Composition
Prostitution is defined as the act of engaging in sexual activity for commercial purposes and one which occurs in various forms. According to Farrell & Fahy (2016), sex, stripping, erotic dancing, and pornography are among the most common types of prostitution. The topic of legality and morality of prostitution has attracted massive controversy from across the world with governments, religious institutions, and the general public expressing divergent opinions on the topic. There are individual governments and religious institutions that hold the belief that prostitution is ethical and ought to be legalized. On the other hand, some religious centers and governments castigate prostitution for its immorality. For example, in the United States, all state laws regard prostitution as illegal, except in Nevada. This paper examines prostitution as a topic from the point of view of social contract ethics theory and a utilitarian viewpoint, pegging its analysis on the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches and the standpoint of the sex worker and the buyer of sexual services.
History of Prostitution
Ditmore (2011) describes prostitution as a long-standing topic whose moral status has been debated for quite long. Since the days of colonization and slave trade, sexual activity was offered to dignitaries like administrators, and the rich people, suggesting that it was done for commercial purposes. Prostitution also thrived during the civil war, with sex offered to army officers who fought the United States civil war. All that while, the debate on whether or not prostitution was to be legalized still stood, with others calling for it to be authorized and others castigating it as immoral.
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Before the activities involving the elimination of requirements of license for massage parlors in New York, the period beginning 1971 saw attempts to repealing the laws on pornography. This was prompted by the increase in adult theatres in the United States, where people streamed in to watch pornography and other erotic material. More pornography films were produced, more porn-stars emerged with more adult filming companies set up to offer this kind of entertainment. In many states in the United States where prostitution had been illegalized, porn-stars were punished with arrests and prosecution and hit with charges in violation of prostitution laws.
Towards the late 1980s, penalties for prostitution were made more explicit and worse for cases where prostitutes were proved to engage in the activity while knowingly are HIV AIDS positive. The period transitioning to the 1990s saw several arrests related to prostitution, including the arrest of the renowned “Hollywood Madam,” Heidi Fleiss, whose conviction was due to prostitution, among other things like tax evasion. Prostitutes were handed up to three-year prison sentences for the act of prostitution and worse for knowingly infecting their clients with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases in other states. Later in the 21st Century, the fight and opinion on prostitution took a somewhat different direction. The 2005 Sex Regulation Act was introduced to regulate legal prostitution and the legal gender for sex.
Pro Versus Cons of Prostitution
Some people view sex as a sacred thing, which should not be commercialized, while others think prostitution is just like any other service business and should be supported. The introduction of anti-prostitution laws has irked unending protests in various countries. Similarly, laws legalizing prostitution have received a fair share of criticism with feminist organizations and religious institutions coming out often to call for the repeal of such acts, which promotes what they view as immoral.
Prostitution is a choice and a source of empowerment to the men and women who engage in it. Women and men who engage in prostitution do so to get payment, which empowers them to pay bills. For example, in India, most people who engage in prostitution lack the essential resources for themselves and their children and seek to earn a living to provide such basic needs (Shetye, 2018). Legal prostitution offers regulations on prostitution and, thus, regulations that protect both sex worker and their clients who purchase the service. With laws put in place to propel legal prostitution, new legislation will be put in place to protect women from exploitation, giving them the voice to demand protection and consent on sex. Commercially, prostitution also offers a source of revenue to governments. When sex is legalized in a country, businesses such as brothels will be on the rise, and they are bound to paying taxes to the government.
Prostitution increases access to human rights, hence the support it has received from human rights experts. Chisholm (2019) asserts that sex workers are also like other workers and should thus be accorded equal human rights for their choice of career. On the same note, criminalizing prostitution poses people to health risks and increases the stigma of sex-workers. The opponents of prostitution have significantly to the lack of data on the sex industry, making it possible to evaluate the dangers of prostitution and the existence of human trafficking. With the acknowledgement of the lack of infinite data on trafficking, it is impossible to assess the depth of the problem to find a solution.
Nevertheless, there are people who subscribe to the thought that sex work is a violation of women’s rights and should in an era where gender equity is handed priority. It is evident that commercial promotes subordination of women over men who happen to mostly appear as buyers of the service (Kempadoo & Doezema, 2018). Specifically, commercial sex encourages the tendency of men controlling women because they pay for sex, asking for anything they want in exchange for money. This can be likened to human trafficking, which involves the exploitation of human beings. Human trafficking incorporates threats and violence towards human beings. It is closely similar to slavery, where humans are bought with money and controlled to do things against their will. Sex workers do not make personal decisions; they are instead victims of circumstances who must satisfy their clients to earn more money.
Prostitution is rated among the major causes of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and several other Sexually Transmitted Diseases. According to research by Paz-Bailey et al. (2016), the prevalence of HIV is dominant on the female sex workers in the United States. In addition to that, men and women who seek sex as a service from commercial sex workers are at higher risk of contracting HIV and other STDs than any other person in America (Paz-Bailey et al., 2016). The United States Department of Health employs efforts to reduce HIV AIDS new infections to zero by reducing risk factors. Nevertheless, prostitution obviously works against such efforts, making it an enemy of health in the US.
Application of Ethical Theories
Social contract theory asserts that people who live in society do so within their own agreements. The social contract theory of ethics recommends that people should be guided by moral rules they create for themselves, and not rules set by given administrations or divine beliefs (Jahn & Brühl, 2018). This theory accords members of a society a sense of freedom to set their own rules. Therefore, one who engages in an activity that is approved by most members of the community; the act is regarded as morally right.
Anti-prostitution laws tend to cause utmost tension, leading to protests because a majority of the people believe that it is a right to according sex workers equal rights like those accorded to other workers. Apart from that, Women who engage in commercial sex do it at will, and no one ever forces them. Both the sex provider and the purchaser of sex mutually agree to satisfy their pleasures through prostitution, and nothing seems wrong with it. Moreover, people believe that commercial sex work is a source of livelihood, and other people seek to assist prostitutes in making a living. When governments seek criminalization of prostitution, they do so to uphold morality. Nevertheless, people are okay with sex. From the point of view of a social contract theorist, prostitution is ethically moral because it is widely accepted by the people.
Utilitarianism theory determines the morality of activity by looking at its outcome. This theory specifically recommends making a decision to select a choice with the most favourable outcome. This implies that the most ethical activity that one should embrace is the one with the highest number of good as the outcome (Mill, 2016). On the other hand, utilitarianism theory castigates as immoral, an act with the regrettable outcome, or such that poses the highest amount of injury on the subject. Utilitarianism tasks us with the responsibility of predicting the outcome of an activity that is about to be commenced. In as much as it looks difficult to predict the future of an activity, utilitarianism offers its users with the opportunity to use trends, and past experiences to estimate the outcome with a given margin of error.
As mentioned above, prostitution is a leading cause of HIV and other STDs in the United States and other countries across the world. Female sex workers in India are the most prevalent for HIV and the most susceptible to HIV new infections (Paz-Bailey et al. 2016). It is common knowledge that HIV is a killer disease with no cure and a leading cause of stigma around the world. Apart from that, prostitution also increases the opportunities of human traffickers engaging in the activity. Additionally, it increases the chance of minors falling victim to human trafficking. Apart from that, prostitution brings about the bad upbringing of children, a mother who engages in prostitution has little time for their children, and there is a great chance that they may go astray. All these are proof that prostitution only leads to regrettable outcomes with no positive result in the long run. Therefore, subscribers of utilitarianism can conclude that prostitution is unethical.
A utilitarian may also argue that prostitution is ethical due to the fact that it offers a source of income to workers and solves the sexual needs of the sex buyer. This argument proves that prostitution brings about a set of good results, which is the satisfaction of the financial and sexual needs of both parties involved. This set of satisfaction can eventually help reduce depression on both parties. The satisfaction of sexual needs of sex buyers helps reduce cases of rape due to high sex libido among men. All these imply good results and thus, making the constitution ethical.
Personal Opinion
Prostitution has a fair share of both pros and cons, and this explains the reason for the long-standing debate on its morality and legality status. It is clear that prostitution can be good and bad. The fact is that commercial sex activity acts as a source of income to the sex workers, offers sexual satisfaction to the sex buyer, and promotes an increase of revenue to the governments. Moreover, prostitutes ought not to be exempted from human rights because they are also workers. Governments should legalize commercial sex as a way of safeguarding the rights of sex workers, and empowering them to safeguard their rights. All these points to the fact that prostitution can, indeed, be regarded as ethical.
References
Chisholm, J. (2019). Searching for Empowerment and Emancipation in Sex Work. Gender Studies , 20 , 32-56.
Ditmore, M. H. (2011). Prostitution and sex work . ABC-CLIO.
Farrell, A., & Fahy, S. (2016). Prostitution and sex trafficking. The Wiley handbook on the psychology of violence , 517-532.
Jahn, J., & Brühl, R. (2018). How Friedman’s view on individual freedom relates to stakeholder theory and social contract theory. Journal of Business Ethics , 153 (1), 41-52.
Kempadoo, K., & Doezema, J. (Eds.). (2018). Global sex workers: Rights, resistance, and redefinition . Routledge.
Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. In Seven masterpieces of philosophy (pp. 337-383). Routledge.
Paz-Bailey, G., Noble, M., Salo, K., & Tregear, S. J. (2016). Prevalence of HIV among US female sex workers: systematic review and meta-analysis. AIDS and Behavior , 20 (10), 2318-2331.
Shetye, S. (2018). Policing Prostitution in India: An Examination of Field Experiences at Mumbai 1. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences , 13 (1), 68.
