Is Prostitution a Victimless Crime?
Target word count: 2000
Final word count: 1944
Prostitution is considered a moral crime. Moral crimes don't necessarily involve breaking any major laws, or prosecution for any laws that do get broken. They involve the breaking of common morals or deviation from societal norms, meaning that they can differ depending on the cultural beliefs and common views in a specific location. An example of moral crime (asides from prostitution) is begging. While it doesn't land you any jail time, it is still actually a crime. In the UK, the exchange of sexual services for money is legal, but things like soliciting, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel and pimping are considered to be crimes. While they may often be seen as simple subcategories of prostitution, they are looked at as separate offences within the legal system and will land you with different charges.
Prostitution falls under moral crime, because it deviates from the norm. The majority of people don't perform sexual acts to receive a payment. Many people see it as morally wrong, because they believe it represents violence against women, or that it requires loss of dignity. It is most often strongly disliked by those with religious backgrounds, as religion plays a great part in shaping morals. There is also an overlap between prostitution and trafficking, as many prostitutes are, or have been, trafficked; however, sex workers have said it is important to distinguish the two from each other, as they are not the same thing. Whereas trafficking is always done against the will of the person being transported, prostitution can involve consenting adults
As stated in the above paragraph, a common argument siding with the opinion that there are victims within prostitution, is that it endorses violence against women. There have been many accounts of sex workers who have been assaulted and beaten, often having things done to them against their will. There is a belief that women who work as prostitutes have somehow given up their human rights and are exempt from the rights to protection which are easily given to other citizens. Public discourses concerning female safety often mention the view that women who do not act responsible with how they act are 'asking for it' or should not have the right to public protection, as they put themselves in that situation by choice. However, a person's human rights should still apply no matter what they choose to do with themselves, as it is their own business, especially considering that quite a lot of prostitutes have been forced into the field through trafficking, fraud and such other ways, which I will discuss next.
There is also the argument talking about trafficking often overlapping with prostitution. It is widely believed that prostitution must involve trafficking in every instance, and while that isn't the case, approximately 40% of prostitutes have reported that they were former child prostitutes, meaning they were forced into the industry by either being trafficked or being a teenage runaway. 40%, while not being the majority, is still a very large number. Despite the clear overlap in prostitution and trafficking, there was a study done by two academics, Liz Kelly and Linda Regan, which investigated the extent of the sex trafficking problem within the UK. They concluded that the problem could be anywhere between two to twenty times larger than what we know, however the meaning of the term "trafficking" has been loosened and broadened, making it lose it's rightful impact. People have exaggerated the amount of trafficked prostitutes by making assumptions, and have used it to describe the general movement of all sex workers, even when they have willingly travelled somewhere themselves.
Another argument that sides with those who believe that prostitution is not a victimless crime is that both mental and physical health of the offender are affected by the profession itself. It has been shown that sex workers are under astounding amounts of stress which often lead to many psychological and physical health conditions. The most common psychological diagnosis reported by women who work in the prostitution field is depression with 35.1%, followed by anxiety with 19.9%, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with 12.7% and many others. These conditions on their own are bad enough, but when one considers that they can also lead to physical health complications such as Gastro-oesophageal Reflux Disease (GORD/GERD), a gastrointestinal tract related disease which can cause daily pain, poor sleep and food intolerance; depending on the severity of the symptoms, this condition can be debilitating. This isn't the only physical condition that can be developed. Besides the obvious sexually transmitted infections and diseases, things like peptic ulcers and Disseminated Gonococcal Infections (DGI) can also be developed, not necessarily related to stress, therefore even if the prostitute themselves doesn't find their job stressful at all, they are still at risk of physical health complications.
Another argument that supports the belief that prostitution victimises the very people that work in this field is that it causes substance abuse which in turn leads to a poor headspace, or vice versa. A study was conducted on 200 prostitutes, centred around substance abuse before or after starting their work. 55% of those that were questioned reported that they were addicted prior to starting their work in the field of prostitution. This would suggest that their addiction, leaving them in a vulnerable state, led them to start prostituting themselves due to them viewing it as the only way to get by. 30% reported that they developed an addiction after they started work. This would suggest that they suffered some kind of traumatic experiences during their time in this profession and had to resort to substance abuse in order to cope with it. The last 15% reported beginning to abuse substances concurrently with the beginning of their work. This could mean that they either got addicted around that time due to starting prior, or they began taking substances excessively in order to prevent traumatic experiences from taking over their lives. Overall, the suggestions here are grim and often point back to coping mechanisms or voluntary reality shifting in order to escape how they feel in the moment, which suggests that they are in fact victims of the profession itself.
An argument that agrees with the statement that prostitution is actually a victimless crime is that the criminalisation of prostitution is the main cause of the victimisation of anyone within the scenario, especially the offender. It is thought that criminalisation of prostitution is one of the leading structural factors that create vulnerability within the prostitutes. There is not only a link between criminalisation and violence against the individual providing the service, but also a link between criminalisation and HIV transmissions, further affecting the workers. Committing a crime in itself is seen as irresponsible and risky, meaning that society's generalised view of prostitution is that they are there because they have chosen to enter and stay in their situation. They also think that once someone enters the field of prostitution, they have immediately degraded themselves and they shouldn't complain, since it was their choice. This view in itself victimises sex workers, as now they feel that they are lesser and undeserving of protection rights. This in turn makes them more vulnerable and susceptible to violence. According to statistics, around 40% to 70% of prostitutes have or are experiencing some type of violence due to or within their career. This argument suggests that if prostitution was decriminalised, it would be a victimless activity or service; however, this is opposed by an observation of locations where prostitution is legal. It is shown that places that have made prostitution legal actually experience a larger amount of sex trafficking into the country, as do richer, more advanced countries with higher populations. A good example of this is Germany, which further legalised prostitution in 2002 by allowing third-party involvement. Now, Germany considers prostitution a regular job subject to tax payment and retirements, with about 150,000 people actively working as prostitutes. Despite this, the estimated stock of trafficking victims in 2004 was 32,800, which is about 62 times more than in Sweden, a country which re-criminalised prostitution in 1999.
Another argument which agrees with the claim that there are no victims within prostitution is that the act itself is consensual; both parties are willing to do it, therefore consent is present as long as both of the participants are of legal age. In our current society, we are given the right to freedom of choice, or rather the right to freedom of rational choice. This includes sexual activities. The laws surrounding consent have been put in place to protect people from having unwanted sexual experiences, whether that be outside the home or within it. Danger isn't exclusive to one place, and protection is a must no matter where someone is. However there is the issue of coercion and manipulation of someone into giving verbal consent, or at least not explicitly denying it. Many women in working the field of prostitution have said that they have felt distorted in their thinking, or powerless, unable to say no to sexual activities, no matter how much they were unwanted. The line between consensual and nonconsensual sexual activities within prostitution is purposely blurred by the industry itself. This is done in order to allow as much profit as possible, conditioning women from a young age that they shouldn't say no, because it will bring them a reward of some kind. This kind of treatment is inhuman and morally corrupt; it is the major problem within the field of prostitution. Thusly, the original argument about it being a consensual activity and not really being anyone else's business is invalid. Consent is only truly consent if it's conscious and informed.
To conclude this evaluation, after looking at the evidence presented in the form of statistics, statements from prostitutes themselves, and observational studies, there is a clear victim within the crime of prostitution; the prostitute themselves. They suffer from conditions, both mental and physical, caused by the activities required by their job. They are significantly more likely to be murdered than the average person, often suffering assault of many kinds at the hands of their clients, pimps, and in the case of kerb crawling, at the hands of people who are merely bored and need an easy target. Their vulnerable emotional state and lack of a stable life makes them susceptible to manipulation, extortion, coercion, and many other things that could affect their ability to consciously and honestly consent, without simply having to comply to the wants of their clients or "employers".
The arguments made against the presence of the victim in these deeds are easily disproved with studies, or just common sense. While it seems as though if prostitution was legal, there wouldn't be such an astounding amount of other issues (like trafficking and fraud) surrounding it, that was proven untrue by an observational study. The arguments were misinformed and based on speculation, some of them even disproving themselves whilst trying to make a point for themselves. It was very clear from the beginning that prostitution as an industry victimises those who work within it; more specifically, those who perform the sexual favours and acts. There is a shocking amount of lack of understanding of consent within the industry, leaving a lot of room for rape and other forms of violence.
Overall, while prostitutes themselves shouldn't be criminalised, seeing as they have been proven to be the victims in these scenarios, the actual act of prostitution shouldn't be endorsed or encouraged in any way. It does more harm than good, and it definitely harms a vast amount of people, whether it is knowingly or not doesn't really matter.
Bibliography:
Legality of sex work:
http://www.mash.org.uk/get-support/the-law/
Opinions on sex work:
https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/trafficking/worldwide-debate-about-sex-work-morality-meets-reality-48216
Opinions for and against:
https://prostitution.procon.org/questions/is-prostitution-a-victimless-crime/
Violence against sex workers:
http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/26912/1/Phipps_VAWchapter.pdf
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.0141-9889.2004.00405.x
Trafficking and prostitution:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X12001453#s0030
Criminalisation of sex work:
https://d8dev.nswp.org/sites/default/files/impact_of_criminalisation_pb_prf01.pdf
Sex work and mental/physical health:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5735638/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349336426_Impact_of_Prostitution_on_Health
Consent within sex work:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-28/jensen-with-prostitution,-when-is-consent-not-consent/7363782
Substance abuse and sex work:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7143150/
General statistics:
https://sex-crimes.laws.com/prostitution/prostitution-statistics
Notes: I have slightly changed the structure of this essay as it was kind of a disjointed mess, the arguments were all over the place. I fixed some typos and grammatical mistakes that I noticed. I now have an improved structure and I'm fairly proud of it. I will reblog it when it gets graded, hopefully I'll have some tips and pointers for improvement.
