preview

Prostitution Is The Practice Of Performing Sexual Activity

Better Essays

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 …show more content…

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

Get Access