organized from within the tourism sector, or from outside this sector but using its structures and networks, with the primary purpose of effecting a commercial sexual relationship by the tourist with residents at the destination".

Often the term "sex tourism" is mistakenly interchanged with the term "child sex tourism". A tourist who has sex with a child prostitute possibly commits a crime against international law, in addition to the host country, and the country that the tourist is a citizen of. The term "child" is often used as defined by international law and refers to any person below the age of consent.

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Human (or sex) trafficking

Human trafficking is the fastest growing form of modern day slavery and is the third largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world .

Poverty, social exclusion and war are at the heart of human trafficking. Many women are hoodwinked into believing promises of a better life, sometimes by people who are known and trusted to them. Traffickers may own legitimate travel agencies, modeling agencies and employment offices in order to gain women's trust. Others are simply kidnapped. Once overseas it is common for their passport to be confiscated by the trafficker and to be warned of the consequences should they attempt to escape, including beatings, rape, threats of violence against their family and death threats. It is common, particularly in Eastern Europe, that should they manage to return to their families they will only be trafficked once again.

The men who will pay to have sex with foreign women and underage girls create the market which the traffickers supply. The demand for cheap unskilled labour creates another market for traffickers.

Due to the illegal and underground nature of sex trafficking, the exact extent of women and children forced into prostitution is unknown. The International Labour Organization in 2005 estimated at least 2.4 million people have been trafficked .

Thousands of children are sold into the global sex trade every year. Often they are kidnapped or orphaned, and sometimes they are actually sold by their own families. According to the International Labour Organization, the problem is especially alarming in Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal and India.

In May 2005 the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings opened for signature. Since then over 30 countries have signed the Convention and four countries have ratified it. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has produced a Toolkit to Combat Trafficking in Persons

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.

In many countries counselling, accommodation, specialist care exists for trafficked people to help them escape

Medical situation

Prostitution has often been associated with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV. 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.

Occurrence

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.

Criminal behavior

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In areas where prostitution is illegal, sex workers are commonly charged with crimes ranging from pandering to tax evasion. Their clients can be charged with solicitation of prostitution. Prosecution for various other sex crimes can be sought against the client and pimps depending on such things as the age of the prostitute and the nature of the act performed.

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 that 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 excluding 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 to 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

Near East

One of the first forms is sacred prostitution, supposedly practiced among the 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 (Aphrodite or Nana/Anahita) and there have sex with a foreigner as a sign of hospitality for a symbolic price.

Prostitution was common in ancient Israel, despite being tacitly forbidden by Jewish Law. Within the religion of Canaan, a significant portion of temple prostitutes were male. It was widely used in Sardinia and in some of the Phoenician cultures, usually in honour of the goddess ‘Ashtart. Presumably under the influence of 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 include Asia Minor, Lydia, Syria and the Etruscans.

In a story in the Bible, a prostitute in Jericho named Rahab assisted Israelite spies with her knowledge of the current socio-cultural and military situation due to her popularity with the high-ranking nobles she serviced, among others. The spies, in return for the information, promised to save her and her family during the planned military invasion as long as she fulfilled her part of the deal by keeping the details of the contact with them secret and leaving a sign on her residence that would be a marker for the advancing soldiers to avoid. When the people of Israel conquered Canaan, she left prostitution, converted to Judaism and married a prominent member of the people.

Greece

In ancient Greek society, prostitution was engaged in by both women and boys. The Greek word for prostitute is porne, derived from the verb pernemi (to sell), with the evident modern evolution. Female prostitutes could be independent and sometimes influential women. They 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.

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. Procuring, however, was severely forbidden. In Cyprus (Paphus) and in Corinth, a type of religious prostitution was practiced where the temple counted more than a thousand prostitutes (hierodules), according to Strabo.

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.

Male prostitution was also common in Greece. It was usually practiced by adolescent boys, a reflection of the pederastic tastes of Greek men. Slave boys worked the male brothels in Athens, while free boys who sold their favors risked losing their political rights as adults.

Rome

In ancient Rome, while there were some commonalities with the Greek system, as the Empire grew prostitutes were often foreign slaves, captured, purchased, or raised for that purpose, sometimes by large-scale "prostitute farmers" who took abandoned children. Indeed, abandoned children were almost always raised as prostitutes. Enslavement into prostitution was sometimes used as a legal punishment against criminal free women. Buyers were allowed to inspect naked men and women for sale in private and there was no stigma attached to the purchase of males by a male aristocrat. 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: "If you expel prostitution from society, you will unsettle everything on account of lusts". The general tolerance of prostitution was for the most part reluctant, and many canonists urged prostitutes to reform.

After the decline of 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.

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, or flirty fishing, 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

• Sex tourism
• Hierodule, religious prostitution
• Prostitution in Ancient Greece
• Köçek, Tellak, Bacchá, Hijra
• Sex, Sexual intercourse, Human sexual behavior, Sexually transmitted disease
• Sex industry, Sex worker, professional dominant, Courtesan, Hetaera, Oiran, Rentboy, Sanky-panky, Call girl, Shanghai woman, Pimp/Madame, Child prostitution
• Massage parlor
• Red-light district, Street prostitution, Victorian era, Jack the Ripper, Molly house, List of famous prostitutes
• Sexual slavery
• Prostitution (criminology)
• Debt bondage
• Comfort women
• White slavery
• Sex crime
• Joy Division (World War II)
• Recreation and Amusement Association
• Male prostitution
• Feminism
• Sexually liberal feminism
• Melissa Farley
• Crackwhore

Regional

• Prostitution in Thailand, Bar fine, Clinton Plaza, Nana Plaza, Patpong, Pattaya, Soi Cowboy
• Prostitution in the Republic of Ireland
• Prostitution in the Czech Republic
• Prostitution in Germany, Atlantis (large German brothel)
• Prostitution in the United States, Prostitution in Nevada
• Prostitution in South Korea
• Prostitution in Japan
• Prostitution in India
• Prostitution in the People's Republic of China
• Prostitution in Nevada
• Prostitution in New Zealand
• Prostitution in France
• Prostitution in Germany
• Prostitution in the Netherlands
• Prostitution in the United Kingdom
• Prostitution in Sweden

References

1. [http://iwpr.net/?p=bcr&s=f&o=245728&apc_state=henibcr1999/
2. [http://iwpr.net/?p=bcr&s=f&o=245728&apc_state=henibcr1999/
3. U.N. World Tourism Organization Statement on the Prevention of Organized Sex Tourism
4. Justin Martyr, First Apology "But as for us, we have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do any one an injury, and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution."
5. Norman Davies (1996). Europe: A History. pp. p. 413. ISBN 0-19-820171-0. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)

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• Perlongher, Néstor Osvaldo. O negócio do michê, prostituição viril em São Paulo, 1ª 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)
  • Full text: Status of ratifications, reservations and declarations
• 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

• Prostitutes' Rights Issues and Organizations Around the World Prostitutes' Education Network
• Legalized Prostitution: Regulating the Oldest Profession The Liberator
• Decriminalize sex trade: Vancouver report CBC.ca, June 13th, 2006
• Prostitution |Sex is their business, The Economist, 2 September 2004
• Sexual Freedom Coalition Guide to Sex Laws in the UK
• Prostitution guide in the U.S.
• The International Union of Sex Workers
• UK laws regarding prostitution updated for 2006
• Working girls : prostitutes, their life and social control Perkins, Roberta Australian studies in law, crime and justice, ISBN 0 642 15877 0 Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 1991
• 'Asia's sex trade is 'slavery' - BBC
• 'Sex trade's reliance on forced labour - BBC
• 'A modern slave's brutal odyssey - BBC

• Human sexuality
• Prostitution
• Sex workers
• Sex trade
• Criminology topics