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Prostitution is Sexual Intercourse in exchange for Remuneration . The legal status of prostitution varies in different countries, from punishable by death to complete legality. A woman who is supported by only one man she has sexual intercourse with but does not live with is a Mistress , and is not normally considered a prostitute. Male Prostitutes offering services to female customers are known as "gigolos" or "escorts". The term is used loosely to indicate someone who engages in sexual acts that are disapproved ofhttp://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761554559/Prostitution.html, such as sexual promiscuity or sex outside of marriage. Cultural usage varies widely, and the use of the term as a pejorative indicates acts that are not formally considered prostitution in a cultural context. TERMINOLOGY The English word whore, referring to (female) prostitutes, is taken from the , Courtesan , Escort , Female Companion . ]] Male prostitutes offering their services to male customers are called "hustlers" or "rent boys". Male prostitutes offering services to female customers are known as "gigolos". Prostitution is sometimes called the "world's oldest profession". Prostitutes are not the only people who have sex for money. Pornographic Actor s and actresses get paid for having sex, but are not generally regarded as prostitutes. Organisers of prostitution are typically known as Pimp s (if male) and Madam s (if female). 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', ' Cam Whore '. The term ''pimp'' is also sometimes similarly used derogatively, as in Poverty Pimp , or as a word that means ''unjustly benefit from others' misery''. Prostitutes are stigmatised in most Societies and Religion s; their customers are typically stigmatised to a lesser degree. The sexual counterparts of prostitutes are known as johns in the United States . In some places, men who drive around Red-light Districts for the purpose of Soliciting prostitutes are also known as Kerb Crawler s. DEFINITION In Street Prostitution the prostitute Solicit s customers while waiting at street corners or "walking the street". Brothels are establishments specifically dedicated to prostitution, often confined to special Red-light District s in big cities. Other names for brothels include Bordello, Whorehouse, Cathouse, and General houses. Prostitution also occurs in some Massage parlours, and in Asian countries in some Barber shops where sexual services may be offered as a secondary function of the premises. 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 type of prostitution is legal, the ambiguous term "escort service" is commonly used. (See Call Girl ). In the US, escort agencies advertise frequently on the Internet 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 Sex Tourism , travellers from rich countries travel to poorer countries such as Thailand in search of sexual services that may be more expensive in their own countries. 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 prostitution 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. Under these conditions in particular, the women (often very young girls) are exposed to the risk of 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 Stop s and stopping centers. Prostitutes will often proposition Trucker s 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. "Recreational Reptile" see above. Street See Also: Street prostitution In street prostitution, the prostitute solicits customers while waiting at street corners (sometimes called "the track" by Pimps and prostitutes alike), 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). Street prostitutes are often motivated by drug addiction (though the statistics are disputed), Street Prostitution and are sometimes referred to by slang terms such as "crack whores". Escort/Out-call s in a British Phone Box advertising the services of Call Girl s]] See Also: Call girl 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 discretion 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. 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. Sex tourism See Also: 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".U.N. World Tourism Organization '' Statement on the Prevention of Organized Sex Tourism '' Often the term "sex tourism" is mistakenly interchanged with the term "child sex tourism". As opposed to regular 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 . Prostitution and the Internet Prostitutes use the Internet to find customers.1 A prostitute may use adult boards or create a website of their own with contact details, such as email addresses. SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND LEGAL STATUS Legality , France . This form of prostitution is often referred to as " BMC ".]] At one end of the legal spectrum, prostitution carries the professionals in the Netherlands and brothels are legal and advertising businesses there (however, prostitutes must be at least 18, while the Age Of Consent is 16 in other contexts). The legal situation in Germany , Switzerland (where the issue of legal age is a source of avid dispute, some insisting that one can legally be a prostitute as of one's sixteenth birthday, other maintaining it is eighteen), and New Zealand is similar to that in the Netherlands (see Prostitution In The Netherlands , Prostitution In Germany and Prostitution In New Zealand ). In the Australian state of New South Wales , any person over the age of 18 may offer to provide sexual services in return for money. In Victoria , a person who wishes to run a prostitution business must have a licence. Prostitutes working for themselves in their own business, as prostitutes in the business, must be registered. Individual sex workers are not required to be registered or licensed. In some countries the legal status of prostitution may vary depending on the activity; in Japan , for example, vaginal prostitution is against the law while Fellatio prostitution is legal, as women who perform fellatio for money are not considered prostitutes in Japan. In Turkey , street prostitution is illegal. Prostitution through government regulated brothels is legal. All brothels must have a license, and all sex workers working in brothels must be licensed as well. Municipality based "Commissions for the struggle against venereal diseases and prostitution" are in charge of issuing such licenses. In the United Kingdom , prostitution is not formally illegal, but several activities surrounding it are outlawed. In England and Wales, the legal situation is:
There has been long and widespread debate as to whether the a toleration of prostitution similar to that seen in the Netherlands and Germany should be extended. Local police forces have historically flipped between zero tolerance of prostitution and unofficial red light districts. The Government announced on January 17 , 2006 , that in England and Wales it was considering allowing small brothels, whilst continuing the crackdown against kerb-crawling, which is seen as a nuisance. {Link without Title} A similar situation exists in Scotland, with prostitution itself not illegal but associated activities are. A Prostitution Tolerance Zones Bill was introduced into the Scottish Parliament but failed to become law. In all but two U.S. State s, the buying and selling of sexual services is illegal and usually classified as a Misdemeanor . Regulated brothels are legal in several counties of Nevada (see Prostitution In Nevada ). In Rhode Island , the act of sex for money is not illegal, but street solicitation and operating a brothel are. The police departments in Canton, New Castle County, Peoria , Wichita , Arlington , and St.Paul post the photos of prostitutes and their clients on their websites. In Canada , prostitution itself is legal, but most other activities around it are not. It is illegal to live "off the avails" of prostitution (this law is intended to outlaw pimping) and it is illegal (for both parties) to negotiate a sex-for-money deal in a public place (which includes bars). To maintain a veneer of legality, escort agencies arrange a meeting between the escort and the client. A Canadian Supreme Court ruling in 1978 required that to be convicted of soliciting, a prostitute's activities must be "pressing and persistent". Similarly, in Bulgaria prostitution itself is legal, but most activities around it (such as pimping) are outlawed. Rules vary as to which roles in prostitution are illegal: being a prostitute, being a client, or being a pimp. In Sweden it is legal to sell sex, but pimping is illegal, and so is the purchase of sexual services since 1999. Prostitutes are generally viewed by the government as oppressed, while their clients are viewed as oppressors. Norway has the same laws as Sweden, except that it's not illegal to buy sex. This situation is liable to change within a year or so, however, as the delegates at the 2007 annual meeting of the Labour Party , Norway's largest, and part of the 2005–2009 coalition government, voted in favour of banning the purchase of sexual services. In the Netherlands, the purchase of sexual services from prostitutes under 18 years of age, or pimping in such instances, is illegal. The offering of services by prostitutes under 18 years of age is not illegal, unless the client is also underage (under 16). In most countries with criminalized prostitution, prostitutes are arrested and prosecuted at a far higher rate than their clients. In Brazil and Costa Rica prostitution ''per se'' is legal, but taking advantage of or profiting from the prostitution of others is illegal. Prostitution is legal for citizens in Denmark , but it is illegal to profit from the prostitution of others (which outlaws pimping and sex slavery) . Prostitution is not regulated as in the Netherlands; instead, the government attempts through social services to bring people out of prostitution into other careers, and attempts to lessen the amount of criminal activity and other problems associated with prostitution. In Thailand , prostitution is illegal as stated in the Prevention and Suppression Act of B.E. 2539 (=1996) http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/docs/WEBTEXT/46403/65063/E96THA01.htm ''Ilio.org'' Retrieved on 04-26-07 In Hong Kong , prostitution is legal so long as it is done in private, but brothels are illegal as is any third-party profit from prostitution (pimping). However in practice much of the prostitution is controlled by Triad societies or as informal additions to otherwise nonsexual services such as massage parlors, bars and Karaoke establishments. Among the many forms of prostitution common in Hong Kong are "one for one" girls. To avoid the operation of an illegal brothel, triads will rent tiny apartments and allow girls to "sublet" them so they appear to be operating out of their own homes. The triads then advertise the girls' services on web sites or in local publications. Another avoidance strategy is to operate a karaoke establishment and provide girls as entertainment or companionship only; the girls then take customers to an hourly hotel in the same building and pay for the room separately. Informal, individual prostitution (mostly of Filipinas, Indonesians, Thais, and sometimes women from Latin America and the former Soviet Union) is almost always available at discos or hotel bars, especially in the Tsim Sha Tsui and Wan Chai districts (the latter famous as the setting for '' The World Of Suzie Wong ''. Occasionally the police raid the triad-run prostitution setups, but usually the only arrests made are for immigration violations. Women frequently enter Hong Kong from mainland China for prostitution services. However, this travel is not forcible; most women working as prostitutes in Hong Kong are of age and are doing so voluntarily. Establishments engaged in sexual slavery or owned by organized crime are the highest priority targets of law enforcement actions against prostitution. Police also frequently intervene when prompted by local resident complaints, often directed against street prostitution. In most countries where prostitution is illegal, at least some forms of it are tolerated. This ambiguous status allows the police to extort money or services, particularly information on criminal activities that prostitutes are often well-placed to obtain, from prostitutes in exchange for "looking the other way". Pimping is a Sex Crime in almost all jurisdictions. Some other countries retain the ill-defined offence of "living off the proceeds of the prostitution of others", one of the '' Prima Facie '' evidences of which is co-habiting with a prostitute. In 1949, the UN General Assembly adopted A Convention stating that forced prostitution is incompatible with human dignity, requiring all signing parties to punish pimps and brothel owners and operators and to abolish all special treatment or registration of prostitutes. The convention was ratified by 89 countries but Germany , the Netherlands and the United States did not participate. Some municipalities in the Netherlands would like a "zero tolerance policy" for brothels, i.e. not allow any, on moral grounds, but by law this is not possible. However, regulations, including restrictions in number and location are common. Whether a zero policy on Urban Planning grounds is allowed is still unclear. Advertising in Sao Paulo .]] In countries where prostitution is legal, advertising it may be legal (as in the Netherlands) or illegal (as in Germany). In countries where prostitution is illegal, advertising it is usually also illegal. Covert advertising for prostitution can take a number of forms:
In Las Vegas prostitution is often promoted overtly on The Las Vegas Strip by third party workers distributing risqué flyers with the pictures and phone numbers of prostitutes. Prostitution is illegal in Clark County about.com where Las Vegas is located. Regulated See Also: Regulated prostitution In some jurisdictions, such as Nevada (''see'' Prostitution In Nevada ), Switzerland and in four Australia n states or territories ( Australian Capital Territory , Victoria , Queensland and the Northern Territory ), prostitution is legal but heavily regulated. Such approaches are often, but not always taken with the stance that prostitution is impossible to eliminate and thus these societies have chosen to regulate it in ways that reduce the more undesirable aspects. Goals of such regulations include controlling Sexually Transmitted Disease , reducing Sexual Slavery , controlling where brothels may operate and dissociating prostitution from crime syndicates. The Dutch legalisation of prostitution has similar objectives, as well as improving health and working conditions for the women and weakening the link between prostitution and criminality. Daily Planet is a brothel in Melbourne , Australia whose Shares were listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2003, before listing difficulties - investors were asked to undergo police checks before buying shares - forced the listed company to divest the brothel back into private ownership (the company remained listed and continues its other business interests). There are various regulatory regimes governing prostitution in Australia and a level of increasing professionalism is being seen in the industry with the establishment of business associations like the Queensland Adult Business Association http://qaba.org.au ''Qaba.org'' Retrieved on 04-26-07 that ascribe to a strict ethical code which entrenches the independence of service providers. Of children See Also: prostitution of children Regarding the Prostitution Of Children the laws on prostitution as well as those on sex with a child apply. If prostitution in general is legal there is usually a minimum age requirement for legal prostitution that is higher than the general Age Of Consent (see above for some examples). Although some countries do not single out patronage of child prostitution as a separate crime, same act is punishable as sex with an underage. Some Pedophiles 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 these pedophiles. 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. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1775221.stm ''News.bbc.co.uk'' Retrieved on 04-26-07 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3197861.stm ''News.bbc.co.uk'' Retrieved on 04-26-07 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3221905.stm ''News.bbc.co.uk'' Retrieved on 04-26-07 In illegal immigration A difficulty facing migrant prostitutes in many developed countries is the illegal residence status of some of these women. They face potential deportation, and so do not have recourse to the law. Hence there are brothels that may not adhere to the usual legal standards intended to safeguard public health and the safety of the workers. Violence against prostitutes Prostitutes are at risk of ) are also sometimes the targets of Serial Killer s, who may consider them easy targets, or use the religious and social stigma associated with prostitutes as justification for their murder. Being criminals in most jurisdictions, prostitutes are less likely than the law-abiding to be looked for by police if they disappear, making them favored targets of predators. The unidentified serial killer (or killers) known as Jack The Ripper is said to have killed at least five prostitutes in London in 1888. More recently, Robert Pickton , a Canadian who lived near Vancouver, made headlines after the remains of several missing prostitutes were found buried on his farm. He now stands charged with the murder of 26 Vancouver area women, and is suspected by police of killing at least four more (though no charges have been laid). As of December 2006, a serial killer of prostitutes appears to be active in Ipswich , England (see 2006 Ipswich Murder Investigation ). Human trafficking and sexual slavery See Also: Trafficking in human beings ", as prostitution was known in the 19th-century.]] During World War II, women and girls were kidnapped and enslaved by the Imperial Japanese military and forced to work as unpaid prostitutes (see Comfort Women ). Human trafficking is the fastest growing form of modern day slavery2 and is the third largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world.3 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. 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.4 |
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