Prostitution: A User's Manual

In light of Eliot Spitzer's recent announcement that he was involved in a prostitution ring, the HuffPost Living editors have put together this handy-dandy list of everything you need to know about the world's oldest profession. Then we want you to tell us below in comments what you think of prostitution, if you think it should be legal, if you've ever used a prostitute (no judgment here!), and what we've left out.

1. First, let's get the boring legal business out of the way. What exactly is prostitution?

Prostitution is "the act or practice of engaging in sexual intercourse for money."

2. Okay, got it. So is it common for men to use prostitutes?

According to Dr. Teela Sanders, a senior lecturer at the University of Leeds, and the author of Paying For Pleasure: Men Who Buy Sex, nearly one in three men will buy sex at some point in his life. . .and we're not talking porn.

Keep reading at Tango.

3. But why do men pay for it if they can just do it for free?

Married relationships can't provide this special "time out" stuff. Marriages are centered around finance, around children. This is a time out where it's purely about men having sexual satisfaction outside the bounds of a normal relationship. Men use their financial privilege to buy an intimate experience they can't get in their conventional relationship.

Also, this relationship is protected by the exchange. The men don't feel as though there's going to be some other emotional component, because the contract is very clear. This level of intimacy is an exchange, and the women who do this emotional labor make a lot of money. That's why you see this high end.

Keep reading at Tango.

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4. Why do powerful men who seem to have it all, then go and screw everything up?

In [social psychologist Dr. Gerri] King's view, most everyone is reasonably comfortable being an average person. "There's room in most people's self-image for mistakes and foibles and inconsistencies," she says. "If you're just a normal person, you're allowed to be you. What's expected of you is reasonable. You have normal friends. And maybe most of all, you have normal expectations."

But if suddenly you're elevated into an elite level of society or business, you may have to retrofit your identity or conduct. Making these changes in your life can be an unsettling challenge. Let's say you're promoted to group president from a low-profile position.You have to put your characteristic sarcasm on hold during press conferences and corporate events. Your circle of friends or acquaintances may shift, as may your array of choices and freedoms.

Keep reading at Best Life.

5. How do blowjobs fuel the demand for prostitutes?

A 2001 study by Martin A. Monto, published in the Journal of Sex Research, indicates that "the desire for fellatio is an important reason clients seek female prostitutes." Monto's study gathered questionnaires from men arrested while trying to hire hookers; according to the pervy perps, fellatio was the most common practice they "had ever experienced" with a prostitute--a whopping 81% had received a blowjob as compared to 55% who had had sex.

Keep reading at Tango.

6. Why do prostitutes rake in so much dough?

Prostitution is, seemingly, a low-skill but high-pay profession with few upfront costs, micro-miniskirts and stiletto heels aside.

According to data assembled from a wide variety of times and places, ranging from mid-15th-century France to Malaysia of the late 1990s, prostitutes make more money--in some cases, a lot more money--than do working girls who, well, work for a living. This held true even for places where prostitution is legal and relatively safe. ...One normally cannot be both a wife and a whore. "Combine this with the fact that marriage can be an important source of income for women, and it follows that prostitution must pay better than other jobs to compensate for the opportunity cost of forgone-marriage market earnings."

Keep reading at Forbes.

7. How does one become a prostitute?

A flat in a block in a suburb of London: Karen (not her real name) thinks her neighbours probably realise she sells sex for a living. A few years earlier, Karen had left an unhappy marriage and began using internet chat rooms to meet men. "I started going on blind dates and it slowly started to evolve into having sex with strangers," she says. It wasn't such a huge leap, she says, into charging for what she was giving anyway. "I had a bad month, financially, as I invariably would, and it started as a trickle.

Keep reading at The Guardian.

8. What's the craziest prostitution story of all time?

A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees. Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town. "I was dumfounded. I thought I was dreaming," the husband told the newspaper. The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.

From The Daily Telegraph.

9. Why is prostitution illegal?

In the late 19th century a variety of changes in Western societies revived efforts to suppress prostitution. With the rise of feminism, many came to regard male libertinism as a threat to women's status and physical health.

In the United States, prostitution was at best sporadically controlled until passage of the federal Mann Act (1910), which prohibited interstate transportation of women for "immoral purposes." By 1915 nearly all states had passed laws that banned brothels or regulated the profits of prostitution. After World War II, prostitution remained prohibited in most Western countries, though it was unofficially tolerated in some cities.

Authorities also intervened to prevent girls from being coerced into prostitution ("white slavery"). Prostitution is illegal in most of the United States, though it is lawful in some counties in Nevada.

Keep reading at Britannica.com.

10. What's new with prostitution outside the U.S.?

Apparently in Japan, a country where shrinks are taboo, visitors to "love hotels" are sometimes just looking to chat, while Kenya has recently seen an upswing in older female sex tourists.

11. What does it feel like for a woman to discover her man is sleeping with hookers?

I stayed up all night that night, unable to sleep or work or even think. I couldn't believe that the nice Jewish guy I was falling so hard for, the one with the high-powered job and Upper West Side apartment, who could be so sweet and tender, was doing this. I felt disgusted.

I didn't say anything to him the next morning. I just gathered what little I'd stored at his place and left. It all felt like a dream--especially since I was so overtired. When I finally confronted him a few days later, he told me it "had nothing to do with me." I was stunned all over again by the realization that he could rationalize it that way. If that were true, his ability to compartmentalize sex--something he also engaged in with me--made me realize we would never have worked in the long-term.

Keep reading at Tango.

12. So do women use prostitutes?

Once, sometimes twice, a month I meet up with Justin, a 36-year-old divorcé. We go out for a meal and maybe to a club before spending the night in a hotel. I am a divorced mum and work part time to spend as much time as I can with my four children. Justin also has four children. But what differentiates our dates from the norm is that I pay for Justin's company, including having sex with him.

Keep reading The Times Online.

13. Are brothels safe?

Since the institution of mandatory condoms in Nevada's brothels in 1988, not a single sex worker has contracted HIV.

Keep reading at LAist.com.

14. This is all very informative. So where can I find prostitutes?

You can find prostitutes in brothels. A couple of legal examples are the (NSFW) Kit Kat Guest Ranch and the Bunny Ranch in Nevada.

Comments

[mainmonkey]

here's some interesting facts and analysis about legal prostitution in Nevada.

http://www.nevadacoalition.org/factsheets/LegliznFactSheet091707c.pdf

[mainmonkey]

If prostitution is such a fab career, then why do Canadian prostitutes have 40 times the mortality rate of the general Canadian population? Why do prostitutes worldwide have PTSD rates approaching 70%? And finally, why did 90% of the 900 prostitutes interviewed by Melissa Farley say they wanted out of prostitution, immediately? Prostitutes are the most raped and abused women on earth, and you're deluding yourself when you say otherwise. Do some actual ACADEMIC research into the matter before you lecture anyone. And one night in the Bunny Ranch does not constitute research, dude.

All statistics are from Farley's "Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress and oneangrygl­rl.net/ant­iporn.html

[Yosser]

It seems to me two issues (or three) are being confused. One is human trafficking and exploitation of the weak/poor by the strong/rich (and in all its other variations), the other is the personal behavior of consenting adults.

Human trafficking and exploitation violate civil rights. This is abhorrent and a matter of enforcement of laws that virtually everyone will agree with.

I imagine people who believe in 'live and let live' might agree also that the rights of the individual extend to consenusal relations of whatever type between adults. (Not living in a vacuum, I accept that persons of strong religious beliefs may not agree to 'live and let live'. Many seem to wish everyone would subscribe to their own personal beliefs, a position that seems to me not only foreign to a modern state, but also rather arrogant. )

The waters may get muddied when one tries to add 'provided no outside party gets hurt'. I suspect married men who use prostitutes do not include this as an item in pillow talk with their wives: that is, there is no intent to hurt. (One can make the argument that a man who is sexually unfulfilled in his otherwise healthy marriage believes he is strengthening his marriage by fulfilling his need without trampling to pieces the entire stock of porcelain in the shop. Maybe this is an argument that would not appeal to many wives!)

Amongst the flood of comment about the Spitzer case, I have not heard any evidence that the federal investigation that spawned it and the press barrage that blew it up had or has anything to do with human trafficking or exploitation. What, then, was the purpose of the investigation and the masive press response?

[jsinclair]

This article still leaves the mystery of what could possibly make any woman, doing anything, worth $31,000 for one day?

[heywhat]

If a woman truly makes the decision to exchange sexual favors for money - free of any sort of coercion whatsoever - then she should have the legal right to do so.

[cruisepuppy7452a]

There is an uglier side to this profession that is never discussed. Most grils who service clients have a whose who of top judges, lawyers, law enforcement, CEO's, high paying lobbyists, musicians, ballplayers, actors, high profile politicos. That is a fact. Keeping those names out of the public view is something they pay high prices for. That protects the cleints, but when a girl chooses to leave that profession keeping it hidden is another matter. Blackmail is one reason women either stay in, or leave, praying nobody will learn thier past history. In this society, if you are or were a call girl, for all practical matters, your life is over. You are branded with an X on your ass the size of a buick which never happens to the men. Its a double standard nobody talks about.
My co worker whom I met at a company in the midwest,(not a call girl ring, a legit company), spoke to me and my fellow coworkers about this. To say she was brave is an understatement. She has said how she must look over her shoulder every day of the week in hopes she can lead a normal life. The money she made went to paying off people who wanted to ruin her life, blackmail her. Sure, she entered that profession, knew the risks, but men don't get this sort of double standard, they are a protected species. Unless they get caught in a sting, most remain hidden. If she files a protection order against the blackmailers, its her word against thiers. Nobody trusts a hooker, so the guy walks. Like I said, its not all black and white.

[gypsy508]

It's not a double standard. According to the figures above one-third of men have used prostitutes which means two-thirds have not. Lots of jobs have their downside. You take the money, you have to deal with the consequences.

[dora rice]

Europe has brothels. Every town has at least one brothel. The interesting thing is that men still will
get a street walker rather than go to a brothel. I guess it's easier just to pick up someone with your car go to a parking lot or a quiet street and get a quick blow job. Bring her back where he picked her.up.
Women work in brothels in Europe, have a physical check up and a card to prove it, pay taxes and social security.

[josephjsalas]

Quit raggin on the Ho's! Who do you think helped pay for the Balkans?

[GuiltyUndertaker]

I lived next door to a prostitute for more than a year. I asked her on a date once, and she told me she didn't date except for money. Oh?
She didn't look like Hollywood's idea of a prostitute. Few of them do, and the ones who fit the whore stereotype are probably undercover cops and should be avoided like the venomous snakes they are. My neighbor was pretty, but in no way looked promiscuous. She had short blonde hair, glasses, and dressed in jeans and T-shirts most of the time. She was a student trying to pay for college. She did confide in me that the word was out at the college that she was a pro and was in danger of being expelled so she had to lay low for a while (read: drop out because of inability to pay the tuition).
Money was kind of tight at the time, so I never partook of her services. But we developed a platonic friendship and she was very up front about what she did. She said she rarely had intercourse. Many men she saw wanted to partake of fetishes they were too ashamed to do with their wives and GFs. A client of hers -- a good-looking man in his early 30s, she said -- only wanted to hogtie her and tickle her feet and belly. She didn't even have to be naked -- just barefoot and tummy exposed. Bondage was big with the clients, although she had to be 100 percent certain that nothing beyond light S&M would be performed. She often turned down customers whose preferences were not worth the $$.
Was this woman in her late 20s, so normal in appearance and mannerisms to the general public, some kind of criminal? I think not. Who did she hurt?

[Diogod]

The separation between church and state means little if the distinction between legality and morality is not equally observed. And yet, too often in this country morality is enforced through the law.

I haven't heard a single argument against prostitution that is anything other than an expression of moral creeds.

"Selling your own body" is not against the law - in fact, that is an integral part of the capitalism system: anyone that does not own the means of production sells his body as workforce.
"Emotionally unhealthy activities" are not illegal either - again, I would argue that's the case for most jobs.
"Sex without love" is not illegal - or are we going to throw in jail everyone living in a loveless marriage? For some reason I believe that many people condemning prostitution or other sexual behaviors are the same ones living in unfulfilling relationships. And, just to to provoke those hipocrites, I would add that often times people stay in loveless marriages precisely because of financial reasons (hmmmmmm - would that make make them some sort of full time hookers?).

Jokes aside, I would say that America criminalizes prostitution for the same reason the Taliban criminalizes music: prejudice, superstition, obscurantism and society's inability to rise above darkness.

[jessiep]

Sex as commerce is illegal because it exploits people (primarily women, many of them disproportionately younger than their male counterparts). It is unethical to pay someone for sex. Period.

[gypsy508]

Sex as commerce is one thing. What about women who marry for money?

[azyuwish]

I was discussing this with my husband yesterday. He holds a similar opinion to yours with a few exceptions. I said that in my view, there are some guys who are so shy, creepy, ugly or grossly weird that they won't ever develop the skills or abilities it takes to get a first date, let alone a girlfriend. What are they supposed to do for sex? Seriously, what is a truly ugly, dorky, socially challenged guy supposed to do?

I would much rather have a society where men who can't seem to connect with women in a normal way, have an outlet and an emotionally safe place to explore their sexuality than to become so bitter and enraged at women that they become serial killers of women. That tends to be the profile of a serial sexual predator/murderer btw. Many times they have very disturbed or nonexistent relationships with women.

[maheanuu]

Way back when, I was a young sailor stationed in the far east. I used prostitutes,but never abused them or treated any different that any woman I have ever dated or my wife, whom I am married to. I have only believed that a person is a person, no matter what their beliefs, morals, all the way to the job, or work field that they are in. I was a 17 year old lad, in a grownup's world. I dated prostitutes, paid prostitutes and had prostitutes as friends. They taught me very well, not only pillow language and ettiquite, but their languages, histories of their countries and their culture. I knew that I would never marry while I was in the service, and that meant that in order to find a sexual release when you were in port or in a new port, you talked to the old hands, those who had been there before and learn to use common sense and a level head and you would come ashore with a lot more knowledge of the situation in the port you were in.

If I were stationed in a country, I usually found a lady that I had known from before who was willing to move in and share the house and everything. When I was in one of those relationships I had no need of services by a prostitute as in Asia, sex is something to be enjoyed and fun, passion is there and even tho there wasn't love there was friendship and companionship..

When I married, I was 39 years old, and put the old ways behind me, I have now been married for 30 years, and the only sex I have had is with my wife. Sure it isn't the same as when I was young and totally free, but neither am I. My wife and I still have glorious sex, and, as far as using prostitutes at my age...... We don't have any on the island that I live on, the girls give it away. If they are interested in you, you will know about it very quickly.. If they aren't interested you need to move on... But that is the way it is in the outer islands....

Just this old chief's 2¢

[ReadALot]

I agree with Cowman. Having sex with a prostitute does not tag you as "involved in a prostitution ring."

Now, I'd like to know about lesbians and gays and and their experiences with prostitutes of the same sex.

And last but not least, are their "brothels" for same sex prostitutes?

[DBBearden]

I find the statement in your article that one in three men will engage a prostitute at some point in their lives to be unsupported by valid research or any other type of evidence beyond anecdotal. Prostitution is the most disgusting human act that is imaginable. Prostitution is the absence of love. It is no accident that genocide always involves sexual oppression. It is no accident that slavery always involves sexual oppression. I live in Austin and in past years complained vigorously about the advertising for prostitution shops in the pages of what is otherwise a very progressive publication, the Austin Chronicle. The percentage of that advertising has diminished over the years. In New York however the opposite is true. The Village Voice, otherwise a well respected publication, is devoid of any redeeming social value because so much of its revenue comes from advertising sales to prostitutes. How can a publication promote progressive candidates and social progress in general while taking so much money from known crime syndicate operations that derive large amounts of their profit from human slavery and drug trafficking?

There is room in the Huffington Post for discussion of the human libido; but if you move in the same direction as the Village Voice you will lose my participation.

[RogerHWerner]

You want to know what's disgusting? War. That is the most disgusting human act. So long as sex is consensual between two adults, it shouldn't matter whether or n ot money exchanges hands. Frankly, what happens between two consenting adults isn't any of society's business.

[GuiltyUndertaker]

You don't like prostitutes? Then don't use them. I don't like cigarettes, so I don't smoke them.

Oh, you don't like advertising of prostitution? Too bad. This is capitalism, buddy. Supply and demand. Prostitution hurts society far less than cigarettes. light beer and fast food. Should I initiate a movement to ban these popular products?

[azyuwish]

Prostitution is the most disgusting human act that is imaginable? What are you, locked inside some church somewhere??

Go outside and take a look around at homeless people being set on fire, or children in the ER with broken bones, burns, brain trauma from physical abuse by parents. Go to the de-militarized zone and take a look at kids with missing limbs due to land mines left years ago. Go to a trial of one of those "btk" psychopaths who kidnap, bind, torture and then murder people.

God, what ARE you, new?? Did you just arrive on the planet? A person has sex with someone and leaves a hundred bucks on the bedside table and it is the most disgusting human act?

Rent a clue.

[VeritasRox]

I'm responding as the daughter of a man, an attorney, who taught me that I should respect myself, try hard in school, and never get discouraged by the challenges that women in our society face.

Then, after I graduated from Harvard and started to struggle with professional life, I learned that this man, my father, had been living a lie. I found out when he gave my mother an STD. An STD that he got from a whore.

I have little to say to anyone about the rightness of their sexual behaviors or preferences. But I think that lying is wrong, publicly misrepresenting one's values is wrong, giving people false hope is wrong, and exacerbating the foul conditions faced by young women in our society is wrong.

Actions and transactions speak louder than words. If you pay your whores more per hour than you pay your female staffers, you are making a statement about whose services are more valuable to you. And if you think that being a good father to your daughters is compatible with participating in the sex economy, you are deluding yourself even beyond the delusion that it took to spend this kind of money on hookers and expect not to get caught.

[Schnitzel]

As if the whole ritual of dating isn't a form of prostitution in itself. Women constantly and consciously judge whether they'll have sex with a man or not solely on the basis of how much money a guy is willing to spend on them.