Prostitution is the practice of performing sexual activity to get paid. This practice has existed for centuries and yet the question remains – is prostitution moral? It is because prostitution involves selling something very personal to earn money. Many people think that prostitution encourages slavery for women and selling body in return for money is very wrong while others think that prostitution is just like any other service so there is nothing immoral about it. In this paper, I will argue that prostitution is morally impermissible with reference to three competing moral viewpoints. The three approaches to prostitution that I will discuss are Marxist, consequentialist and virtue ethicist approaches.
Virtue Ethics: Virtue ethics
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This might make prostitution seem morally permissible under this ethics. Prostitution can involve honesty on the side of both parties. Kindness is also very much possible in prostitution and the sex in this case can be consensual. Also any kind of force may not be involved in this practice.
There are also people who don’t have much to boast on except for their looks. So if their livelihood depends on sex work, this might be understandable since it might be one of the few ways for them to survive. Pg 185 halwani
However, Respectfulness is questionable in prostitution as it may not be very respectful to pay someone just to have sex with them. Moreover, even though consent is one of the very necessary elements for a morally permissible sexual act, it is still not sufficient. “Disloyalty, unfaithfulness, dishonesty, vengefulness, humiliation, greed, vanity, and arrogance form a partial list of reasons why sexual acts can be wrong even if they were consensual” pg 179 halwani
While having sex with a prostitute, the client or the prostitute herself might be disloyal, unfaithful and dishonest to his/her wife, girlfriend, husband or boyfriend because they wouldn’t approve of such act. It could also be done as a vengeful act to make someone else jealous. Greed could be involved in prostitution when a person doesn’t need to have sex with a prostitute but does it anyways because he likes it or a prostitute herself doesn’t need to do this particular act but does it because she is
Prostitution is defined as “business of exchanging sexual services for martial compensation or financial befits” (Weitzer, R. J, p8). The practice usually happens legally in modern cites like Vegas, Berlin and
On the off chance that prostitution ends up distinctly lawful, it must be directed for the wellbeing of the worker and customer. Since prostitution is illicit it has been
9). More so than consent, “a prostitute usually complies with the only options available to her” (Raymond par. 46). Such compliance is required by the nature of the transaction (Raymond par. 46). “Often the revenue from the job is needed to support a drug addiction or to provide supplemental means of basic subsistence, such as housing, food or transportation” (Rich par. 9). Such ill-fated choices may result in various forms of enslavement.
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,
There is a widespread discrepancy in the definition of prostitution, most would agree that it is: sexual in nature, and the compensation for performing the sexual act is either money or other material goods; however, these transactions vary, ranging from specified sexual acts and goods, which can be exchanged to broader context. These transactions occur in the street, bawdyhouse, massage parlour, and inside private residences or hotels.
There is a widespread discrepancy in the definition of prostitution, most would agree that it is: sexual in nature, and the compensation for performing the sexual act is either money or other material goods; however, the transactions range from specified sexual acts and goods that can exchanged to broader context. These transactions occur in the street, bawdyhouse, massage parlour, and inside a private residence.
“The demand is the result of a simple biological appetite. When all other sources of gratification fail, due to defects of person or circumstance, prostitution can be relied upon to furnish relief” (Davis, 753). Prostitution in a latent sense saves marriages and allows men to fulfill their sexual desires. “Prostitution embraces an economic relation, and is naturally connected with the entire system of economic forces” (Davis, 749). One societal function that prostitution fills is a release for those who desire the prostitute (latent) and a source of income for the prostitute (manifest).
When posed with the question regarding the moral permissibility of selling sexual services, I believe that is is morally permissible. Using the rights-based moral theory approach, all individuals have the right to their own autonomy. To elaborate, humans are given the right to use their autonomy in any way he or she sees fit, and this goes even for sex. If someone wants to sell their body to make some money, it is morally permissible. On the contrary, one might argue that it is morally impermissible for married individuals or children to be a purchaser of sexual services. These objections will be addressed later in the essay. Nevertheless, as a whole, the sale of sexual services, including porn, prostitution, phone sex, and escort service,
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.
Prostitution minimizes the worth of those who are providing a service and dehumanizes them. Prostitution suggests that a woman is just an object that can be purchased, in order to fulfill a lust or an urge that someone has. Giving the upper hand to whomever “purchases” the prostitute and is now the “owner” as if they are purchasing the body and not the service. This suggests that paying for a prostitute is similar to buying a slave, you are buying the rights to someone's body, therefore you “own” them. According to the objectification view, prostitution is dehumanizing to those
Prostitution is defined as the act of “providing or receiving sexual acts, between a prostitute and a client, in exchange for money or some other form of remuneration” (Hock 557). The idea of exchanging sex for valuables has been around since the beginning of human society. The first reported data about prostitution was reported around 3000 B.C.E in one of the first known civilizations, Mesopotamia (Caraboi and Fierbinteanu 362). It is often referred to as “the world’s oldest profession.” Today, even though prostitution is illegal in most parts of the world, it is still prevalent worldwide with different ways to exchange sexual services for payment and many different types of prostitutes. One of these types of prostitutes are brothel workers; brothel workers work in “a house of prostitution,” a brothel, which are normally in areas where prostitution is not criminalized or is legalized (Hock 560). Like prostitution, human trafficking has been around for thousands of years and is still present today.
Prostitution, the act of “providing or receiving sexual acts, between a prostitute and a client, in exchange for money or some other form of remuneration” (Hock 557). The idea of exchanging sex for valuables has been seen since the beginning of human society; the first reported data about prostitution was reported around 3000 B.C.E in one of the first known civilizations, Mesopotamia (Caraboi and Fierbinteanu 362). Also, prostitution is often referred to as “the world’s oldest profession.” Today, even though prostitution is illegal in most parts of the world, it is still prevalent worldwide with many different types of prostitutes and different ways to exchange sexual services for payment. An example of a type of prostitute is brothel workers; brothel workers work in “a house of prostitution,” a brothel, which are normally in areas where prostitution is not criminalized (Hock 560). Like prostitution, human trafficking has been around for thousands of years and is still present today.
Prostitution is the act of engaging in sexual activity for financial gain. It is described as one of the oldest profession and one of the most controversial issues in the modern society. In the ancient world, prostitution was allowed as part of religious traditions in some cultures such as Greek where prostitutes were dedicated to gods. Today prostitution has become more open, and some countries such as Bulgaria and Netherlands have legalized the practice. In the recent past, ethics of prostitution have been debated with many people claiming that it is morally wrong. However, like all other controversial practices, prostitution has continued to thrive in the society as evidenced by recent headlines. In this paper, I will argue that prostitution is not morally permissible despite being around for thousands of years. Prostitution is an immoral transaction that has brought many negative impacts such as community policy issues, health issues, and religious issues.
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,
Prostitution has frequently been touted as the world's oldest profession, for the simple fact that it has been prevalent in society for quite some time. In order to properly discuss the many social ramifications of this particular crime and possible ways for dealing with them, it is first necessary to define prostitution and to explore the reason why it is a crime. Prostitution is the exchange of money or monetary assets for sexual favors and pleasure. It is the paying for sex in all of its myriad facets, from conventional coitus to a number of lewd and arcane acts from which people derive pleasure. Prostitution is part of the sex industry, which includes legal business such as strip clubs (Weitzer 7). There are a couple of different reasons as to why exchanging money for sex is deemed illegal. One principle reason is that if it were legalized, it would be exceedingly difficult for the government to tax and to capitalize off it, which is one of the reasons in which marijuana is widely considered illegal. More importantly, however, prostitution is illegal because it promotes the objectification of women and their bodies, and inherently reduces the degree of parity between men and women in which the latter are viewed as things simply for the fulfillment of men's sexual desires. Additionally, there are a variety of noxious activities that accompany prostitution such as trafficking in which the will of another is subjected to someone else's.