Is Prostitution Fully a Woman’s Choice or Are Women Who Sell Their Bodies for Money Feel Trapped with No Way Out?

     The debate has raged for nearly five millennia of human history as to whether sex work is

consensual or if selling of one’s own body is demeaning and lowers self-esteem.

     Prostitution, or what has long been dubbed, “The world’s oldest profession,” has always had

its detractors as well as supporters; some who believe that prostitution should be made legal and

those who believe it should be as it already is in most of the world, illegal (Goldscheider, 2000).

     Many times, the debate on legal versus illegal prostitution is a political argument. Those on

the liberal side of the aisle, or the left side, often times in our country in the twenty-first century

are turning their backs against capitalism, so, therefore, any work that is “under scarcity and

capitalism is morally and practically literally slavery” (Reinsenwitz, 2020). Whereas those on the

more conservative side, or right wing Republicans are more prone to look at prostitution and all

other sex occupations as morally wrong, therefore these women have a choice to turn to

prostitution and if they do not “have a gun to their heads” (Reisenwitz, 2020), then they are

committing a grievous sin against God by prostituting themselves out to men for money.

     It is hard to determine the actual numbers but sex tourism, international trafficking of women,

prostitution due to the declining economies here and with burgeoning economies there are

increasing at rapid rates (Goldscheider, 2000).

     In Vienna, Austria, the United Nations (UN) is trying to piece together a response to human

trafficking as well as a response to the sex industry (Goldscheider, 2000).

     Although the theory of what is happening in the UN is good for women worldwide, it does

have some unintended consequences. For starters, if a woman decides to enter prostitution in

another country from her native land and then asks a person in her native country for a ride to the

airport so she can fly to that other country and it somehow comes to light that she was getting

ready to enter this life of crime this man could, theoretically, depending on how the UN decides

to rule, be arrested and imprisoned for making the crime take place (Goldscheider, 2000).

     But most women who enter prostitution in any country do so because there is, indeed, no way

out. That old stereotype is more of a reality than a misconception: women would rather not sell

their bodies for sex and take on a regular job with dignity and self-respect. Voluntary prostitution

is rare.

     The cold hard truth is prostitution is not in reality like some Hollywood movie like Pretty

Woman, where it is a career choice that the women who do this lifestyle does it because it is

glamorous and fun. The truth is selling one’s own body for money is a poor woman’s game and

it’s degrading. No woman wants this for themselves or their daughters.

References

Goldscheider, Eric. (2000,  January 2). Prostitutes work – but do they consent? Bloomburg     University. http://departments.bloomu.edu/crimjust/pages/articles/sex_tourism.htm.

Reisenwitz, Cathy. (2020, November 2). Sex Work and the Spectrum of Coercion. Liberal Currents. https://www.liberalcurrents.com/sex-work-and-the-spectrum-of-coercion/.