An Encounter with Prostitution Essay

Canada is a nation renown as a liberal-leaning, forward nation; promoting the advancement of women in all parts of the world. However, it is a nation guilty of punishing women for the circumstances in which they find themselves with laws showing an antiquated view on the issue of prostitution—one that prosecutes sex workers instead of those who take advantage of women’s situations and buy sexual services. BY examining the origins of current-day laws concerning prostitution in Canada and looking at European legislation as well as its successes and failures made it is possible to find a middle ground that will suit Canada should it ever decide to change its laws concerning prostitution.

Claire E. Sterk, the author of the article of “Fieldwork on Prostitution in the Era of Aids”

When the time came Sammy had lucked out, they had decided to check out with him. In a daze, he carefully watched every movement they made as items were placed on the counter. At the peak of the moment Lengel, the manager and strict

Prostitution has been a part of our world's culture since the beginning of time, and is the world's oldest profession. Prostitution is defined by the Webster dictionary as “the act or practice of engaging in promiscuous sexual relations especially for money.” If prostitution were legalized, there would a reduction in sex crimes, American citizens would have the freedom to choose any profession within the sex industry and it would provide economic benefits for the local and federal governments, as well as the population.

In sociology, the term deviance refers to all violations of social rules, regardless of their seriousness (Essentials of Sociology 136). Deviance is an individual or organizational behavior that violates societal norms and is usually accompanied by negative reactions from others. According to a sociologist S. Becker, he stated that it is not the act itself that makes an action deviant, but rather how society reacts to it.

Throughout America and the entire world, prostitution flourishes. Prostitution is another never ending war like abortion, which society feels is immoral. This immorality leads functionalists, who apply functionalism to this social problem, on a chase to figure out why prostitution is what it is today. Functionalism is the best theory for looking at prostitution. It allows us to see how prostitution changes along with other aspects of society.

Prostitution, also referred to as “the oldest profession,” has always been a controversial and challenging social issue. It is practiced in many different forms including: call girls, convention prostitutes, apartment prostitutes, hotel prostitutes, house prostitutes, bar girls, streetwalkers, and parking lot lizards (). Civilizations such as the Samarians, and countries including Morocco and parts of India engaged in a form of prostitution known as temple prostitution. Temple prostitution is based on the belief that “generative activity of human beings possessed a mysterious and sacred influence in promoting the fertility of nature” (Clarkson). In other civilizations, such as the Roman and Byzantine Empires, prostitution was looked upon as less of a religious ceremony, and more of a sin practiced by “women of evil life” (ProCon.org). Today those differentiating view are still present in modern society, but there are also new ideologies surrounding the everlasting presence of prostitution. This Essay will use the Symbolic Interactionism Theory to identify those new ideologies, and evaluate the meaning of prostitution within three relationship: the husband and wife, the Call girl and client, and the Pimp and the sex trafficking victim.

Abel, Gillian, et al. Taking the crime out of sex work: New Zealand sex workers fight for decriminalisation. Policy Press, 2010. Part two: Implementation and impact of the Prostitution Reform Act (2003): the first five years: Review of the PRA

Prostitution is a subject whom many people today have vocal opinions about if it should be legalized and is it moral? Can you imagine how people felt about prostitutes in the 19th century? Today people think the worst possible things of a woman who prostitutes herself and a less rigid view of women’s sexuality exists now almost two centuries later than there was then. In 2011 men and women can have a different view of prostitution and distinctive ways to correct the problem. Men today as they did almost 200 years ago would like to see prostitution legalized and regulated. Women still see prostitution as they did a moral issue that needs reformed. The data suggests that few things have changed when it comes to the punishment and

It is rather odd to think that prostitution, which is considered to be the world’s oldest profession, would be illegal and harmful in nature. The issue of legalizing prostitution has entered public conversation around the world, which is severely divided. Many, like myself, consider prostitution to be a victimless crime. Despite such opposition to legalizing prostitution, many argue that legalizing it would result in decreased morality issues, increase the economic activity in the United States, and help decrease the number of sexually transmitted diseases among both prostitutes and those who patronize them,

they were being forced, have a smoother system going, and making sure nothing was to go wrong.

There were many prostitutes during the Victorian era. Most were lower-class women, with the exception of the mistresses kept by upper-class men. According to Victorian standards, respectable women did not consider sexual intercourse pleasurable. It was their duty to be intimate with their husbands. Having affairs was disgraceful (Waters). Prostitutes, on the other hand, were sexually intimate with men because they enjoyed sex. Men enjoyed prostitutes because they could not enjoy their wives. Victorian femininity was not defined by sexual pleasure, while Victorian masculinity was defined by sexual pleasure and conquest.

Prostitution is ambiguous to define. The Macquarie dictionary defines prostitution as 1. the act or practice of engaging in sexual intercourse 2. any base or unworthy use of talent, ability, etc. But the act of prostitution involves many other associated facets that are included under this extensive act. There’s the act itself, soliciting, advertising, pimping, house brothels, street prostitution, phone sex and even computer sex.

In terms of sociology, Prostitution is a way for an individual to maximize their monetary intake or in other words “benefits” by selling the thing that they have readily, their bodies. In other words, it is the act or practice of participating in promiscuous sexual activity especially for money. Prostitution has been in existence for ages, going back to the Byzantine, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian Empires. Ironically, the ancient religions of those eras dealt with the needs of the group and consequently developed protocols for dealing with sexual relations that have propagated throughout time to the modern era. As a result, prostitution is not about to disappear anytime soon, despite relatively recent local laws. Also throughout centuries,

Before I entered this class, my imagination about what sociology is wasn’t of what it came to be after this class ended. First of all, before coming to this class, I didn’t know that prostitution was a social problem. I understand that being a prostitute is a sin, however I don’t think that a person should be punished by a society for being a prostitute. In other words, I thought that if a person is making money on his or her own body, it wouldn’t be a societal problem. Coming in this class, I have the knowledge that gay, lesbians or any other sexual orientation that isn’t heterosexuality was something that only exists in one’s mind and that if a person want to change their sexual orientation, he or she could. Therefore, in this class, after learning about sexual orientation, I accepted that people are born different and as society we should all accept that. Sexual orientation somehow I feel should require more large-scale intervention. In a lot places, LGBT people are discriminated. If God only created female and a male and that they only should be attracted to each other, let him only judge those whose feelings are different from what the bible states.