Although the sex industry has always been a topic for debate, times and technology are changing. As the industry continues to develop, the controversy concerning sex work is growing tremendously. Prostitution, the most common form of sex work, is considered the “world’s oldest profession,” and all throughout history authorities have worked to control it while also dealing with the controversy over whether or not it should be legal (Shah, 2003). Prostitution is an issue that concerns not only the law, but morality, economics, and health; all categories that are universally important, and also disagreed upon. By definition, a prostitute is a person who makes an explicit agreement to perform a sexual act in exchange for some type of compensation and is willing to offer this service to anyone who can afford it (Lehmiller, 2014). In other words, prostitution is trading some type of sexual service for money. While prostitution can be defined clearly, inferences based off stereotypes and stigmas attached to the word ‘prostitution’ have made the majority of explanations of what it really means extremely vague. First, it is important to understand how prostitution works. There are typically two types of prostitutes: streetwalkers, or ones who walk the streets in search for clients, and escorts, ones who associate with some type of agency to find clients (Lehmiller, 2014). Prostitutes face many threats involving their health and non-professional life. Society tends to focus on the risks along with stereotypes and stigmas, and rarely tend to take the advantageous components into consideration. Prostitution is viewed through numerous scopes that compare various mindsets and opinions on the issue. Andrew Zeglin (2014) conducted a study examining three main models: the oppression model, empowerment model, and polymorphous model. It is important that one analyzes prostitution to understand the effect it has on society, and the different perspectives on legalizing prostitution so that they can form an opinion on it.
The oppression model states that prostitution is fundamentally and permanently degrading, immoral, and harmful (Zeglin 2014). Most people are socialized from a young age to view prostitution in this way (Davies, 2015). It is not typically considered a legitimate job, and many believe that people that who have sex for a living are diseased, promiscuous, drug addicts, or in some way a broken person, with no care or respect for their own life (Shah, 2003). The secretive and complicated nature of this sex profession is not socially or politically accepted as work, and stereotypes make it very hard to be legitimized as a viable source of income. This, along with many other stigmas is one of the toughest challenges sex workers face. Women have struggled for rights and to be taken seriously all throughout history and the basis of the progress made depends on how well women are able to separate themselves from preexisting gender norms (Shah, 2003). The stereotypes of women that prostitutes represent are exactly what women in history have fought so hard to avoid. Promiscuity, immorality, and sex for pleasure all create the generalization that prostitutes, and women are “whores,” and cannot be taken seriously for other purposes. Another serious threat prostitutes face is violence. In China, prostitution is illegal, but millions of women still sell sex with incredible risk (Boittin, 2013). Most Chinese prostitutes are forced into it, and they face rape, murder, police brutality, and unsolicited medical testing. Other concerns of violence come from the close relationship between prostitution and sex trafficking, a type of slavery in which victims are bought and sold for sexual practices (Lehmiller, 2014). Sex trafficking is a huge problem around the world and many worry that the legalization of prostitution would make it easier for traffickers to find victims and hide them in plain sight (Zeglin, 2014). Victims of sex trafficking are exploited, coerced, and often time taken to different countries where they are forced to live the rest of their lives as slaves. Those who support the abolition of prostitution do not see a difference between the violent nature of sex trafficking and prostitution (Shah, 2003). Canada is one of few countries where prostitution is legal, and authorities work hard to enforce policies set in place to regulate the many dimensions of sex work (Davies, 2015). The Canadian government created their own set of laws, called the Protection of Communities and Exploitation of Persons Act, to try and solve the country’s prostitution problem without trying to abolish it completely. It goes through Canadian legal, academic, and media documents to address the specific issues in sex work in Canada. Although there are advantages to these laws, there are also many problems with them. One problem is that some prostitutes and associates become guilty of status offences, which are acts only prohibited to people of a certain class (Davies, 2015). This makes certain people more vulnerable to the law, violence, and exploitation, which carries over into the country’s broader social problems, like race and gender. The Canadian authorities have been looking at prostitution as more of an economic and interpersonal issue when really it has created social issues that seem to be more prevalent. The social problems that Canadian’s face as a result of legalizing prostitution are used as an example for what could happen in other countries if they decided to legalize prostitution. The legalization could hurt countries that already struggle with social issues, and the consequences could be detrimental. The possibility of creating or worsening social issues, along with the stigma and health risks prostitutes face are all logical reasons for prostitution remaining illegal, but there are also many compelling reason that justify legalization.
Zeglin’s second model, the empowerment model states that prostitution is legally and officially accepted and there is no reason why it should not be legal (2014). Along with other current controversial issues, many argue that prostitution is a matter of “free choice.” People who follow the oppression model tend to disagree, stating that prostitution is strictly deceit and coercion, but that is not always the case (Shah, 2003). Legal approaches to prostitution vary greatly between countries, and although there are clear instances of involuntary sex work, the amount of these instances are much less significant than most people assume (Scoular, 2010). Nevada is the only state in America in which prostitution is legal, and most sex work that takes place there is operated through brothels, houses prostitutes live in where they are visited by clients. Legal brothels are managed and supervised, which reduces the risk for abuse and violence. Studies show that most women who work in legal brothels, like the ones in Nevada, work there completely voluntarily, live typically happy lives and experience sexual pleasure from their work (Blithe & Wolfe, 2016). Margaret Boittin (2013) conducted a study investigating prostitution in China. She interviewed a group of prostitutes who shared their experiences and opinions on Chinese policies regarding sex work. Most sex workers in China suffer severe abuse, and the prostitutes interviewed by Boittin claim that it was their lack of power in those situations that put them in the secondary position to be exploited (2013). Because of the way the Chinese government operates, when they see opportunity for change they shut it down and centralize the state’s power to enforce policies, making it nearly impossible for Chinese sex workers to make claims towards legalization. This opens up discussion about moral boundaries and consciousness of one’s own rights and the law. Law consciousness is one’s awareness and response to the law, and it is very prevalent in prostitution. A woman who is conscious of her rights could believe that she has the right to do with her body what she chooses, but she is also conscious that exchanging sex for money is illegal where she lives. The woman becomes a prostitute in secret because she needs to support herself and she truly believes that it is her right to choose that for herself. Legalizing prostitution takes this problem away, and in a way, legitimizes the law because it is a law that people break anyways. If prostitution was legal, authorities would not have to worry about stopping it and citizens would not have to worry about breaking the law by exercising their own individual rights. Finally, stigmatized workers like prostitutes have to put distance between their professional and personal life and often times it results in identity separation (Blithe & Wolfe, 2016). They face legal, economic and personal constraints because of shame and discrimination faced as a result of the stigma placed on their occupation (Blithe & Wolfe, 2016). Obviously not right away, but over time the stigmas of sex work would lessen if it were legal. Most people who voluntarily prostitute do it as a means of living, and if it were legalized on a basis of personal rights and free choice, then sex workers would not feel the shame currently placed on them or the need to hide a part of their life from the world. Legal and illegal prostitution both face separate problems, but there is a good possibility that these issues would be minimized if prostitution were legal.
The polymorphous model combines the oppression and empowerment models as a paradigm suggesting that there are both positive and negative effects that need to be considered with legalizing prostitution (Zeglin, 2014). This is the most accurate model because of the various different mindsets towards the issue. Every person has different life experiences, views what sexual encounters should mean differently, and view the power that the law should have over individual rights differently. A plethora of research and common knowledge prove that prostitution is a common practice and that the law cannot really prevent this type of sex work. It still exists in large numbers in places where it is illegal. In a world where unemployment, poverty, and crime is so prevalent, it makes sense to legalize voluntary prostitution and spend more time and resources regulating the more rare cases of violence and abuse in involuntary sex work. There are countless negative consequences to prostitution, most importantly the devaluation of the importance of sex and the detrimental effects on one’s view of self, but these consequences are inevitable and exist whether or not prostitution is legal.
Prostitution is very complex and the multiple components of its advantages and disadvantages will more than likely remain controversial for time to come. While the risks of prostitution and all kinds of sex work cannot be ignored, the practicality of trying to prevent it should definitely remain a topic of discussion and possibly a platform for change. It seems like an attempt to control the participants rather than criminalize them would be more practical and logical. It is crucial that the observation, analyzation, and discussion of legal sex work continues because its effects are so widespread across many important aspects of life.