Introduction
Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves 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 the field is usually called a prostitute or sex worker, but other words, such as hooker and whore, are sometimes used pejoratively to refer to those who work in prostitution. The majority of prostitutes are female and have male clients.
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). In most cases, it can be either an enforced crime, an unenforced crime, a decriminalized activity, a legal but unregulated activity, or 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
The Barbary Coast was a red-light district during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries in San Francisco which featured dance halls, concert saloons, bars, jazz clubs, variety shows, and brothels. Its nine block area was centered on a three block stretch of Pacific Street, now Pacific Avenue, between Montgomery and Stockton Streets. Pacific Street was the first street to cut through the hills of San Francisco, starting near Portsmouth Square and continuing east to the first shipping docks at Buena Vista Cove.
The Barbary Coast was born during the California Gold Rush of 1849, when the population of San Francisco was growing at an exponential rate due to the rapid influx of tens of thousands of miners trying to find gold. (read more...)
Selected biography
Nellie Cameron (1910–1953), known as "The Kiss of Death Girl", was a notorious Sydney prostitute in the 1920s and 1930s, who was featured extensively in the 2011 Australian television mini-series Underbelly: Razor. Cameron was associated with the cocaine-fuelled ravages of the razor gang violence of that era, commonly associated with her contemporaries, Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh, both criminal entrepreneurs who controlled much of Sydney's illegal sex industry and Sly-grog distribution during that period. Nellie Cameron received 73 criminal convictions during her life of crime, mainly for soliciting and vagrancy, and had the distinction of becoming the first woman in Australia to be convicted of consorting with criminals.
Ellen (Nellie) Katherine Kelly was born in the inner city Sydney suburb of Waterloo in 1910, the youngest child of Colin Kelly and Lillian Kelly (née Ruddock). (read more...)
Did you know?
- ... that San Antonio's Sporting District, (pictured) one of the largest red-light districts in the U.S. in the early 1900s, was so large that a tourist guide was published for visitors?
- ...that Matild Manukyan, a wealthy Turkish businesswoman of Armenian origin, made her fortune as a brothel owner?
- ...that loans made by Seattle brothel-owner Lou Graham saved some of the city's most prestigious families from bankruptcy after the Panic of 1893?
- ...that madame Anna Wilson, the "Queen of the Underworld" in early Omaha, Nebraska, bequeathed her 25-room brothel mansion to the city to use as an emergency hospital upon her death?
Quotes
| “ | On the evening of the last day of October, 1501, Cesare Borgia arranged a banquet in his chambers in the Vatican with "fifty honest prostitutes", called courtesans, who danced after dinner with the attendants and others who were present, at first in their garments, then naked. | ” |
Anniversaries - November
- 2nd
- 1940: Death of Big Nose Kate (Mary Katherine Horony-Cummings), Hungarian-born prostitute and common-law wife of Old West gunfighter Doc Holliday.
- 3rd
- 2009: Prostitution in Rhode Island was made illegal. Rhode Island was the last state in the US to ban prostitution.
- 5th
- 1975: Birth of Brooke Magnanti (pen-name Belle de Jour), an American born research scientist, blogger and writer, known for her book The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl.
- 9th
- 1888: Murder of Mary Jane Kelly, an Irish born London prostitute, widely believed to be the final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper.
- 24th
- 1998: Death of Gerda Munsinger, an East German prostitute and alleged Soviet spy who was the central protagonist of the Munsinger Affair.
- 28th
- 1942: Execution of Toni Jo Henry (née Annie Beatrice McQuiston), an American prostitute, murderer and the only woman ever to be executed in Louisiana's electric chair.
Selected image
The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen (1622)
Legality Map
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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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