Portal:Prostitution

Introduction

Femmes de Maison, painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, c. 1893–1895

Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penetrative sex, manual sex, oral sex, etc.) with the customer. The requirement of physical contact also creates the risk of transferring infections. Prostitution is sometimes described as sexual services, commercial sex or, colloquially, hooking. It is also described as gender-based violence. It is sometimes referred to euphemistically as "the world's oldest profession" in the English-speaking world. A person who works in the field is usually called a prostitute or sex worker, but other words, such as hooker and whore, are sometimes used pejoratively to refer to those who work in prostitution. The majority of prostitutes are female and have male clients.

Prostitution occurs in a variety of forms, and its legal status varies from country to country (sometimes from region to region within a given country). In most cases, it can be either an enforced crime, an unenforced crime, a decriminalized activity, a legal but unregulated activity, or a regulated profession. It is one branch of the sex industry, along with pornography, stripping, and erotic dancing. Brothels are establishments specifically dedicated to prostitution. In escort prostitution, the act may take place at the client's residence or hotel room (referred to as out-call), or at the escort's residence or a hotel room rented for the occasion by the escort (in-call). Another form is street prostitution.

According to a 2011 report by Fondation Scelles there are about 42 million prostitutes in the world, living all over the world (though most of Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa lack data, studied countries in that large region rank as top sex tourism destinations). Estimates place the annual revenue generated by prostitution worldwide to be over $100 billion. (Full article...)

Selected article

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon, originally titled The Brothel of Avignon) is a large oil painting created in 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. The work, part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, portrays five nude female prostitutes in a brothel on Carrer d'Avinyó, a street in Barcelona. Each figure is depicted in a disconcerting confrontational manner and none is conventionally feminine. The women appear slightly menacing and are rendered with angular and disjointed body shapes. The three figures on the left exhibit facial features in the Iberian style of Picasso's native Spain, while the two on the right are shown with African mask-like features. The racial primitivism evoked in these masks, according to Picasso, moved him to "liberate an utterly original artistic style of compelling, even savage force." (read more...)

Selected biography

John Rykener, also known as Eleanor (fl. 1394), was a 14th-century transvestite sex worker arrested in December 1394 for performing a sex act with another man, John Britby, in London's Cheapside. Although historians tentatively link Rykener to a prisoner of the same name, the only known facts of his life come from interrogation made by the mayor of London. Rykener was questioned on two offences: prostitution and sodomy. Prostitutes were not usually arrested in London during this period, while sodomy was an offence against morality rather than common law, and so pursued in ecclesiastical courts. There is no evidence that Rykener was prosecuted for either crime. Rykener said that he was introduced to sexual contact with men by Elizabeth Brouderer, a London embroideress who dressed him as a woman and may have acted as his procurer. (read more ...)

Wikipedia Featured Article

Did you know?

A white calf in Rossetti's painting Found — A white calf in Rossetti's painting *Found*

... that Rossetti's Found, a painting about prostitution, featured a white calf (detail pictured)?
... that Hacienda Arms on the Sunset Strip was the "most famous brothel in California" in the 1930s and now houses a celebrity-owned restaurant described by Newsweek as "so hip it hurts"?
... that the Louisiana sheriff Cat Doucet of St. Landry Parish apparently obtained his nickname from his practice of protecting illegal "cathouses," a slang term for brothels?
... that the original screenplay for A Life of Her Own was deemed "shocking and highly offensive" for its portrayal of "adultery and commercialized prostitution" and rejected by the Breen Office?

Quotes

“

The only way to prevent prostitution altogether would be to imprison one half of the human race.

”

Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine (1943).

Anniversaries - July

3rd
- 1888: Death of Mattie Blaylock, prostitute and common-law wife of Old West lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp.
8th
- 1845: Birth of Al Swearengen, an American pimp and entertainment entrepreneur who ran the Gem Theater, a notorious brothel, in Deadwood, South Dakota, in the late 19th century.
13th
- 1941: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law a federal ban on prostitution near naval and army bases
16th
- 1788: Execution of Elisabeth Gassner, an infamous German pickpocket, thief and prostitute, known as Schwarze Lies (Black Lisa).
25th
- 1951: The United Nations' Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others came into force.
29th
- 1910: Death of Valtesse de La Bigne, French courtesan and demi-mondaine.

Selected image

Étienne Jeaurat (1699-1789). "Filles de joie" being taken to the Salpêtrière 1745. Oil on canvas, Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Legality Map

Legality of prostitution in South America

Decriminalization – no criminal penalties for prostitution

Legalization – prostitution legal and regulated

Abolitionism – prostitution is legal, but organized activities such as brothels and pimping are illegal; prostitution is not regulated

Neo-abolitionism – illegal to buy sex and for 3rd party involvement, legal to sell sex

Prohibitionism – prostitution illegal

Legality varies with local laws

Subcategories

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