State and local laws in 49 U.S. states and four counties in Nevada prohibit prostitution. Federal criminal laws deal with prostitution related to human trafficking, as discussed below, or in relation to acts that take place on federal property, such as military or naval bases. The 12 counties in Nevada that allow prostitution require regular licensing, registration, and testing for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Researchers at the University of Gothenburg published a report in 2010 claiming that prostitution laws influence human trafficking flows. [25] All jurisdictions have made their prostitution laws gender-neutral, but the prostitution relationship still usually consists of a man paying a woman for sex. There are occasional variations in the sexual identity of participants in contemporary society, but overall, a prostitute is even more of a woman or girl. An increasing amount of prostitution takes place off the street through organized escort services, and prostitutes in these services have some degree of control over their lives. However, many prostitutes still work on the streets, leading a desperate, brutal and dangerous life at the mercy of a promoter or pimp. Since the prostitute is usually a woman or a girl and prostitution can destroy the life of the prostitute, the issue of prostitution has become a concern for women`s rights activists. Although prostitution is mainly practiced by prostitutes, there are also male, transgender and transvestite prostitutes who engage in heterosexual and/or gay sex work. In April 2007, 1,352 prostitutes and 21 male prostitutes were officially registered in Vienna. [33] The number of prostitutes who are not registered (and therefore work illegally) is not known.
A recent TAMPEP study of prostitutes in Germany estimates that 93% of prostitutes were women, 3% transgender and 4% men. [34] In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, states began to encourage the arrest of prostitutes for crimes such as vagrancy and vagrancy. Congress passed the Mann Act in 1910, which criminalized interstate prostitution, and state legislatures made prostitution a separate offense. The prostitute, not the client, was the first to be punished at the state and local levels; Laws criminalizing incitement to prostitution were subsequently adopted. Depending on applicable local law, fees may apply at different stages of a typical “transaction”. Law enforcement agencies may lay charges against the service provider (for “prostitution”), the client paying for the services (for “soliciting prostitution”) and any intermediary involved (for “pimping” or “pimping”). Prostitution laws vary considerably from country to country and from jurisdiction to jurisdiction within the same country. On the one hand, prostitution or sex work is legal and considered a profession in some places, while at the other extreme, it is a crime punishable by death in other places. [1] More radical feminist critics of legalization argue that prostitution, like pornography, is an example of the unequal status of women in the United States. The arguments for privacy rights advanced by legalization advocates may seem reasonable, critics say, but they obscure the systematic subordination of women.
The renowned feminist jurist Catharine A. Mackinnon defined pornography as “the sexually explicit graphic subordination of women, whether in images or words,” especially in a violent or degrading context. Prostitution is worse than pornography, critics say, because women are exposed to sex in violent and degrading contexts. Many people who support legal prostitution argue that prostitution is a consensual adult-to-adult sexual act and a victimless crime, so the government should not ban the practice. In most countries, sex work is controversial. Members of some religions reject prostitution as a contradiction or a threat to their morality, while other parties view prostitution as a “necessary evil.” Activists and sex workers` organizations believe that the issue of sex workers` human rights is of paramount importance, including those related to freedom of expression, travel, immigration, work, marriage, parenthood, insurance, health insurance and housing. [4] The “choice” argument is also undermined, according to opponents of legalization, by the fact that the average prostitute starts working at the age of fourteen and suffers from sexual abuse, drug addiction, client violence, and emotional control by pimps. From this point of view, women are victims of the sex trade. Opponents of legalizing prostitution have traditionally based their opposition on the immorality of the sex trade. However, modern feminist thought has developed other arguments against removing legal barriers to selling sex. For example, a New York court found that sexual behavior related to prostitution can include sexual intercourse, deviant sex, and masturbation, or certain acts suggestive of behavior aimed at satisfying sexual desire in People v. Hinzmann.
Similarly, a California court found that sexual behavior may include lewd acts in which the prostitute`s or client`s genitals, buttocks, or female breasts come into contact with a body part for sexual arousal or customer or prostitute satisfaction in California against Campbell. Other proponents of decriminalization and regulation challenge what they see as the paternalistic argument that women should be protected from sexual exploitation. This argument, they argue, is absurd because it means that to protect women from exploitation, society must imprison them for prostitution. The regulation of prostitution is problematic because some model labour rules cannot be applied to prostitution. The typical employer-employee relationship, in which the employer has a position of authority over the employee, is considered by many to be contrary to the physical integrity of the prostitute in the case of prostitution. It is forbidden to order a person to have sex at a certain time in a certain place. Many sex workers also don`t want to pay social security contributions, which goes with paid work. Therefore, many prostitutes in countries where prostitution is regulated are officially listed as independent contractors.