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Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penetrative sex, manual sex, oral sex, etc.) with the customer. The requirement of physical contact also creates the risk of transferring infections. Prostitution is sometimes described as sexual services, commercial sex or, colloquially, hooking. It is sometimes referred to euphemistically as "the world's oldest profession" in the English-speaking world. A person who works in the field is usually called a prostitute or sex worker, but other words, such as hooker and whore, are sometimes used Pejorative to refer to those who work in prostitution. The majority of prostitutes are female and have male clients.
Prostitution occurs in a variety of forms, and prostitution law varies from country to country (sometimes from region to region within a given country). In most cases, it can be either an Law enforcement crime, an Unenforced law crime, a decriminalized activity, a legal but unregulated activity, or a regulated profession. It is one branch of the sex industry, along with pornography, Stripper, and Erotic dance. are establishments specifically dedicated to prostitution. In Escort agency, the act may take place at the client's residence or hotel room (referred to as out-call), or at the escort's residence or a hotel room rented for the occasion by the escort (in-call). Another form is street prostitution.
According to a 2011 report by Fondation Scelles there are about 42 million prostitutes in the world, living all over the world (though most of Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa lack data, studied countries in that large region rank as top
by Fondation Scelles which is an anti human trafficking organization
The position of prostitution and the law varies widely worldwide, reflecting differing opinions. Some view prostitution as a form of exploitation of or violence against women, and children, that helps to create a supply of victims for Sex trafficking. Some critics of prostitution as an institution are supporters of the "Nordic model" that decriminalizes the act of selling sex and makes the purchase of sex illegal. This approach has also been adopted by Canada, Iceland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway, France and Sweden. Others view sex work as a legitimate occupation, whereby a person trades or exchanges sexual acts for money. Amnesty International is one of the notable groups calling for the decriminalization of prostitution. Q&A: policy to protect the human rights of sex workers. Amnesty International. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
The word prostitute was then carried down through various languages to the present-day Western society. Most sex worker activists groups reject the word prostitute and since the late 1970s have used the term sex worker instead. However, sex worker can also mean anyone who works within the sex industry or whose work is of a sexual nature and is not limited solely to prostitutes.
A variety of terms are used for those who engage in prostitution, some of which distinguish between different types of prostitution or imply a value judgment about them. This terminology is hotly contested among scholars. Common alternatives for prostitute include Escort agency and whore; however, not all professional escorts are prostitutes.
The English word ''whore'' derives from the [[Old English]] word hōra, from the Proto-Germanic ''*hōrōn'' (prostitute), which derives from the Proto-Indo-European root ''*keh₂-'' meaning "desire", a root which has also given us Latin cārus (dear), whence the French cher (dear, expensive) and the Latin cāritās (love, charity). Use of the word ''whore'' is widely considered [[pejorative]], especially in its modern slang form of ''ho''. In Germany, however, most prostitutes' organizations deliberately use the word Hure (whore) since they feel that ''prostitute'' is a bureaucratic term.
Those seeking to remove the social stigma associated with prostitution often promote terminology such as sex worker, commercial sex worker (CSW) or sex trade worker. Another commonly used word for a prostitute is hooker. Although a popular etymology connects "hooker" with Joseph Hooker, a Union general in the American Civil War, the word more likely comes from the concentration of prostitutes around the shipyards and ferry terminal of the Corlear's Hook area of Manhattan in the 1820s, who came to be referred to as "hookers". A streetwalker solicits customers on the streets or in public places, while a call girl makes appointments by phone, or other means of communication.
Correctly or not, the use of the word prostitute without specifying a sex may commonly be assumed to be female; compound terms such as male prostitution or male escort are therefore often used to identify males. Those offering services to female customers are commonly known as gigolos; those offering services to male customers are hustlers or rent boys.
Examples of procuring include:
Female clients of prostitutes are sometimes referred to as janes or sugar mamas.Alcinda Honwana. "Changing Patterns of Intimacy among Young People in Africa." African Dynamics in a Multipolar World (2013): 29-47.
The prostitution metaphor, "traditionally used to signify political inconstancy, unreliability, fickleness, a lack of firm values and integrity, and venality, has long been a staple of Russian political rhetoric.Riabova, Tatiana and Riabova, Oleg (2015) "Gayromaidan" in Fedor, Julie; Portnov, Andriy; and Umland, Andraes (eds.) Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society: Sociographic Essays on the Post-Soviet Infrastructure for Alternative Healing Practices, Volume 1, Issue 1 Columbia University Press. p.105 Accessed: 14 March 2017 One of the famous insults of Leon Trotsky made by Joseph Stalin was calling him a "political prostitute". Leon Trotsky used this epithet himself, calling German Social Democracy, at that time "corrupted by Karl Kautsky", a "political prostitution disguised by theories". In 1938, he used the same description for the Comintern, saying that the chief aim of the Bonapartist clique of Joseph Stalin during the preceding several years "has consisted in proving to the imperialist 'democracies' its wise conservatism and love for order. For the sake of the longed alliance with imperialist democracies Stalin has brought the Comintern to the last stages of political prostitution."
Besides targeting political figures, the term is used in relation to organizations and even small countries, which "have no choice but to sell themselves", because their voice in world affairs is insignificant. In 2007, a Russian caricature depicted the Baltic states as three "ladies of the night", "vying for the attentions of Uncle Sam, since the Russian client has run out of money".
Usage of the "political prostitute" moniker is by no means unique to the Russian political lexicon, such as when a Huffington Post contributor expressed the opinion that Donald Trump was "prostituting himself to feed his ego and gain power" when he ran for President of the United States.
Sex work researcher and writer Gail Pheterson writes that these metaphorical usages exist because "the term prostitute gradually took on a Christian moralist tradition, as being synonymous with debasement of oneself or of others for the purpose of ill-gotten gains".
There was never a unified legal approach to prostitution in ancient Rome. In ancient Rome, prostitutes had low social status and were considered infamia. Under the reign of emperor Caligula, a taxation on prostitution was implemented. Roman slave owners were able to include the ne serva prostituatur covenant as part of slave sale contracts, which prohibited the slaves being forced to prostitute themselves by their owners after being sold.
In urban societies there was an erroneous view that prostitution was flourishing more in rural regions rather than in cities, however, it has been proven that prostitution was more rampant in cities and large towns. Although there were wandering prostitutes in rural areas who worked according to the calendar of fairs, similar to riding a circuit, in which prostitutes stopped by various towns based on what event was going on at the time, most prostitutes remained in cities. Cities tended to draw more prostitutes due to the sheer size of the population and the institutionalization of prostitution in urban areas which made it more rampant in metropolitan regions. Furthermore, in both urban and rural areas of society, women who did not live under the rule of male authority were more likely to be suspected of prostitution than their oppressed counterparts because of the fear of women who did not fit into a stereotypical category outside of marriage or religious life.
Secular law, like most other aspects of prostitution in the Middle Ages, is difficult to generalize due to the regional variations in attitudes towards prostitution. The global trend of the thirteenth century was toward the development of positive policy on prostitution as laws exiling prostitutes changed towards sumptuary laws and the confinement of prostitutes to red light districts.
Sumptuary laws became the regulatory norm for prostitutes and included making courtesans "wear a shoulder-knot of a particular color as a badge of their calling" to be able to easily distinguish the prostitute from a respectable woman in society. The color that designated them as prostitutes could vary from different earth tones to yellow, as was usually designated as a color of shame in the Hebrew communities. These laws, however, proved no impediment to wealthier prostitutes because their glamorous appearances were almost indistinguishable from noble women. In the 14th century, London prostitutes were only tolerated when they wore yellow hoods.
Although brothels were still present in most cities and urban centers and could range from private bordelages run by a procuress from her home to public baths and centers established by municipal legislation, the only centers for prostitution legally allowed were the institutionalized and publicly funded brothels. This did not prevent illegal brothels from thriving. Brothels theoretically banned the patronage of married men and clergy, but it was sporadically enforced and there is evidence of clergymen present in brawls that were documented in brothels. Thus the clergy were at least present in brothels at some point or another. Brothels also settled the "obsessive fear of the sharing of women" and solved the issue of "collective security." The lives of prostitutes in brothels were not cloistered like that of nuns and "only some lived permanently in the streets assigned to them." Prostitutes were only allowed to practice their trade in the brothel in which they worked. Brothels were also used to protect prostitutes and their clients through various regulations. For example, the law that "forbid brothel keepers from beating them." However, brothel regulations also hindered prostitutes' lives by forbidding them from having "lovers other than their customers" or from having a favored customer.
Courts showed conflicting views on the role of prostitutes in secular law as prostitutes could not inherit property, defend themselves in court, or make accusations in court. However, prostitutes were sometimes called upon as witnesses during trial.
The Church's stance on prostitution was three-fold: "acceptance of prostitution as an inevitable social fact, condemnation of those profiting from this commerce, and encouragement for the prostitute to repent." The Church was forced to recognize its inability to remove prostitution from the worldly society, and in the fourteenth century "began to tolerate prostitution as a lesser evil." However, prostitutes were to be excluded from the Church as long as they practiced. Around the twelfth century, the idea of prostitute saints took hold, with Mary Magdalene being one of the most popular saints of the era. The Church used Mary Magdalene's biblical history of being a reformed harlot to encourage prostitutes to repent and mend their ways. Simultaneously, religious houses were established with the purpose of providing asylum and encouraging the reformation of prostitution. 'Magdalene Homes' were particularly popular and peaked especially in the early fourteenth century. Over the course of the Middle Ages, popes and religious communities made various attempts to remove prostitution or reform prostitutes, with varying success.
With the advent of the Protestant Reformation, numbers of Southern German towns closed their brothels in an attempt to eradicate prostitution. In some periods prostitutes had to distinguish themselves by particular signs, sometimes wearing very short hair or no hair at all, or wearing 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 19th century, legalized prostitution became the center of public controversy as the British government passed the Contagious Diseases Acts, legislation mandating pelvic examinations for suspected prostitutes; they would remain in force until 1886. The French government, instead of trying to outlaw prostitution, began to view prostitution as a necessary evil for society to function. French politicians chose to regulate prostitution, introducing a "Morals Brigade" onto the streets of Paris. A similar situation did in fact exist in the Russian Empire; prostitutes operating out of government-sanctioned brothels were given yellow internal passports signifying their status and were subjected to weekly physical exams. A major work, Prostitution, Considered in Its Moral, Social, and Sanitary Aspects, was published by William Acton in 1857, which estimated that the County of London had 80,000 prostitutes and that 1 house in 60 was serving as a brothel. Leo Tolstoy's novel Resurrection describes legal prostitution in 19th-century Russia.
The leading opposed prostitution. Communist governments often attempted to repress the practice immediately after obtaining power, although it always persisted. In most contemporary , prostitution remained illegal but was nonetheless common. The economic decline brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union led to increased prostitution in many current and former Communist countries.
In 1956, the United Kingdom introduced the Sexual Offences Act 1956. While this law did not criminalise the act of prostitution in the United Kingdom itself, it prohibited such activities as running a brothel. Soliciting was made illegal by the Street Offences Act 1959. These laws were partly repealed, and altered, by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and the Policing and Crime Act 2009.
Since the break up of the Soviet Union, thousands of eastern European women end up as prostitutes in China, Western Europe, Israel, and Turkey every year. Some enter the profession willingly; many are tricked, coerced, or kidnapped, and often experience captivity and violence.Hornblower, Margot (24 June 2001). " The Skin Trade". Time Magazine. Retrieved 19 April 2009. There are tens of thousands of women from eastern Europe and Asia working as prostitutes in Dubai. Men from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates form a large proportion of the customers." Why Dubai's Islamic austerity is a sham – sex is for sale in every bar". The Guardian. 16 May 2010.
Traditionally, prostitution in the Islamic world was historically practiced by way of the pimp temporarily selling his slave to her client, who then returned the ownership of the slave after intercourse. The Islamic Law formally prohibited prostitution. However, since Islamic Law allowed a man to have sexual intercourse with his slave concubine, prostitution was practiced by a pimp selling his female slave on the slave market to a client, who returned his ownership on the pretext of discontent after having had intercourse with her, which was a legal and accepted method for prostitution in the Islamic world.B. Belli, "Registered female prostitution in the Ottoman Empire (1876-1909)," Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2020. p 56 This form of prostitution was practiced by for example Ibn Battuta, who acquired several female slaves during his travels.
According to Shia Muslims, Muhammad sanctioned fixed-term marriage— muta'a in Iraq and sigheh in Iran—which has instead been used as a legitimizing cover for sex workers, in a culture where prostitution is otherwise forbidden. Sunni Muslims, who make up the majority of Muslims worldwide, believe the practice of fixed-term marriage was abrogated and ultimately forbidden by either Muhammad, or one of his successors, Umar. Sunnis regard prostitution as sinful and forbidden. Some writers have argued that mut'ah and nikah misyar approximate prostitution. Julie Parshall writes that mut'ah is legalised prostitution which has been sanctioned by the Twelver Shia authorities. She quotes the Oxford Encyclopedia of Modern Islamic World to differentiate between marriage ( nikah) and mut'ah, and states that while nikah is for procreation, mut'ah is just for sexual gratification. According to Zeyno Baran, this kind of temporary marriage provides Shi'ite men with a religiously sanctioned equivalent to prostitution. According to Elena Andreeva's observation published in 2007, Russian travellers to Iran consider mut'ah to be "legalized profligacy" which is indistinguishable from prostitution.Andreeva, Elena (2007). Russia and Iran in the great game: travelogues and Orientalism. Routledge studies in Middle Eastern history. 8. Psychology Press. pp. 162–163. . "Most of the travelers describe the Shi'i institution of temporary marriage (sigheh) as 'legalized profligacy' and hardly distinguish between temporary marriage and prostitution." Religious supporters of mut'ah argue that temporary marriage is different from prostitution for a couple of reasons, including the necessity of iddah in case the couple have sexual intercourse. It means that if a woman marries a man in this way and has sex, she has to wait for a number of months before marrying again and therefore, a woman cannot marry more than 3 or 4 times in a year. Temporary Marriage in Islam Part 6: Similarities and Differences of Mut’a and Regular Marriage | A Shi'ite Encyclopedia | Books on Islam and Muslims | Al-Islam.org.
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According to Dervish Ismail Agha, in the Dellâkname-i Dilküşâ, the Ottoman Empire archives, in the Hammam, the masseurs were traditionally young men, who helped wash clients by soaping and scrubbing their bodies. They also worked as sex workers. The Ottoman Empire texts describe who they were, their prices, how many times they could bring their customers to orgasm, and the details of their sexual practices.
Japanese prostitutes were held in high regard by European travelling men in the 19th century. A British army officer reported that Japanese women were the best prostitutes in the world, for their attractiveness, cleanliness, and intelligence.
During the East India Company's rule in India from 1757 until 1857, it was common for European soldiers serving in the presidency armies to solicit the services of Indian prostitutes, and they frequently paid visits to local nautch dancers for purposes of a sexual nature. Prostitutes from Japan were also popular. Asian prostitutes were held in higher regard than prostitutes from Europe because they came from higher social backgrounds and were regarded as cleaner, more attractive and entertaining than prostitutes back in Europe.
In the 21st century, Afghans revived a method of prostituting young boys which is referred to as "bacha bazi".
India's devadasi girls are forced by their poor families to dedicate themselves to the Hindu goddess Renuka. The BBC wrote in 2007 that devadasis are "sanctified prostitutes". Slaves to the goddess of fertility. BBC News. 8 June 2007
During this period, prostitution was also very prominent in the Barbary Coast, San Francisco as the population was mainly men, due to the influx from the Gold Rush. One of the more successful madams was Belle Cora, who inadvertently got involved in a scandal involving her husband, Charles Cora, shooting US Marshal William H. Richardson. This led to the rise of new statutes against prostitution, gambling and other activities seen as "immoral".
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.
On the other hand, prostitution generated much national revenue in South Korea, hence the military government encouraged prostitution for the U.S. military.
Beginning in the late 1980s, many states in the US increased the penalties for prostitution in cases where the prostitute is knowingly HIV-positive. Penalties for felony prostitution vary, with maximum sentences of typically 10 to 15 years in prison.
Sex tourism emerged in the late 20th century as a controversial aspect of Western tourism and globalization.
Historically, and currently, church prostitutes exist, and the practice may be legal or illegal, depending on the country, state or province.
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The position of prostitution and the law varies widely worldwide, reflecting differing opinions on victimhood and exploitation, inequality, , gender equality, ethics and morality, free will, historical , and sociology.
Legal themes tend to address four types of issues: victimhood (including potential victimhood), ethics and morality, freedom of choice, and general benefit or harm to society (including harm arising indirectly from matters connected to prostitution).
Prostitution may be considered a form of exploitation (e.g., Sweden, Norway, Iceland, where it is illegal to buy sexual services, but not to sell them—the client commits a crime, but not the prostitute), a legitimate occupation (e.g., Netherlands, Germany, where prostitution is regulated as a profession) or a crime (e.g., many Muslim countries, where the prostitutes face severe penalties).
The legal status of prostitution varies from country to country, from being legal and considered a profession to being punishable by death. Some jurisdictions outlaw the act of prostitution (the exchange of sexual services for money); other countries do not prohibit prostitution itself, but ban the activities typically associated with it (soliciting in a public place, operating a brothel, pimping, etc.), making it difficult to engage in prostitution without breaking any law; and in a few countries prostitution is legal and regulated.
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.
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.
Prostitution is a significant issue in feminist thought and activism. Many feminists are opposed to prostitution, which they see as a form of exploitation of women and male dominance over women, and as a practice that is the result of the existing patriarchal societal order. These feminists argue that prostitution has a very negative effect, both on the prostitutes themselves and on society as a whole, as it reinforces stereotypical views about women, who are seen as sex objects which can be used and abused by men. Other feminists hold that prostitution can be a valid choice for the women who choose to engage in it; in this view, prostitution must be differentiated from forced prostitution, and feminists should support sex worker activism against abuses by both the sex industry and the legal system.
Many countries have sex worker advocacy groups that 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 Prostitutes' Rights and the Network of Sex Work Projects.
In 1949, the UN General Assembly adopted a convention stating that "prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person", requiring all signing parties to punish pimps and brothel owners and operators and to abolish all special treatment or registration of prostitutes. As of January 2009, the convention was ratified by 95 member nations including France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and not ratified by another 97 member nations including Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
In February 2014, the members of the European Parliament voted in a non-binding resolution, (adopted by 343 votes to 139; with 105 abstentions), in favor of the 'Swedish Model' of criminalizing the buying, but not the selling of sex.
Prostitution, often when it is illegal, is used in extortion and blackmail, which always involves extortion, where the extortionist threatens to reveal information about a victim or their family members that is potentially embarrassing, socially damaging, or incriminating unless a demand for money, property, or services is met. The subject of the extortion may be manipulated into or voluntarily solicit the use of prostitution which is then later used to extort money or for profit otherwise. The film The Godfather Part II famously depicts the role of Senator Geary who is implicated in the use of prostitution in order to gain his compliance on political issues.
The legalization of buying sex is associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where it is prohibited. The type of legalization, such as allowing third-party involvement (i.e, “pimps”), is not shown to make a difference in the effect of sex trafficking inflows.
Children are sold into the global sex trade every year. Often they are kidnapped or orphaned, and sometimes they are sold by their own families. According to the International Labour Organization, the occurrence is especially common in places such as Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, and India.
In India, the federal police say that around 1.2 million children are believed to be involved in prostitution. A CBI statement said that studies and surveys sponsored by the ministry of women and child development estimated that about 40% of all India's prostitutes are children.
Children are often medicated to make them appear more mature. In Bangladesh, child prostitutes are known to take the drug Oradexon, also known as dexamethasone. This over-the-counter steroid, usually used by farmers to fatten cattle, makes child prostitutes look larger and older. Charities say that 90% of prostitutes in the country's legalized brothels use the drug. According to social activists, the steroid can cause diabetes, high blood pressure and is highly addictive. In India, some girls are injected with oxytocin to make their breasts grow faster.
Thailand's Health System Research Institute reported that children in prostitution make up 40% of prostitutes in Thailand.
Some adults travel to other countries to have access to sex with children, which is unavailable in their home country. Cambodia has become a notorious destination for sex with children. Thailand is also a destination for child sex tourism. Several western countries have recently enacted laws with extraterritorial reach, punishing citizens who engage in sex with minors in other countries. As the crime usually goes undiscovered, these laws are rarely enforced.
In some countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands access to sex workers for those with disabilities is funded by the state on the basis that sexuality is a human right and leads to improved well-being for people with disabilities.
In the United States, serving as a cover for prostitution may advertise "full service", a euphemism for coitus.
In Las Vegas, prostitution is often promoted overtly on the Las Vegas Strip by third party workers distributing risque flyers with the pictures and phone numbers of escorts (despite the fact that prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas and Clark County, see Prostitution in Nevada).
The way in which prostitutes advertise their presence varies widely. Some remain in apartments that have hints or clues outside such as posters with "model" written on them to lure potential customers inside. Others advertise by putting numbers or locations in Telephone booth or in online or newspaper ads. In more sexually permissive societies, prostitutes can advertise in public view, such as through display windows. In sexually restrictive societies it may occur through word-of-mouth and other means.
In Russia and other countries of the Soviet Union, prostitution takes the form of an open-air 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. Prevalent in the late 1990s, this type of service has been steadily declining in recent years.
A "lot lizard" is a commonly encountered special case of street prostitution. Lot lizards mainly serve those in the trucking industry at and stopping centers. Prostitutes will often proposition 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.
In escort prostitution, the act takes place at the customer's residence or hotel room (referred to as out-call), or at the escort's residence, or in a hotel room rented for the occasion by the escort (called in-call). The prostitute may be independent or working under the auspices of an escort agency. Services may be advertised over the Internet, in regional publications, or in local telephone listings.
Use of the Internet by prostitutes and customers is common. A prostitute may use adult boards or create a website of their own with contact details, such as email addresses. Adult contact sites, chats, and online communities are also used. This, in turn, has brought increased scrutiny from law enforcement, public officials, and activist groups toward online prostitution. In 2009, Craigslist came under fire for its role in facilitating online prostitution, and was sued by some 40 US state attorneys general, local prosecutors, and law enforcement officials.
Reviews of the services of individual prostitutes can often be found at various escort review boards worldwide. These are used to trade information between potential clients, and also by prostitutes to advertise the various services available. Sex workers, in turn, often use online forums of their own to exchange information on clients, particularly to warn others about dangerous clients.
As opposed to regular sex tourism, which is often legal, a tourist who has sex with a child prostitute will usually be committing a crime in the host country, under the laws of his own country (notwithstanding him being outside of it) and against international law. Child sex tourism (CST) is defined as travel to a foreign country for the purpose of engaging in commercially facilitated child sexual abuse. Thailand, Cambodia, India, Brazil, and Mexico have been identified as leading hotspots of child sexual exploitation.
In 2003, it was estimated that in Amsterdam, one woman in 35 was working as a prostitute, compared to one in 300 in London.
The number of men who have used a prostitute at least once varies widely from country to country, from an estimated low of between 7% and 8.8% in the United Kingdom, to a high of between 59% and 80% in Cambodia. A study conducted by ProCon – a nonpartisan nonprofit organization – estimated the percentage of men who had paid for sex at least once in their lives, and found the highest rates in Cambodia (between 59 and 80% of men had paid for sex at least once) and Thailand (an estimated 75%), followed by Italy (16.7–45%), Spain (27–39%), Japan (37%), the Netherlands (13.5–21.6%), the United States (15.0–20.0%), and China (6.4-20%). Nations with higher rates of prostitution clients display much more positive attitudes towards commercial sex. In some countries, such as Cambodia and Thailand, sex with prostitutes is considered commonplace and men who do not engage in commercial sex may be considered unusual by their peers. In Thailand, it has been reported that about 75% of men have visited a prostitute at least once in their lifetimes. In Cambodia, that figure is 59% to 80%.
In the United States, a 2004 TNS poll reported 15% of all men admitted to having paid for sex at least once in their life. However, a paper entitled "Prostitution and the sex discrepancy in reported number of sexual partners" concluded that men's self-reporting of prostitutes as sexual partners provides a serious underestimate.
In Australia, a survey conducted in the early 2000s showed that 15.6% of men aged 16–59 reported paying for sex at least once in their life, and 1.9% had done so in the past year.
Reports disagree on whether prostitution levels are growing or declining in developed countries. Some studies indicate that the percentage of men engaging in commercial sex in the United States has declined significantly in recent decades: in 1964, an estimated 69–80% of men had paid for sex at least once. Some have suggested that prostitution levels have fallen in sexually liberal countries, most likely because of the increased availability of non-commercial, non-marital sex or, for example in Sweden, because of stricter legal penalties. Other reports suggest a growth in prostitution levels, for example in the US, where again, sexual liberalisation is suggested as the cause. As Norma Ramos, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women says "The more the commercial sex industry normalizes this behavior, the more of this behavior you get".
Prostitutes have long plied their trades to the military in many cultures. For example, the British naval port of Portsmouth had a flourishing local sex industry in the 19th century, and until the early 1990s there were large red-light districts near American military bases in the Philippines. The notorious Patpong entertainment district in Bangkok, Thailand, started as an R&R location for US troops serving in the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. Washington D.C. itself had Murder Bay which attracted the military of the Civil War.
In the United States, the homicide rate for female prostitutes was estimated to be 204 per 100,000. There are substantial differences in rates of victimization between street prostitutes and indoor prostitutes who work as escorts, call girls, or in brothels and massage parlors. Violence against male prostitutes is less common.
The call to decriminalize selling sex is in part to reduce harm and violence. Under criminalization, prostitutes become more vulnerable to be victims of crimes, even by serial killers, because those committing crimes know that prostitutes would be less likely to report such crimes to the police as they would risk arrest. Additionally, this puts prostitutes at risk of violence by police as police are able to extort prostitutes by threatening arrest. The ACLU, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International argue that, in addition to decriminalize selling sex as in the Nordic model, decriminalizing buying sex makes it more safer for prostitutes.
One of the sources for the spread of HIV in Africa is prostitution, with one study finding that encounters with prostitutes produced 84% of new HIV infections in adult males in Accra, Ghana. The spread of HIV from urban settings to rural areas in Africa has been attributed to the mobility of farmers who visit sex workers in cities, for example in Ethiopia. Some studies of prostitution in urban settings in developing countries, such as Kenya, have stated that prostitution acts as a reservoir of STIs within the general population.
Typical responses to the problem are:
Some think that the first two measures are counter-productive. Banning prostitution tends to drive it underground, making safe sex promotion, 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 countries and areas where safer sex precautions are either unavailable or not practiced for cultural reasons, prostitution is an active disease vector for all STIs, including HIV/AIDS, but the encouragement of safer sex practices, combined with regular testing for sexually transmitted infections, has been very successful when applied consistently. As an example, Thailand's condom program has been largely responsible for the country's progress against the HIV epidemic. It has been estimated that successful implementation of safe sex practices in India "would drive the HIV epidemic to extinction" while similar measures could achieve a 50% reduction in Botswana. In 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all countries to remove bans on prostitution and homosexual sex, because "such laws constitute major barriers to reaching key populations with HIV services". In 2012, the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, which was convened by Ban Ki-moon, and which is an independent body, was established at the request of the UNAIDS, and supported by a Secretariat based at the UNDP, reached the same conclusions, also recommending decriminalization of and procuring. Decriminalisation integral to the fight against HIV, Michael Kirby & Michael Wong, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 13 July 2012 AIDS used as reason to legalize prostitutes, Cheryl Wetzstein, The Washington Times, 2 August 2012 Risks, Rights & Health, GLOBAL COMMISSION ON HIV AND THE LAW, UNDP, HIV/AIDS Group, July 2012, page 43 ("Recommendation"): "Repeal laws that prohibit consenting adults to buy or sell sex, as well as laws that otherwise prohibit commercial sex, such as laws against "immoral" earnings, "living of the earnings" of prostitution and brothel-keeping." Nevertheless, the report states that: "The content, analysis, opinions and policy recommendations contained in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations Development Programme."
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on sex work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, contact professions (which includes prostitution, amongst others) had been banned (temporarily) in some countries. This has resulted in a local reduction of prostitution.
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