Prostitution (Part 1)
Chapter from “Culture Is Not Your Friend: Sex, Death, Drugs & Madness”.
Prostitution is primarily the exchange of sexual services for money, but it can also be the exchange of sex for goods and services.
You may trade sex for drugs, a mobile phone or auto repair. In the Netherlands it is even legal to pay for driving lessons with sex, although this has been the subject of some debate. Not because they find it immoral, but because they have trouble taxing it.
“Sir, you exchanged driving lessons for sex with a student, which you failed to declare as income for tax purposes. It appears that you owe the government three blowjobs, one anal intercourse, and a nipple twist. How would you like to pay?”
Yes, taxing sex can be a bit tricky.
Prostitution – A Desperate Choice?
“But why would someone sell their body for money?”
As a prostitute you are not selling your body, you are providing a service. You can use your body to flip burgers at McDonalds, clean toilets, sweep the streets and so on, and you will still not be selling your body. What you are selling is your time and labour for a certain sum of money.
As for why someone would become a prostitute, there are as many reasons for this as there are prostitutes.
They could be people who have a drug dependency problem and need money to feed the habit. People who love sex and count themselves lucky to be able to get paid to do what they love. Transgendered people who need money to pay for their transition and related care. Students that want to pay off student loans or avoid them in the first place. People who live in poverty and see no other way to give their children the life that they want for them. They could be runaways, homeless people and criminals who are unable to feed themselves any other way because no one wants to employ them. People who are curious and want to know what it is like and that find the idea exiting.
But if you really want to know why they are prostitutes, maybe you should ask them. Talk with them, instead of talking about them.
Prostitutes vs. Sex Surrogates
“A sexual surrogate helps patients to fix sexual problems by serving as a stand-in partner with whom to share physical and emotional intimacy. The therapy may or may not include sexual intercourse.”
While the prostitute is paid to have sex, the sex surrogate is paid to teach clients about intimacy, which may or may not involve having sex with them. Share on X The title of sex surrogate is not formally recognised and there is no specific training required before anyone can use it, although many surrogates do have education and experience in relevant fields such as psychology and sexology.
Who Are The Clients?
“What kind of people buy sex?”
Disabled people who are unable to date in the normal way, or that require help to have sex may be one type of client. Priests who can not handle celibacy and have no taste for altar boys may be another. Women who crave intimacy but who are not ready for a relationship and do not feel comfortable picking some random dude in a bar. Lonely men who have no luck on the dating scene. Sex addicts. People in platonic relationships or who’s partners are unable to have sex. Socially awkward and shy people who are afraid to date real people, or want a trial run before the real thing. History teachers, politicians, artists, your ex-husband, your cousin, your mum. Everybody. People from all walks of life, all occupations, sexual orientations and genders.
Marriage As Prostitution
What is traditional marriage, if not the continuous prostitution of a woman in exchange for money, goods and services from the husband? How romantic. Or maybe he is the prostitute. He gives you sex from time to time, so that you will continue to cook and clean for him and raise his kids for none or little pay.
Maybe they are both prostitutes, but with just one client.
In some Islamic countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran, prostitution may be illegal, but you can have a temporary marriage instead. Nikāḥ al-mutʿah is a short-term marriage where both the duration of the marriage and the dowry is agreed upon in advance.
In Egypt, girls from poor families are given to marriages like these, becoming ‘summer brides’ for wealthy foreigners to help feed the family. Sometimes the girls are willing, other times they are not. Which brings us to a related topic, that of human trafficking. For if a person does not willingly enter sex work, that person is a trafficking victim.
Trafficking
Those who oppose the legalisation of prostitution often conflate the issue with that of human trafficking, citing that the women especially in the industry are not there of their own volition. It would be helpful to the discourse if these two were not confused with each other, so for the sake of clarity I will give you this:
Prostitution has the same relationship to trafficking as sex has to rape. One is voluntary, the other is not. Share on X
Some countries have banned the purchase of sex in their efforts to end trafficking. The Nordic Model criminalises the buyers and pimps, but not the sellers. Unfortunately, this approach has led to some rather dubious practices, such as ‘Operation Homeless’, where the landlords of prostitutes have been threatened with criminal prosecution – for pimping, as they are benefiting financially from the sex work when the prostitutes pay them rent. This has resulted in prostitutes being evicted from their homes as their landlords are not willing to risk fines or jail time for housing them. It has also made the prostitutes afraid to ask the police for help when they need it.
“Few women in the indoor sector contact the police when there is violence in the establishment or the apartment they work in because they fear that they will be affected by operation “Homeless”, report aid services.” – The Oslo Report
In order to combat human trafficking, the Netherlands have opted for a very different approach: lifting the ban on brothels and issuing them licences instead.
“An important spin-off of the policy is that it prevents human trafficking, which is characterised by exploitation, coercion and violence. The lifting of the ban on brothels makes prostitution a legitimate occupation and gives sex workers the same rights and protection as other professionals. The labour laws offer the most effective protection against exploitation, violence and coercion. Similarly, Dutch policy on sexual violence is based on the conviction that strengthening the position of women is the best way to prevent sexual violence. Moreover, abuses are easier to detect when sex workers operate publicly and legally rather than in a clandestine subculture.” – the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
© Merlyn Gabriel Miller
