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Prostitution is one of the most acute problems of modern society. Despite formal prohibitions and various measures aimed at combating illegal prostitution, it is quite widespread. The turnover of the commercial sex market is billions of dollars, and it employs millions of people. Sex work is the primary source of income for some adults in most countries of the world in the 21st century. While estimates of the number of adults selling sex services require careful methodological approach, and also because of the lack of accurate population data, at the end of the 20th century, about 1.5% of the world’s female population — 46 million people — made life from partial or complete commercial sex work (Jansson, Smith, Flagg, 2017: 1).
Sex work is often referred to a world’s oldest profession. It exists mainly because men are willing to pay for sex. In short, sex sells. Men turn to prostitutes for many reasons: some have been temporarily deprived of sexual partners because they are traveling or in military service; others find it challenging to find partners due to some physical or psychological deficiencies. Sometimes men want to experience some particular form of sex, to which their regular partners do not agree; and some do not want to spend time, feelings and money on love relationships, preferring to buy sexual services. Even though more public extramarital sex in the United States has somewhat reduced prostitution, there are always many men who find themselves above situations (Masters, Johnson, Kolodny, 1988: 20).
However, the policy applied to prostitution is restrictive in most countries in the world. In this regard, many types of research (representing mainly various feminist organisations) emphasise that the civil rights of sex workers are violated, their social status is undermined, and considerable authority is given to them (Pokatovich, 2012: 33). The most important thing is that such a policy does not reach the goal: ‘it is obvious that these laws do not work because prostitution still exists’ (Elias, 1998).
The law and the most common philistine opinions about sex work bind sex and money to define ‘prostitution.’ However, in addition to simple economic exchange, sex work also has a symbolic dimension — the full range of moral evaluations of sex work and the social effects that these evaluations produce. All this ultimately affects the working conditions in the sexual sphere, influences the right and policy of regulating sex work, structures scientific research, and provokes grass-roots organisation of the community of sex workers.
The centre of this process is still stigmatisation – attributing negative moral characteristics to those engaged in sex work, which is why the ‘economy of pleasure’ remains under a partial ban, is associated with crimes and is morally condemned. However, the dominant ideas about sex work are also challenged – by the sex workers themselves and workers who gradually gain the right to vote through the communities they create and the ability to independently determine their sphere of activity. This allows to see a lot of unaccounted nuances of abstract theorising about ‘prostitution’ and in turn opens up the possibility of alternative definitions of sex work.
It is generally accepted that sex workers usually represent a marginal group that is widely subject to stigmatisation. Moreover, as mentioned above, prostitution is illegal in most countries of the world. The purpose of this paper is to review recent methods to eliminate sex work and how they influence the stigmatisation of prostitution in modern society.
In society, there is a deeply rooted negative attitude towards prostitution as an immoral, condemning phenomenon. Sex work is a stigmatising behaviour in almost all world cultures. Insulting labels, such as prostitute, whore, and hooker are systematically used to describe them in law regulations, mass media, everyday interactions, and sometimes in the research literature, showing the universal nature and popularity of these marks of stigma and disgrace.
Medics and psychologists would argue that attitudes toward prostitution start from a negative starting point for the same reason that promiscuous sex is seen negatively, people with facial birthmarks or defects are rejected, and indeed any form of social deviance involving the body and bodily functions. In this view, people unconsciously attempt to protect themselves against any trait or behaviour that might signal a risk of infectious disease. Anger is another typical reaction to sex work, one tied to perceptions of harm and the violations of conservative sexual norms. In studies of emotion, passion and disgust are very closely related. It takes very little for disgust to turn into anger.
Such an assessment of prostitution was characteristic of traditional culture and partially preserved in modern and post-modern cultures. Her theoretical rationale in modern Western society was the views of the famous criminologist Lombroso, who, following his basic concept of the hereditary nature of predisposition for committing crimes, argued that a person is already born a criminal and does not become him as a result of some external influences. In 1893, Lombroso and Ferrero published a paper ‘Criminal Woman, Prostitute and Normal Woman’ in which it was asserted that women prostitutes have a smaller skull size and they show other degraded characteristics compared to women who have committed other crimes (Levina, Dmitrieva, 2013). Shannon Bell (1994) analysed the stigmatization of prostitutes from a historical perspective. She emphasized the importance of forming in the public mind an image of a prostitute, as a woman belonging to another world, a woman with signs of ‘otherness’. The author cites data on how, since the time of Plato, the construction of the image of a prostitute was created, in which the primary and only identification was the body.
Besides, discrimination and stigma contribute to the social attitude of blaming prostitutes for their troubles when they are robbed or beaten by police or clients. Many, who commit crimes against sex workers know that police and society do not take them seriously, and often blame the crime victim for engaging in criminal or depraved behaviour. Interesting, those serial killers have often targeted prostitutes as their victims, because they correctly believe that sex workers disappearances will be treated lightly.
Also, the consequences of stigmatisation are extensive. It is negatively linked with quality of life measures, such as social isolation, revenue, employment, an arrengment of physical and mental health problems, as well as an unwillingness to use health services. Many types of research showed that stigma also causes job-related psychological stress and burnout symptoms (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal competence) among sex workers (Vanwesenbeeck, 2005). They found that burnout was not as much related to particular job characteristics (such as rewards, number of working hours or number of clients) as it was mostly associated with the experience of adverse social reactions, to role conflict, to encounters with violence (Vanwesenbeeck, 2005). Similarly, Platt and Grenfell (2016) decided, that sex workers’ psychological health is shaped by stigma related factors such as being discriminated by others, difficulties combining sex work and home, and fear of being found out.
However, later on, there is a growing understanding of the importance of social factors in the prosperity of prostitution. Recent theories in sociology offer an economic basis of all heterosexual relations – turning all heterosexual couples into prostitutes and clients. For example, Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs, in a 2004 review of norms about female and male chastity, attractiveness, and prostitution, observed that society treats female sexuality of all kinds as an economic resource to be
obtained by men (Ditmore, 2006: 50). Regardless of these views, the social agreement tends to place sex in that category of goods for which an economic exchange is a taboo. Trading sex for money at the same time violates conservative morality’s chastity values and liberal morality’s hatred of sex where inequality of power exists. (p. 50). Consequently, the stigma attached to prostitution will likely survive most social, political and economic changes and trends.
The Netherlands, where prostitution has been formally legalized since October 2000, and the sphere of sex services is regulated by municipal authorities, is often opposed to other states as a country that has achieved enormous success in the fight against stigma. For instance, Weitzer (2012) discovered in the Netherlands the interest of sex industry organisers in reducing stigma. The respondents said that they were interested in making sex workers give the impression of ordinary women and at the same time feel they were. They argued that if in the past everything happened behind a closed door, then today sex workers may come to clubs and various public organisations in which everyone is willing to talk with them and discuss various problems.
Legalisation has a positive effect of destigmatising prostitution as well by removing the threat of arrest and laws interference for sex workers. Also, it helps decrease violence against sex workers, because it takes prostitution out of the criminal economy and deems it a legitimate work. The fact that stigma is reduced also makes clear to law forces, potential clients, and others that there are consequences to engaging in crimes against sex workers.
Nevertheless, some researchers believe that even the legalisation of sex work does not solve the problem. For instance, Zeitch and Staring (2009) find that also though in the Netherlands the population is more tolerant of prostitution, it meets with public condemnation. The authors cite, as an example, the statement of one of the university students that she treats prostitution as a regular but immoral phenomenon’ (Dmitrieva, Levina, 2013: 9). Vanwesenbeeck, (Vanwesenbeeck, 2001) points out, ‘no policies have been proposed to combat public rejection and stigmatization of prostitution, nor have standards for working conditions and social welfare been agreed. Sex workers are not even familiar with the new rights and opportunities that brought them legal status’. He also added that ‘a business that has been illegal for centuries cannot become’ normal ‘overnight.’ In general, sex work, where permitted, is treated as a routine work, and emancipative ambitions are clearly articulated. However, these ambitions are being implemented hesitantly (Vanwesenbeeck, 2001) and so far, have not led to a significant improvement in the social status of sex workers.
The past decade has witnessed a growing debate over the sex trade and the growth of an organised campaign committed to expanding criminalisation. Indeed, prostitution is being increasingly demonised, marginalised and criminalised as a result of the efforts of a robust moral crusade (Weitzer, 2010: 62). The campaign initially targeted sex trafficking, but then expanded its targets to prostitution, pornography, stripping, and all other types of commercial sex. The crusade against trafficking and sex work has been dominated by a coalition of the religious right and abolitionist feminists. The term ‘abolitionist feminist’ refers to those who argue that the sex industry should be eliminated because of its objectification and oppressive treatment of women, considered to be inherent in sex for sale (p. 64).
Currently, a growing intention to control and punish is observed in Germany and other (primarily European) countries. This ‘regulation of deterrence’ is part of a broader development, in which sex work (again) is increasingly called extremely problematic and in which repression is pervasive. ‘New’ forms of criminalization are becoming increasingly popular. ‘Neo-abolitionism’ was introduced as an umbrella term to describe these recent developments (Vanwesenbeeck, 2017: 1632).
Two aspects characterize neo-abolitionism well. First, neo-abolitionism is reinforced by the remarkable resurgence of discourses on combating trafficking in human beings in sexual politics and public debates. Politicians in the sex business now seem to be reduced to anti-trafficking policies. The UN human trafficking protocol of 2000 and the North American ‘war on human trafficking’, initiated by the Bush regime, undoubtedly influenced Europe (and the rest of the world). Currently, European countries also spend huge amounts of money on anti-trafficking initiatives. However, there is a huge international confusion regarding the definitions of what exactly is considered human trafficking. The figures on trafficking were found to be bloated and unsubstantiated (Weitzer, 2012). The Netherlands, with its advanced registration system, inflates trafficking figures, counting not only actual cases but also ‘possible victims’, the qualification strongly depends on opinion and profiling. It is a fact that the dominance of the discourse on combating trafficking in human beings supports the idea of sex work as violence and sex workers as victims, something that hides voluntary (migration with a view to) sex work from the eyes and actively nourishes the punitive legal practice regarding sex work (Vanwesenbeeck, 2017: 1634).
Secondly, many countries (for example, Canada and a growing number of countries in Europe) are now criminalizing the purchase of sex, also called the ‘Swedish model,’ since Sweden was the first to introduce its Sex Purchase Act in 1998 (Vanwesenbeeck, 2017: 1635). The criminalization of clients is based on the idea that ‘stopping demand’ will eventually abolish sex work and, therefore, is abolitionist. Although the basic principle of the Swedish model is to prevent sex workers from being criminalized, many countries, including Sweden, apply this model, although they do not refrain from actively and continuously pursuing or even persecuting sex workers at the same time.
Next, abolitionism is still a dominant philosophy among modern feminists, both in the West and in developing countries. The most influential supporter of abolitionism at the international level is the Coalition against Trafficking in Women (CATW). Like their ancestors, modern ‘neo-abolitionist’ feminists deny that prostitution can be considered a real choice or a legitimate act of will. They argue that since all prostitution is inherently violence against women, actual consent is impossible. Therefore, for neo-abolitionist feminists, all prostitutes are victims. Male prostitution and transgender sex workers do not rank high on neo-abolitionist feminists because they do not fit into the neo-abolitionist analysis of prostitution as a system of male sexual violence perpetrated against women (Ditmore, 2006: 6). In short, abolitionists reject the sanitising description of ‘sex work’, and look at prostitution as a form of violence in which woman has come to be viewed as a commodity.
Nevertheless, it can be argued that the abolition of sex work does not have the desired effect. First of all, the criminalisation of prostitution creates significant barriers to combating the spread of HIV / AIDS: ‘When prostitution is punished, the implementation of effective programs to prevent and spread HIV / AIDS is complicated,’ said the representative of Pomerol, therefore we support the decriminalisation of prostitution (Ahmad, 2001: 643).
The granting of legal status to prostitution is not always a panacea and, in turn, is accompanied by negative manifestations. For example, the legalization of brothels in Nevada has been criticised for enforcing control and restricting the freedom of women working in brothels when they have no access to the social security system, which usually employs in the legal sector (Campbell, 1991).
To conclude, it should be noted that there is a continually growing literature confirming that a repressive approach to commercial sex is contrary to the principles of public health and human rights (Vanwesenbeeck, 2017: 1636). The direct and indirect way in which criminalisation harms is becoming increasingly apparent. One of the fundamental principles is that criminalization creates stigma, qualifying sex work as immoral and illegal, infringing the rights of sex workers and leading to negative beliefs. Stigmatized people attributed to a ‘corrupt personality’ (Goffman, 1963) are at a higher risk of underestimation, social isolation, and discrimination.
Deering et al. (2014) reviewed 42 international studies of sexual and physical violence against sex workers. They calculated that the risk of abuse was increased to seven times among sex workers with criminalisation experience. Criminalisation breeds violence and exploitation of sex workers because stigma supports a culture of impunity for violence and aggression. Besides, stigmatization deprives sex workers of equal protection from the law and deprives them of the right to go to court. Millions of sex workers around the world cannot count on the protection of the police, and risk being fined.
As long as structural conditions persist regarding global economic inequality, gender inequity, and poverty among women, gender labour markets and double sexual standards, sex work will remain one of the few income-generating options for many women. It is not surprising that the abolition of sex work is ineffective. If someone wants to consider sex business as a phenomenon due to poverty, then it is necessary to fight poverty, not sex work.
Methods of rethinking the stigma of prostitution include the vision of sex work as a routine economic activity and rethinking sex work in terms that emphasize its normality and acceptability as an aspect of social identity. Reframing sometimes occurs beyond the level of the individual. In a Jackson study (2016) on sex workers, they contrasted the ‘victim’ used by radical abolitionists with a ‘human rights’ structure. Jackson (2016) concluded that rethinking sex work as work and not a form of violence actually ‘corrects’ the wrong structure that anti-government groups use to describe sex work for their political purposes.
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