Portal:Prostitution
Introduction
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penetrative sex, manual sex, oral sex, etc.) with the customer. The requirement of physical contact also creates the risk of transferring infections. Prostitution is sometimes described as sexual services, commercial sex or, colloquially, hooking. It is sometimes referred to euphemistically as "the world's oldest profession" in the English-speaking world. A person who works in this field is called a prostitute, and sometimes a sex worker, but the words hooker and whore are also sometimes used to describe those who work as prostitutes.
Prostitution occurs in a variety of forms, and its legal status varies from country to country (sometimes from region to region within a given country), ranging from being an enforced or unenforced crime, to unregulated, to a regulated profession. It is one branch of the sex industry, along with pornography, stripping, and erotic dancing. Brothels are establishments specifically dedicated to prostitution. In escort prostitution, the act may take place at the client's residence or hotel room (referred to as out-call), or at the escort's residence or a hotel room rented for the occasion by the escort (in-call). Another form is street prostitution.
According to a 2011 report by Fondation Scelles there are about 42 million prostitutes in the world, living all over the world (though most of Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa lack data, studied countries in that large region rank as top sex tourism destinations). Estimates place the annual revenue generated by prostitution worldwide to be over $100 billion. (Full article...)
Selected article
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon, originally titled The Brothel of Avignon) is a large oil painting created in 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. The work, part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, portrays five nude female prostitutes in a brothel on Carrer d'Avinyó, a street in Barcelona. Each figure is depicted in a disconcerting confrontational manner and none is conventionally feminine. The women appear slightly menacing and are rendered with angular and disjointed body shapes. The three figures on the left exhibit facial features in the Iberian style of Picasso's native Spain, while the two on the right are shown with African mask-like features. The racial primitivism evoked in these masks, according to Picasso, moved him to "liberate an utterly original artistic style of compelling, even savage force." (read more...)
Selected biography
Peter William Coonan (born Peter William Sutcliffe; 2 June 1946) is an English serial killer who was dubbed the "Yorkshire Ripper" by the press. In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others.
Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas but seems to have moved to red light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of prostitutes. Sutcliffe had allegedly regularly used the services of prostitutes in Leeds and Bradford. When interviewed by authorities, he claimed that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. Sutcliffe carried out murders over five years, during which time some members of the public were especially shocked by the murders of women who were not prostitutes. (read more...)
Did you know?
- ... that Rossetti's Found, a painting about prostitution, featured a white calf (detail pictured)?
- ... that Hacienda Arms on the Sunset Strip was the "most famous brothel in California" in the 1930s and now houses a celebrity-owned restaurant described by Newsweek as "so hip it hurts"?
- ... that the Louisiana sheriff Cat Doucet of St. Landry Parish apparently obtained his nickname from his practice of protecting illegal "cathouses," a slang term for brothels?
- ... that the original screenplay for A Life of Her Own was deemed "shocking and highly offensive" for its portrayal of "adultery and commercialized prostitution" and rejected by the Breen Office?
Quotes
| “ | Prostitution does injury to the dignity of the person who engages in it, reducing the person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The one who pays sins gravely against himself: he violates the chastity to which his Baptism pledged him and defiles his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit. | ” |
Anniversaries - April
- 1st
- 1957: The Prostitution Prevention Law, which outlawed Prostitution in Japan, came into force.
- 4th
- 1888: Murder of Emma Elizabeth Smith. Her killing was the first of the Whitechapel murders.
- 10th
- 1836: Murder of Helen Jewett, a New York prostitute, whose alleged murderer, Richard P. Robinson, was tried and sensationally acquitted.
- 13th
- 1946: Brothels were outlawed in France by the passing of the Loi Marthe Richard.
- 2016: Paying for sex in France became illegal by Law 444 (2016) coming into force.
- 17th
- 2009: Iceland enacted legislation to adopt the Nordic model of prostitution which criminalises the buying of sex.
- 24th
- 1891: Murder of Carrie Brown, a New York prostitute who was murdered and mutilated. She is occasionally mentioned as an alleged victim of Jack the Ripper.
Selected image
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Interior of a brothel in Naples, Italy, 1945
Legality Map
Subcategories
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For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Portal:Prostitution-related articles, see WikiProject Sexology and sexuality/Sex work task force.
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- Start a new article. Prostitution is a broad topic, so there will always be plenty of missing articles.
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- Expand an existing article. Existing articles are often incomplete and missing information on key aspects of the topic. Stubs can be found in Category:Stub-Class Sex work articles.
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- Improve main article prostitution to featured status.
- Suggest improvements to this portal here
Recognised content
Featured (13)
Good (18)
- Mah Laqa Bai
- Butters' Bottom Bitch
- Child prostitution
- Elizabeth Cresswell
- Casey Donovan
- Dumas Brothel
- Andrea Dworkin
- Natasha Falle
- Kanhopatra
- Caroline Lacroix
- Ipswich serial murders
- National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking
- Neaira (hetaera)
- Salon Kitty
- She Has a Name
- Soho
- Valerie Solanas
- Three Sisters Tavern
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