Buying Sex from Someone is Always Degrading

“But it’s their choice,” you might say. Well, I’d like to tell you why buying sex from a person is degrading and criminal even if the person is “choosing” to sell sex.

First off, I do not like the terms “choose” or “choice” when it comes to prostitution. More often than you might think, prostitutes are actually forced to sell sex – otherwise known as sex trafficking.  According to rapeis.org the average age of entry into “sex work” is around 13-14 for girls (Farley, n.d.).  Other sources are estimating this number even lower. Because they are under 18, not able to consent to sex, they are actually victims of sex trafficking. As a result, a lot of women, so called, “choosing to sell sex” started off in sex trafficking and this is the only life they know. In my opinion, for the others who this might not be the case, there is almost always a reason or circumstance that leads to a person choosing to sell sex for a living. I do not believe that anyone truly wants to sell his or her body. 

With that out of the way, why is buying sex so degrading?  The term for a person who buys sex is a “john” and will be how I refer to them is this piece.  Sex is delicate and intimate and when a john purchases sex from another person it shows that the john has power and control over that individual. It communicates to the person that is selling sex that they are just an object and only good for sex and someone else’s pleasure.  This has many negative effects on a person.

Not convinced? A study was conducted in Minnesota with 73 women in prostitution (Parriott, 1994).  Of these 73 women, 46% tried to kill themselves and 19% attempted self-harm.  Please do not tell me that buying sex from a person is harmless.  Yes there could be other contributing factors, but you can’t tell me that it doesn’t have a lot to do with the 30 men per day that they see. We dance around the issue and blame women (or men) for “choosing” to sell sex when the real issue lies in men (or women) who buy sex. The reality is that if people didn’t want to buy sex from people, prostitution would not exist. Take an economics class, you’ll learn about simple supply and demand concepts. If no one watches your favorite T.V. show, they will not continue to air it. 

Not to mention that a lot of women in prostitution experience violence from johns. A study by Silbert and Pines of 200 women in prostitution in San Francisco found that 70% of the women had experienced sexual assault on an average of 31 times and 65% of the women experienced physical abuse on an average of 4 times.  For me, this rate of violence toward women and the findings that 80% of men who purchase sex are satisfied sexually in their relationships (Sawyer, Metz, Hinds, & Brucker, 2001-02), means that purchasing sex is more about the power and control than the sex.

Sweden has developed an effective law to reduce this awful crime of purchasing sex from another human being.  They decriminalize prostitution and criminalize pimping and buying sex. What I mean by this is that prostitution, or the selling of sex is legal; however, the buying of sex is illegal.  This might seem a little silly or pointless, but it actually has great implications.  In my opinion, this law is ingenious because it targets the perpetrators (pimps and johns) instead of the victims.  It provides the victims protection from getting arrested and gives the police authority to arrest the pimps and johns.  The law targets the demand and in turn there will be less supply.

In Sweden, human trafficking has drastically dropped. There are 400-600 women brought into Sweden to be trafficked each year, compared to Finland where there are 10,000-15,000 people trafficked each year.  If that isn’t a big difference already, note the fact that Finland is half the size of Sweden (Prostitution Ban, 2007, pg. 2). To read more about this law and its effects visit http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/838.

Sweden’s model has been spreading and recently Canada has passed a similar law. Now, I can only hope that someday soon it will catch on in that country just below Canada.  For now, I choose to continue advocating for women and men and children who are used in the exchange of money for sex. I continue to fight stereotypes and change my language. I choose to target the cause of prostitution – the demand

References

Farley, M. (n.d.). Prostitution Facts. Retrieved from http://www.rapeis.org/activism/prostitution/prostitutionfacts.html

Parriott, Ruth. “Health Experience of Twin Cities Women in Prostitution: Survey Findings and Recommendations, May 1994.

Prostitution Ban Huge Success in Sweden. (Nov. 2007). Retrieved from http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/838

Steven Sawyer, Michael E. Metz, Jeffrey D. Hinds, and Robert A. Brucker, “Attitudes Towards Prostitution Among Males: A ‘Consumers’ Report,” Current Psychology: Developmental, Learning, Personality, Social, Winter 2001-02, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp 363-376.

Silbert, MH and Pines, AM. “Sexual child abuse as an antecedent to prostitution,” Child Abuse and Neglect, 5:407-411, 1981.

Submitted by Missy H.