Prostitution: as a profession

Introduction

In terms of sociology, Prostitution is a way for an individual to maximize their monetary intake or in other words “benefits” by selling the thing that they have readily, their bodies. In other words, it is the act or practice of participating in promiscuous sexual activity especially for money.Merriam Webster defines prostitution as the act or practice of engaging in promiscuous sexual relations especially for money.

Prostitution first emerged in the Ancient East, there were different facades to prostitution in different countries. For example prostitution flourished in Renaissance Italy.Italian courtesans knew freedom like no other prostitutes of the Renaissance period. While most women during this time were only truly able to educate themselves if they were sent to a convent, courtesans were able to study freely. Furthermore, courtesans were able to obtain the same security and stability as married women, and, unlike married women, they were actually able to embrace their sexuality. Pre colonial India has a diverse history of prostitution and went on to show as much as a nine different tiers of sex workers, from devadasis to ganikas. The Japanese Edo empire and the Ottoman empire also have accounts of prostitution etched in history. Moving on to the Modern world.

In present-day America, Nevada is the only state that legally allows prostitution, within designated locations. They get regular HIV checkups and premises are checked to make it a drug free area.There are around 40–42 million prostitutes in North America, out of which around 8–9 million are male.

Prostitution is technically illegal but widely practiced in India. By one count prostitution is an $8 billion a year industry with more two million prostitutes and 275,000 brothels. In another count in all of India, there are as many as 10 million commercial sex workers in India.

Prostitution with a sociological perspective

Prostitution, has been looked down by society, especially Indian society, for

Prostitution, has been looked down by society, especially Indian society, for sex has always been considered a taboo , something that cannot be discussed as regular coffee table discussion. Areas where brothels are located are referred to as red light areas.

Red light areas are generally considered the ‘shadier’ parts of cities. Sonagachi, in Kolkata is the biggest red light area district in India.

What is a prostitute? We can define prostitution, but can we put it under a morality check? Let us take two cases in mind.

On May 1 1958, a young woman was an unusual cynosure of all eyes in a courtroom in the north Indian city of Allahabad.

Husna Bai, a 24-year-old woman, told Judge Jagdish Sahai that she was a prostitute. Invoking the constitution, she had filed a petition challenging the validity of a new law to ban trafficking in human bodies.

By striking at her means of livelihood, Bai argued, the new law had “frustrated the purpose of the welfare state established by the Constitution in the country”.

It was an act of radical public defiance by a poor Muslim prostitute. She had forced the judges to look at women on the street at a time when life in India had excluded prostitutes from civil society.

Their numbers — 28,000 in 1951, down from 54,000, according to official records — had dwindled, as had public support for them. When prostitutes offered donations to the Congress party, Mahatma Gandhi refused and told them to take up spinning instead. All this despite the fact that they were among the few groups of people who were allowed to vote because they earned money, paid taxes and owned property.

Another case:

An extract taken from Siddharth Kara’s Sex Trafficking- Inside the Business; the narrator goes to a brothel on Falkland Road, Bombay. The brothel owner is ready to offer him a Nepalese 10–15 year old.

The narrator had further accounts from Kamathipura to share, talking to a girl named Malaika, who told him how the number of sex trafficking victims were increasing in number and how they were largely minors.

The victims were brought to brothels, given opium so that they would have sex. They were regularly abused, both physically and verbally.

Prostitution, when preceded by human trafficking is non consensual sex. It is basic sense that rape is a legal offence.

Legalizing prostitution

Current scenario;

The law is still vague and ambiguous on prostitution. The primary law dealing with the status of sex workers is the 1956 law referred to as The Immoral Traffic (Suppression) Act (SITA). According to this law, prostitutes can practise their trade privately but cannot legally solicit customers in public.Unlike as is the case with other professions, sex workers are not protected under normal labor laws, but they possess the right to rescue and rehabilitation if they desire and possess all the rights of other citizens.

But in a very general sense, when a prostitute is abused by the client/clientele, they will not be able to place their complaint under workplace harassment. Prostitutes are often submitted to some really heinous crimes, are verbally and physically assaulted, and while they are submitting their body to sex, they still deserve consent and what they want to and don’t want to do.

The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, or ITPA, also called the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA) is a 1986 amendment of legislation passed in 1956 as a result of the signing by India of the United Nations’ declaration in 1950 in New York on the suppression of trafficking. The act, then called the All India Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act (SITA), was amended to the current law.

While this is the case in India, Amsterdam has always permitted prostitution, a bylaw of the city permitted prostitution going as back in time as 1413.

By the 1950s, brothels in Amsterdam were considered a very romantic and exciting place. There is de facto legalization at the local and municipal level, making it a very liberal space for brothel owners and sex workers as long as they did not violate any human rights.

CONCLUSION

We can only look at prostitution from different vantage points, it still stands a question whether or not can it be considered a profession. Prostitution as a profession has a lot of different perspectives, and it can be looked at from a privileged point of view or seen from a firsthand experience, the views will differ in every case.

References:

Legalizing prostitution: From illicit vices to lawful businesses, Ronald Weitzer

Satz, Debra. “Markets in Women’s Sexual Labor.” Ethics, vol. 106, no. 1, 1995, pp. 63–85. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2382005.

Abrams, Kerry. “Polygamy, Prostitution, and the Federalization of Immigration Law.” Columbia Law Review, vol. 105, no. 3, 2005, pp. 641–716. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4099477.

“Industrialization of Sex.” The Prostitution of Sexuality, by Kathleen Barry, NYU Press, New York; London, 1995, pp. 122–164. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg779.8.

“Conclusion.” Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business, by Ronald Weitzer, NYU Press, 2012, pp. 204–214. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt16gzq1j.11.

Human Trafficking: Applying Research, Theory, and Case Studies: By Noël Bridget Busch-Armendariz, Maura Nsonwu, Laurie Cook Heffron

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45717590

The Prostitution of Sex: Kathleen Barry

Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery :By Siddharth Kara