Prostitution Reconsidered Research Paper

Prostitution Reconsidered

Prostitution has been around for centuries and has been a heavily debated practice for as long as it has been utilized in society. Prostitution is first and foremost viewed and known as the selling of ones body, sexuality, sex, and so on. However, according to most standard, English dictionaries there are two slightly different interpretations of what prostitution is. One is the aforementioned definition, and the other explains prostitution as the incorporation of one's insignificant skills in order to gain financial profit. According to the latter definition of what prostitution is, it is quite possible to compare sexual labor to the well-known practice of "gold-digging", in which lower-class women seek financial
This is still considered prostitution, however I believe that the concept of what prostitution is, means to society, and contributes in the business world needs to be reconsidered. This is not the same as prostitution as we now know it to be in Western culture. " The interesting phenomenon of open-ended prostitution where a prostitute may have several relationships to men (or women) overseas who send also money between their visits is yet another area where one might think that the customer has been had(Oppermann 157)." Many opponents to the existence of prostitution and the justification of sexual labor as an industry would argue that it all comes back to the same underlying concept of selling ones body, which essentially prohibits the development of intimacy, love, and affection between the parties involved. In Fantasy Islands, Julia O'Connell Davidson argue that relationships cannot be formed through prostitution because the instant that money, in the form of payment, is incorporated into the interactions between men and women, the intimacy factor is taken out. If this is true for this kind of relationship, then the women who search for the men with the most financial security in the United States should be considered prostitutes and as lacking intimacy as well. They
While many would argue that to much violence exists between prostitutes, pimps, and clients, I would have to point out the more infamous versions of violence that occur with in the supposed safety of marriage as domestic abuse within the United States. Others would say that prostitution as sexual tourism is degrading and exploitive and yet the same people who support these arguments are buying playboy and financing the advertising and entertainment industries that sustain the same kind of behavior that exemplifies the image of women as sex objects. It would be better for everyone involved if prostitution was cleared of the nasty reputation it has acquired unjustly. In her studies of prostitution in Southeast Asia, Than-Dam Troung came to the conclusion that, "sexual labor should be considered similar to other forms of labor that humankind performs to sustain itself – such as mental and manual labor, all of which involve specific parts of the body and particular types of energy and skills." It is just a chosen career for many women, and has been proven to be so in many feminist studies of prostitution and sexual labor in foreign countries. To believe that prostitution is the objectification and exploitation of women is to support the belief that women cannot make their own wise decisions concerning their bodies, that they would never willingly use their sexuality for profit, and that