Prostitution In The 19th Century Essay

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.

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 rarely ever seems to be a talking point among World War I historians. Many under the impression that discussion about such topics regarding life behind the front detracts from what happened during combat. However, this interpretation of history is rather unsettling since it silences a tremendous portion of WWI from readers who wish to understand more about its impacts on the life of soldiers and society. Wars are fought by people, therefore, they should be written about as such, rather than simply cannon fodder or a statistic for a particular battle. When we see a person, rather than a number, the impact of historical events hold much larger significance to us than they previously did before. Now, prostitution may not necessarily

Burstyn highlights that these changes altered the social and economic role of women during the nineteenth-century . She goes on to point out that there were great pressures on middle-class women not to work during this period and explains that ‘leisure women’ were symbols of the economic success of their male relatives . Burstyn suggests that marriage was vital for a woman as it was argued men needed to protect women because of their physical weakness . According to the ideal of womanhood, the home became a place where only women spent their lives and thus the ideal woman was morally pure and a guardian of the home . Burstyn also considers the contemporary issue of education for women by suggesting that if women were to become financially independent, they may no longer have the desire to marry for economic stability . If women remained unmarried, then men would, in theory, be forced to gain sexual gratification from the ‘Social Evil’: prostitutes . In the nineteenth century, the term ‘prostitute’ was used in a much wider context to how we would use it today. Judith Flanders explains that it referred to women who: were living with men outside marriage, had had illegitimate children, or women who perhaps had relations with men, but for pleasure rather than money . It is important to

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

Prostitution looms large in the Victorian consciousness. The image of the fallen woman reflects the Victorian upper classes' ideas about sexuality, gender and class. The prostitute is a staple of 19th century fiction. Debate about prostitution is also a reflection of cultural anxiety about urbanization.

Judith Walkowitz’s book Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State, deals with the social and economic impact that prostitution had on English society in the mid to late 19th century. Throughout her piece Walkowitz illustrates the plight of women who are in the prostitution field and that are working the streets throughout England. She starts with the background of most of the prostitutes in Victorian England then talks about the Contagious Disease Act in 1864 that attempted to curb the venereal diseases being spread by prostitutes. Walkowitz also discusses two specific cities in England that prostitution was a ‘social evil’, Southampton and Plymouth, where the repeal campaigns were successful.

Public humiliation has been around for years. It was always a controversial and terrible thing to do to a person. Being outlawed in the states during the 19th century there is a reason why this was banned. Public humiliation destroys a person emotionally.

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,

In The Introduction to the History of Sexuality, Foucault explains how during the 19th century with the raise of new societies, the discourse or knowledge about sex was not confronted with repulsion but it “put into operation an entire machinery for producing true discourses concerning sex” (Foucault 69). In fact, this spreading of discourse on sexuality itself gives a clear account of how sexuality has been controlled and confined because it was determined in a certain kind of knowledge that carries power within it. Foucault reflects on the general working hypothesis or “repressive hypothesis,” and how this has exercised power to suppress people’s sexuality. It has power on deciding what is normal or abnormal and ethical or unethical

Prostitution, as stated by Flemming, is known as a form of sexual activity, a kind of sexual style or category, and a form of economic activity, a way of making a living through the provisions of certain services, by behaving in accordance with, or falling into such a category (39). This definition, though, is controversial. While conducting research for this project, we found that most topics regarding prostitution and its affiliates were controversial. Each author gave a differing interpretation for the same data. Due to this, our project centered on the female prostitutes, even though there is evidence of male prostitutes.

In this century, the 3 categories of classes couldn’t be more different and separated. The upper class enjoyed leisure, operas, balls and everything what had to do something with luxury and what none of the lower classes could afford. Aristocracy was well known by their morals and etiquette in the Victorian ages. The Victorian Aristocratic views on morals were extinguished which was even prudish. Prudery went as far as sexuality was a taboo, human body must have been covered and talking about body was inappropriate. In the Victorian Era society started to have different values in morality. Upper class people had low tolerance for sexuality and crimes, and isolated from any of the lower class members. Thus sexuality, especially prostitution was not acceptable and eminently discriminates in the Victorian high society.

The legal definition of prostitution has recently expanded in many Australian jurisdictions to encompass voyeuristic practices as well as non-monetary exchanges. Prostitution laws now make inclusions for massage parlours, phone sex and computer sex. Sullivan’s study into the politics of the sex industry in Australia since 1945, found that due to the shifts in sexual culture there have been discursive changes in society’s’ view of what constitutes as prostitution and what signifies as deviant sexual behaviour. Post war culture accentuated sexuality as the source of individual uniqueness, later progressing into the ideals of equality and mutuality between the sexes thus producing our sexual culture, as we know it today.

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.