background image is of "Scanning electron micrograph of
HIV-1
budding from cultured lymphocyte." courtesy of CDC Pubic Health
Image Library (PHIL)
Prostitution
has been around since the creation of people, and its said to be
“one of the oldest of professions.” (5) The currency used
may fluctuate from food and shelter to money but the act in itself is
ultimately the same. Prostitution is defined as the “act of
granting sexual access for payment. Although most commonly
conducted by females for males, it may be performed by females or males
for either females or males.” (1) Along with being
ostracized by society, in the field of prostitution, then "Prostitutes
are at risk of violent crime,[13] as well as possibly at higher risk of
occupational mortality than any other group of women ever studied. For
example, the homicide rate for female prostitutes was estimated to be
204 per 100,000 (Potterat et al, 2004), which is sometimes higher than
that for the next riskiest occupations in the United States during a
similar period (4 per 100,000 for female liquor store workers and 29
per 100,000 for male taxicab drivers) (Castillo et al., 1994)"
(3) This act of social deviancy has brought negative feelings
throughout the centuries. The cause of prostitution in many cases
seems to be lust on behalf of the man and a need for survival on behalf
of the woman. This is the common viewpoint, and exploitation of
women is a very negative factor in the act of prostitution, but it’s
also true that men are exploited as well. One may think of a man
being the ultimate beneficiary in this negative act of a woman selling
her body for money, but there must be a reason why men would pay for
something that is supposed to be done only in a loving
relationship. Without men willing to pay, then there wouldn’t be
prostitution. In the 21st century, the United States has
supposively made prostitution illegal in every state except Nevada but
strip clubs and massage parlors are legal. In my opinion, these
places are the same as the brothels in Nevada except that the police
raid these areas every once in a while just to make city officials look
good. Its ridiculous how something like this can go basically
unregulated. Basically men must enjoy this behavior, and want to
give their money away and ruin their families. Or maybe there’s
another reason for this immoral behavior. From my point of view,
I couldn't imagine seeking out another women and paying her money in
exchange for sex especially if I was married or had a girlfriend, but a
lot of happily married men seek this activity outside of the home. The causes
for a person to subject themselves to prostitution, and ultimately
selling their bodies to another person, may have a broad range of
causes. A number of factors may be involved which may include
desperation, low self-esteem, being forced into it, drug addiction, and
in some occurrences it may be caused by pure greed to make money by
doing something that may be considered effortless in their minds.
There are two sides to prostitution; that of the seller and that of the
buyer. The focus on most research is why the seller engages in
this heavily disdained activity but there wouldn't be a seller if there
wasn’t a buyer. The person seeking out sexual companionship from
another, and willing to pay for this service should be the real focus
of future research because if people are taught to see this as an awful
part of society, then prostitution can be decreased in much the same
way that the focus on drug addiction seeks to prevent letting
controlled substances ruin someone’s life. Prostitution seems to
exist all around the world; from the richest countries to the poorest
countries. Laws in the United States are in effect to make
prostitution illegal, but through the use of a variety of schemes, it
seems to be just as legal and attainable throughout the U.S. as it is
in other countries in Europe where it is legal. Through the use
of escort services, massage parlors, call girls, and strip clubs then
the illegal act of prostitution has become seemingly as acceptable as
marijuana drug usage. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution)
People like to say it’s a victimless crime between two consenting
adults, but in most situations even if both people consent to it, then
there is regret afterwards for one or both parties. The victim is
the participant’s mental health, and the degradation of mental sanity
in one’s life can lead to a vast assortment of psychological issues
which may include financial failure and failed relationships.
Increased mortality may also be a result of mental illness, not to
mention increased mortality causes by Sexually Transmitted Infections
(STI's). "Some prostitutes’ explanation for becoming involved in
prostitution include “having a history of sexual abuse, having grown up
without love from the significant adults in their lives, being enticed
by a male of female friend or by peer pressure from a group of friends,
and needing money. Those who used drugs prior to their involvement in
prostitution activities mention their addiction as a major reason for
trading sex for money or drugs.”" (8) A woman who is forced into
prostitution is a victim of sexual abuse, and basically rape. Its
an awful situation when a woman is manipulated into doing something
that she’ll regret for the rest of her life. The "john",
or the buyer, in the event of prostitution where a man buys sex from a
woman ultimately is the one who holds the key in decreasing this
indiscretion in society. The causes for men to exhibit this
behavior may be caused by a mental illness factor, and some men may
have been sexually abused as children which causes them to have this
constant need for sexual activity with not just their spouse but with
other women as well. There are many causes for adult sexual
behavior ranging from past life experience to just an innate need for
lust. Sex in mammals is used for reproduction, and the driving
force for this is the ultimate pleasure that is obtained from
this. To exchange money, or other goods, for pleasure is
completely acceptable when it comes to buying food, seeing a movie, and
countless other socially acceptable pleasures. Religiously
speaking, without quoting the bible, it’s basically wrong to have sex
outside of a marriage and many societies have strict laws to punish
certain indiscretions. But, it has become socially acceptable in
the U.S. for men to look at women and have multiple relationships with
more than one woman. This social acceptance of sexual promiscuity
and its continued degradation upon society allows for men to justify
their need to be with more than one woman. It’s henceforth, a
niche that is filled by women in the field of prostitution. But,
most men have never been with a prostitute and a lot of men have never
even been to a strip club. So, is it a certain type of man who
would falls into this desperate move of paying a woman for sexual
pleasure rather than go through the proper protocol of courtship?
Is it that certain men are vulnerable to this temptation, or could it
be that mental illness plays a role as the motivating factor? In much
the same way that some people are more susceptible to becoming
alcoholics or drug addicts, it could be that people who succumb to
soliciting prostitution are just as vulnerable. Prostitution
should be seen as a pandemic that's causing societal immorality, and
needs to be handled just as seriously as any other crime. When
someone is caught selling drugs, then the judge will through the book
at this person. Maybe, it’s too harsh to put a person jail for 5
years for prostitution; but maybe new laws need to be passed so that
it’s slowly implemented so that people can realize that it’s just as
bad as any other crime, and that the result could be death if an
incurable infectious disease is transmitted. With HIV, there's no
current cure as of yet but with trials for vaccinations then it
probably will be eradicated from earth in the future. But,
microbes are always evolving, and another infection will take its place
so there's no cure for evolution and the only way to solve this problem
of STI's is prevention.
The effects
of prostitution are disastrous in many cases, and disease transmission
will ultimately reduce the quality of life for those involved.
Aside from disease, depression stemming from the stigma of being called
a "whore" and having giving something sacred to a man in exchange for
money will cause one's mental health to be compromised.
Throughout one's life, they will live with knowing what they've
done. It’s like a criminal who repents for his or her crime for
the rest of their life; it’s something that can change a person's whole
view on life and upon their self-worth. When it comes to getting
a real job, then the expectation of opportunities will be diminished
and medial jobs will be accepted, and become accepted as the expected
outcome in their life. The reduced opportunities for healthcare
upon retirement age will correspondingly reduce the access to
preventive healthcare options and result in higher mortality rates upon
former prostitutes. Other negative effects of prostitution exist
in the fact that prostitution can actually lead to further criminal
activity, and this is described by the fact that "Prostitution is often
the gateway crime for women (Chesney-Lind, 1997). It has been reported
that 70% of female inmates in American prisons were initially arrested
for prostitution (Boyer & James, 1983, p. 131)." (6) This
alarming fact shows how prostitution will change someone’s behavior,
and lead them down a path of self regret and certain negative
consequences. Prostitution is in many ways similar to drugs; its
starts small and snowballs into a horrible ending. In cases of
voluntary prostitution, then it basically starts out of pure
desperation for money, drugs, or even just a place to live. Like,
a young adult who has left his or her parents’ house because of an
assortment of reasons may encounter a variety of possible problems when
prostitution seems to be the only way to survive and this can be
described in the way that “Homeless youth who trade sex are likely to
experience numerous negative health outcomes, such as being sexually
victimized, attempting suicide, being depressed, contracting sexually
transmitted diseases, and becoming pregnant, among others” (8)
In some
countries prostitution is legal, and it’s even taxed like any other
profession, but in the United States it’s supposed to be illegal in all
50 states plus Puerto Rico and US territories except for parts of
Nevada. Through the use of openly accepted manipulations of the law,
prostitution is basically openly practiced throughout the United States
by the use of massage parlors, escort services, and obviously by women
on the side of the streets. When thinking of smoking, then it’s
openly known that it causes cancer and it’s just bad for your health
but it’s legal. Bars and nightclubs serve alcohol, and people
have to drive home afterwards so where's the sense in that? It’s
ridiculous how such public health risks are basically allowed in
society even though they have caused numerous fatalities, and destroyed
millions of lives. The transmission of disease during
transactional sex has a correlation with respect to where the
transaction of prostitution occurs. Like, if a prostitute engages
in this activity on the side of the street there's a much lower
occurrence of condom usage as compared to prostitutes who work in a
controlled environment such as a brothel. This phenomenon of
transactional sex, and its relation to disease transmission can be
depicted as "Those with a lower socioeconomic status were more likely
than those with a higher socioeconomic status to be infected with HIV-1
(17 versus 4%), syphilis (66 versus 24%) and hepatitis B (52 versus
26%), but there were no differences in prevalence rates by city." (4)
When the
word prostitution is said, then people think of women on the side of
the street at night, but that's only one part of the
problem. This societal illness involves both men and women
selling their bodies; both heterosexual and homosexual.
Especially, with the way society views gay men, then it’s obvious that
a lot of men in this situation do not see themselves as having a viable
choice of being able to just tell their families that they're
gay. For this reason, it’s a classic example of how such sexual
needs would cause such men to engage in prostitution.
Homosexuality is not a mental illness from a psychological viewpoint
since there's no way to correct it, but from a biological viewpoint,
then it would inhibit reproduction which is the main goal of
life. People may see life as an endless world of optimistic
possibilities, but from a biological viewpoint then its really not; the
goal of all life forms is to reproduce and that's why such strong
sexual desires exist in all life forms and its the foundation for
evolution in itself. Prostitution is an evil byproduct for the
need for this sexual desire, and it promotes destruction of the normal
criteria needed to build a family that can be nurtured and prepared for
further reproduction. Male sex workers encounter the same
diseases as female sex workers, but certain problems that females may
have with respect to be forced into it are less prevalent. (9)
The use male prostitutes is something more private, and not glamorized
in society since many of the clients for male prostitutes are also
men. This world is more discreet, and not talked about nor
examined by society.
A darker side of prostitution even worse than the
mental manipulation of women into this horrible field of making a
living is that of sex trafficking which is the blatant use of force to
make women sell their bodies for money. Its basic slavery, and a
purely despicable action by people so they can make money by selling
other people's bodies. This disgusting use of sex slavery can be
described as "Trafficking across or within national borders for
purposes of sexual exploitation including forced prostitution, ie, sex
trafficking, is recognized as a major gender-based human rights
violation with significant individual and public health consequences1-2
and is increasingly discussed as a potentially critical mechanism in
the spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) across developing
nations." (2) Forceful trafficking of young women to fulfill the
needs of sick men has resulted in the increased transmission of
HIV. The young women who are trafficked into this situation are
victims, and they undergo unimaginable pain both physically and
mentally. Its simply inconceivable that a person could treat
another person in this manner when the same men who pay for sex, and
force women to do it without condoms, would be the same men who would
take violent action if someone even looked at their sisters and mothers
in a perverted manner. Sexual transmitted infections have plagued
those who prefer promiscuity since the beginning of man and "Among 287
repatriated Nepalese sex-trafficked girls and women, 109 (38.0%) tested
positive for HIV. Among those with complete documentation of
trafficking experiences (n = 225), median age at time of trafficking
was 17.0 years, with 33 (14.7%) trafficked prior to age 15 years.
Compared with those trafficked at 18 years or older, girls trafficked
prior to age 15 years were at increased risk for HIV (adjusted odds
ratio [AOR], 3.70; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.32-10.34), with 20
of 33 (60.6%) infected among this youngest age group. Additional
factors associated with HIV positivity included being trafficked to
Mumbai (AOR, 4.85; 95% CI, 2.16-10.89) and longer duration of forced
prostitution (AOR, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.01-1.03; indicating increased risk
per additional month of brothel servitude). In post hoc analyses, girls
trafficked prior to age 15 years had increased odds of having been
detained in multiple brothels (odds ratio [OR], 5.03; 95% CI,
1.96-12.93) and in brothels for a duration of 1 year or more (OR, 2.67;
95% CI, 1.12-6.33) vs those trafficked at 18 years or older."
Therefore, the incidence rates of HIV infection increased dramatically
with respect to the factors of the age of young women when forced into
sex slavery, and with respect to how many brothels they had been forced
to work at. These rates will ultimately increase mortality rates
as the immune response is suppressed by HIV giving way to opportunistic
infections, and causing decreased life expectancy in these young
women. The men who contract this virus will spread it to their
wives, and it just causes an epidemic of senseless heart break and all
because these promiscuous men couldn't control themselves. "Human
trafficking is the fastest growing form of modern day slavery[15] and
is the third largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the
world." (6) The mental health of those who are forced into sex slavery
can be permanently destroyed by the fact that “Physical and
sexual abuses may start early in the travel/transit stage of
trafficking with pacification and brainwashing of victims through
repeated raping, physical assaults and food and sleep deprivation” and
these actions will create a decline in mental health in such a way that
this “...social restriction and marginalization overlap with
psychological abuse, further jeopardizing women’s mental health” (10)
The pandemic
of prostitution seemingly will never end as long as people innately
have a promiscuity gene and as long as economically suppressed people
need basic essentials in life like food and water. A way of
helping to reduce sexually transmitted infections may be by government
regulation since it’s probably not feasible to expect that people will
marry just one person and always live happily ever after.
Monogamy can be seen as a preventative measure along with the use of
contraceptives. In an effort to combat sexually transmitted
diseases such as HIV, billions of dollars have been designated in
efforts to prevent disease transmission and this can be represented as
"Within the detailed plan, Congress expressed concern about the social,
cultural, and behavioral causes of HIV, specifically naming
prostitution and sex trafficking as among the behavioral forces behind
the spread of the virus. This legislation advanced a new policy goal
for the US: the global eradication of prostitution [1]."
(7) Monetary funds have been set aside to help fight
the transmission of HIV in particular, and with prostitution being the
most heavily used vector for transmission of HIV, then efforts are
being sought to destroy the practice of prostitution. The
monetary amounts can be represented by the fact that "In January 2003,
United States President George W. Bush announced the President's
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the appropriation of $15
billion dollars for programs to combat the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, in
his State of the Union address." and further amounts have been
designated as well in a diligent effort prevent and cure the world of
such massive pain and suffering. The laws throughout the world
should be changed, and prostitution should be abolished, and blatantly
illegal the same way slavery is.
2. Jay G.
Silverman, PhD; Michele R. Decker, MPH; Jhumka Gupta, ScD, MPH; Ayonija
Maheshwari, MD, MPH; Brian M. Willis, JD, MPH; Anita Raj,
PhD 2007 HIV Prevalence and
Predictors of Infection in Sex-Trafficked Nepalese Girls and
Women. JAMA. 298:536-542.
3. Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution
4. Lurie P, Fernandes ME,
Hughes V, Arevalo EI, Hudes ES, Reingold A, Hearst N. 1995
Socioeconomic status and risk of HIV-1, syphilis and hepatitis B
infection among sex workers in São Paulo State, Brazil.
Instituto Adolfo Lutz Study Group. AIDS. Jul;9 Suppl 1:S31-7.
5. Hickenbottom,
Iris Leos 2002. Prositution: Then and Now. Utexas.edu
6.
http://www.wmich.edu/~destiny/statistics.htm
7. Nicole Franck
Masenior* and Chris Beyrer 2007 The US Anti-Prostitution
Pledge: First Amendment Challenges and Public Health Priorities
Public Library of Science v.4(7); Jul
8. Tyler, Kimberly A.;
Johnson, Katherine A. 2006 Trading Sex: Voluntary or
Coerced? The Experiences of Homeless Youth. Journal of Sex
Research. Aug2006, Vol. 43 Issue 3, p208-216, 9p
9. Philip A Chan1 and
Omar A Khan 2007 Risk factors for HIV infection in Males who have
Sex with Males (MSM) in Bangladesh BMC Public Health. 2007; 7:
153.
10. OLGA GAJIC-VELJANOSKI &
DONNA E. STEWART Women Trafficked Into
Prostitution: Determinants, Human Rights and Health
Needs. TRANSCULT PSYCHIATRY 2007; 44; 338
