What are the aspects related to sex for sale? - Chapter 16

In many societies the exchange of money and sex is a prominent feature. A lot of money is made in the porn industry and prostitution. These subjects involve controversial -and legal issues, but also attract a lot of customers.

What is prostitution?

People that engage in partnered sex and are rewarded with material gifts, money or other payment are considered commercial sex workers or prostitutes. The venue where this sex word takes place depends on the client and type of sex worker.

• A call girl works via cell phone or online and makes appointments outside of her own residence. This type of sex worker often has a middle-class background and may be a graduate from college. She might have regular customers and has control over who visits her. The call girl often provides her clients with an illusion of intimacy.
• A brothel comes in many forms. Some are fancy mansions where guests are well-treated, some are clip joints where the man’s money was stolen while he was sexually occupied. The workers are often Latina, and the Latinos are the preferred clientele (Dank et al., 2014).
• There are also in-call services where a woman services a client regularly for sexual gratification. The autonomy of the sex worker in this scenario is less than the call girl, because there usually is a manager or madam to set up the appointments.
• The massage parlour can offer legitimate massage therapy. In some venues, it is also a place for commercial sex. They are usually operated by Asian women. Sometimes they offer commercial sex on the price list, but sometimes the masseuse will perform sexual acts for a tip. Some have a very high-end setting, but some do not. Especially in Vietnam, there are low-class prostitutes that work in barber shops. They are poor migrant workers that service sex to middle-class men. The middle-class works in bars and services tourists and the high-end sector are up-scale bars where prostitutes meet high-status Vietnamese men.
• An escort service has a standard menu, but extras may be added by the escort. This scenario is referred to as out-call service, because the escort visits the client. This is risky for the escort because he or she cannot decide where they meet their clients. However, the client should share the location with the escort company for safety and time management.
• A common sex worker is the streetwalker selling sex on the city streets. She charges a lot less than a call girl or escort and is less attractive. It is likely a streetwalker gets arrested. They are often also addicted to drugs. The prevalence of ethnicities of street walkers reflects their employment in the country.
• The strip club sells sexual interactions, but not always intimate contact. They follow the same continuum from elegant to low-class. There are also strip clubs for same-sex desiring women (SSDW).

What is the role of third parties in sex work?

Prostitutes are often associated with a pimp, who is her companion-master. He provides food, shelter and may bail her out of jail. She provides him with money and sex. A madam is a woman who manages the out-call and in-call services at a hotel, escort service or brothel. This woman is often an experienced and skilled person in managing prostitutes. Other third parties might include the manager of the massage salon. These third parties determine the autonomy of the sex worker.

What is sex trafficking?

Sex trafficking is described by Hynes and Raymond (2002) as the recruitment of sex workers for sexual exploitation. Some sex workers are recruited from third world countries with the promise of a good job as dancer, nanny or secretary. When these women arrive in the county their travel documents are taken away and they are forced to work in a brother or massage parlour. A different type is the child sex slave, where a child is forced into sexual labour and is harmed with physical violence.

What is the career of a sex worker?

There is a big stigmatization of sex workers. There are two general explanations for getting into the sex-worker profession, the first is based on negative childhood -and adolescence experiences, such as abuse, poverty and contact with exploitative men or pimps. The second explanation is that there is a great economical need while someone has little education and no other job opportunities are available. People from the service industries of food and beverages and barbering and hairstyling are most likely to start working in the sex industry. Some are coerced into sex working by their husband or boyfriend, the coercion is also an important factor in sex trafficking. Leaving the life can be difficult due to a lack of job skills. Others might be able to leave because of a long jail sentence.

How is the well-being of a sex worker?

The “happy hooker” refers to the healthy, autonomous and attractive prostitute. Other stereotypes are the “though chick” or the (young) emotionally bruised victim. All of these stereotypes are true, and the well-being of a prostitute depends on the venue she is working in. According to a study of (Venicz & Vanwesenbeeck, 2000) women in the sex industry scored higher on depersonalization as a result of their work than people that worked in health care. This is probably because they lack autonomy, experience violence and work under coercion. Victimization is often related to the lack of control of the sex worker. Bernstein (2007) argued that the high levels of violence in prostitution do not result from the sex work itself, but from the stigmas attached to it. For example, prostitutes have a higher risk of being raped because the attitude exists that raping a prostitute does no harm to you. Some prostitutes use alcohol and drugs to cope with this, others a strategy to shut down their feelings or depersonalization. Sex education could help these women improving their strategies to cope with this kind of stereotypes and risks at work.

What is the role of early abuse on prostitution?

Prostitutes that experienced abuse in their childhood have poorer outcomes in well-being. Coercive sexual activity in childhood is correlated to a variety of adverse social -and health outcomes, such as unintended pregnancy or low self-esteem.

What are typical customers of prostitutes?

In the past seventy years the use of prostitution declined dramatically. This is due to the increased frequency of non-marital and casual sex. Most customers of prostitutes come occasionally, but there are also impulsive and compulsive customers. Thus, one-time clients are clients that the worker does not expect to see again, regular clients/friends are clients the worker knows for some time. Long-term financial providers are clients that provide constant financial support for the prostitute by paying for her major expenses. Men use prostitutes for a variety of reasons, but mainly for the satisfaction of their sexual needs.

What are examples of male sex workers?

Male sex workers that provide services to women work in three settings. These are escort services, massage parlours and as gigolo. A gigolo is a man that provides companionship and sexual gratification in exchange for money. Men working in the prostitution for women rarely work on the streets and therefore have a much safer profession. However, a hustler is a male sex worker, working for other males. They work on the streets and face stigmatization and assault. Bar workers in gay bars that provide sex services face less stigmatization and assault than hustlers working on the streets. There is a minority of men working in brothels, the largest group of male sex workers works in escort services or are call boys.

What is sex tourism?

Sex tourism is a way of travelling with the purpose of purchasing sex. It is made possible by the migration to third world countries, migration from urban to rural areas and the commodification of sexual intimacy. All types of sex are now for sale. Another cause is globalization and the movement of information across the world.

What is pornography?

Material intended to produce sexual arousal is called pornography. There is a lot of discussion going on about what type of pornography is tolerable. In legal terms the word obscenity is used to describe offensive materials. There is a distinction between hard-core pornography and erotica or soft-core pornography. Internet porn ranges from access to arousing videos to live performances of cam models. There are several subcategories of pornography that can be found online:

• Adult web sites
• Chat rooms
• News groups
• Commercial bulletin boards

DVDs, videos and films are making big profits, many of them are hard-core pornography films. Besides professional pornography movies, people started to make amateur movies in their own bedroom. Also, there is a lot of sexual content in music videos shown on television. Pornography in magazines ranges from soft-core to hard-core and is now in decline. Currently magazine porn is being replaced with online pornography. Live entertainment refers to sexualized entertainment, such as burlesque shows. Burlesque features women who seductively undress and are now transformed into the well-known strip club. Besides female strippers, there are also male strippers who perform acts.

Telephone sex is another example of technology to provide sexual entertainment. It is a sexually explicit conversation over the telephone. Many times, the participant(s) engage in masturbation. It can be between people that know each other, but also through a company providing sex calls. Kiddie porn is photo, video or film content involving imagery of the genitals or nudity of an under aged person. It has an obvious victim, the featured child and is made illegal to distribute, produce and possess. The ability to consent is a major concern in kiddie porn. Producers might be motivated by pathology or profit. Finally, sex in advertising is both subtle and obvious. It is used to sell a wide variety of products. In men’s magazines, seventy-eight percent of women wear sexually suggestive clothing. Besides magazines, television advertisement is also highly sexual. There is the concern that the exposure to these materials might lead dissatisfaction with the body of both males and females.

Who produces and consumes sexually explicit materials?

There is a variety of stereotypes about actresses in pornographic movies. According to Griffith et al. (2013) these actresses identify more often as bisexual and report an earlier age of first intercourse. Besides that, there are many different types of people that work in the producing of sexually explicit materials and this shows that the stigma associated with is drastically declined over the years. Pornography is used primarily by males, women are less attracted to porn because it emphasises impersonal sex. Currently there has been some femme productions of female-empowered adult entertainment.

What are the effects of exposure to sexually explicit material?

Sexual script theory explains how the exposure to sexual material shapes our sexuality. There are four questions that are asked about the effects of pornography:

1. Does it produce sexual arousal?
2. Does it affect the attitudes of the viewer?
3. Does it affect sexual behaviour?
4. Does it affect criminal or aggressive behaviour?

Media portrayals influence the way we define appropriate sexual behaviour. It also affects sexual arousal, especially if the material presented is considered acceptable by the viewer. Sexual behaviour is influenced by pornographic images, especially thoughts and fantasies. It also leads to an increase in masturbation and sexual partners. However, greater viewing numbers of pornography is related to enjoying sex with the current partner. It is unclear if exposure to sexual aggression leads to an increase in rape, some studies report a connection between exposure to sexual aggressive behaviour and attitudes towards sexual aggression, others do not find this connection.

What are issues related to pornography?

There are three reasons that feminists, opposing to pornography have; one is that pornography debases women. Second is that pornography associate’s violence with sex towards women. Third is that unequal power between male and female is glamorised. Another concern is pornography addiction where people spend hours watching pornography and masturbating. This can cause problems in romantic relationships. Legal restrictions can help set boundaries for the pornography industry.