The Generalization Of Sex Workers In The Bachelorette, By Leslye Headland

In “The Laws That Sex Workers Really Want,” Toni Mac discusses the reality of legalization in regards to sex work and their effects. Mac’s purpose is to show the audience the four legal models that are being used around the world and demonstrate why they don’t work. Then, explain the model that sex workers themselves think would work best, decriminalization (“The Laws”). She shares her own stories and experiences to help make her argument and to add to the effectiveness of her use of the rhetorical strategies. She uses all three of them, at least to some extent, but with a heavier focus on pathos and ethos over logos.

Many of the women fit into this category. Donna, a young worker, began her work at mustang ranch in order to care for her husband (age forty-one) and her two young children (pg.65). Her husband, due to his age, was unable to obtain a decent job and told Donna that she needed to get a job at the Brothel. Carrie, another worker in her early thirties, was working to care for her mother and Ivy whose mother-in-law- was tired of her freeloading attitude so she packed Ivy’s belongings and dropped her off at the ranch (pg.69). Many of the women would say that prostitution was just a “job” but the one thing that almost all of them had in common was “financial hardship” and turned to legalized sex workers to financially support their family or someone else. Although a number of women solicited sex in order to meet financial goals, countless of them greatly exceeded their goals but still found themselves working as at the ranch.

Victor Hugo, a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement once said, "Slavery still exists, but now it only to women and its name is prostitution."(Hugo) Pimps are finding new ways to get more girls to work for them. They do all this for money. They sell away someone's innocence just to make a few dollars. Pimps use the dependency the girls develop for them against them. They are finding new ways to recruit girls and they use love and emotions to manipulate girls. Dependency, love, and new ways of communication are things that pimps are using to win the war for prostitution.

The main reason thousands of women are forced or have to enter into sexual slavery and prostitution is because of poverty. According to the VTVPA, sex trafficking “means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act" (p. 8) and that a commercial sex act is "any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person" (p. 7). It is critical to understand that this includes the "pimping" or "prostituting" of

Prostitution, also known as commercial sex or solicitation, is the business of preforming sexual activities in exchange for monetary compensation. Prostitution can be seen in many different outlets, from brothels and streetwalkers, to top of the line escort or call-girl services. Prostitution laws make it a crime to suggest, consent, or participate in a sexual act for the benefit of receiving payment (FindLaw, 2016). Prostitution is one of the first known female occupations and appears as early 2400 B.C.

Economist Mark P. Lagon tells us that “ Legal prostitution both drives up the demand for victims of human trafficking and provides a veil behind which traffickers can hide their operations” (2014). The country of Zimbabwe shows evidence of this where, The Economist states “...the oldest profession has been decriminalized, a flood of young women and girls are joining it and driving down the prices” (2017). Along with the drop in compensation for prostitutes, there came an INCREASE in crime as a result of the turf war that comes with the new competition. As a result, older prostitutes are being forced out of the industry with nowhere to turn, because they have no other way to earn money. If they did, they would not have to be prostitutes in the first place. Mark P. Lagon points out the irony in that, “...(an) individual’s primary reason for entering the industry is financial desperation. Ironically, this data also demonstrates that prostitution, rather than helping prostituted peoples to escape the cycle of poverty, instead permanently entraps them”(2014). This embodies one of the harshest realities of being a prostitute; There is no way out. Lagon argues that this is because, “From as early as six years old, these women are molded to believe they have little earthly purpose other than to give pleasure to men” (2014). This is how Prostitutes’ desperation is taken advantage of by forcing them to sell their bodies,

The first part of Nussbaum’s paper challenges to examine the stigmatization of prostitution by comparing it to six other kinds of jobs/professions in which the individual uses her body in ways that majority of us do not necessary find morally objectionable but are not far off from the ways prostitutes use their bodies in the trade. These range from the domestic servant who “must do what the client wants, or fail at the job” (pg. 375), the nightclub singer who pleasures her customers by her voice to the colonoscopy artist who allows herself to be probed without anesthesia in a “consensual invasion” (pg. 378) of her bodily space for the purpose of medical education. The further we go down the list of the six jobs/professions, we see a closer

It is often hard for the average person living in great conditions with all the luxuries this world offers like a nice car, big house, and a family to not stigmatize the profession of female sex workers. Themes of religion, addiction, and shame encompass the every day lives of the sex workers featured in the film Whores Glory1. Are the sex workers working in Thailand, Bangladesh, and Mexico seen as feminists? Do the women featured have control over their bodies? Finally, are these women recognized by society as workers in the film? I will be analyzing the production of the film through it’s themes and support my argument that the film Whores Glory1 is not feminist due to it’s depiction of female sex workers.

According to Seidenberg, “the selling and/or buying sex has been alternately illegal, regulated and forbidden, such as; the U.S federal law against prostitution was the Page Act of 1975” (Seidenberg). As well, prostitutes are ever seen for the ability to give good times by providing sexual services for money or gifts. To recap, prostitutes used to be women selling their bodies for money, but today there are men prostitutes selling their bodies too for many reasons. Not only money, but also drugs are a common currency for prostitutes. In addition, this service industry brings bad consequences to society in the United States, such as, economic, health and social issues.

state “the number of prostitutes has been estimated to range from 84,000 to 336,000” (Potterat et al, 1990, p. 227). Some prostitutes work part-time, and work other legal occupations. According to Thio, Taylor, Schwartz, there was a recent study, where women from 18 to 64 were asked if they ever had sex for money. The results concluded that about 6 percent said yes, then the number translated larger to at least 4.2 million. Many people believe that prostitution is wicked because it contains sex for money, and considered a sign of social order. Feminists, believe that prostitution provides a setting in which prostitution is viewed as being robbed, beaten, or raped. The two different beliefs hold negative views about prostitution. Regardless, prostitution has a variety of different types including streetwalkers, child and adolescent prostitutes, house prostitutes, and call

Sexual favours in return for money, just the thought of this has people cringing, although laws have deemed to move forward with the idea of prostitution it seems although socially there has not been much progress. The idea of prostitution still scares, or one could even go as far to say it disgusts people. The lack of knowledge and awareness of the details of sex work create this ongoing hate towards sex work, which continues to stigmatize sex workers. Regardless of changing laws, regardless of changing policies, why is it that sex workers are still afraid to proudly announce that their job is in fact the job of a sex worker? Unfortunately, it seems as though the idea of sex work that seems to be such a terrible one is not what bothers sex workers the most, it is the social misconception of what sex work is like that leads these individuals to feel highly stigmatized (Van der Meulen and Redwood, 2013). The primary harm for of prostitution seems to be the stigma against prostitution, women involved in prostitution are considered socially invisible as full human beings (Farley, 2004). Why is it that our changing and progressing laws are still unable to remove this stigma from the lives of sex workers? This paper will argue that prostitution laws continue to produce stigma around sex work. It will argue this through revisiting the historical laws, examining present laws and ongoing laws at this time.

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.

There are many cases as to why people get into prostitution. One of the most common reasons women decide to become a sex worker is usually to help pay for schooling, or other financial debt. Here in California minimum wage is now about ten dollars an hour which is not nearly enough money to support oneself, let alone pay for college loans. In an AlterNet article Celine Bisette talks about how people let ignorance get the best of them as they assume her being a prostitute is a product of sexual abuse. Celine states,” The reality is that I had a happy childhood that was completely devoid of abuse of any kind. I grew up in a very ordinary middle class family. My parents cooked dinner for me every night, helped me with my homework, and told me they loved me every single day.” When people make judgements about why sex workers are doing what they are doing it puts these workers in an uncomfortable position, making them regretful and embarrassed about a job that they like doing.

Women made vulnerable by poverty are most susceptible to the sex industry because they lack the resources, the education, and the economic alternatives to pursue other work possibilities. The lack of education diminishes women’s potential to gain paid employment, and desperately consent to prostitution as their survival strategy.

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.