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 the field is usually called a prostitute or sex worker, but other words, such as hooker, putana, or whore, are sometimes used pejoratively to refer to 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
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Rachel_Weisz_2010_TIFF2.jpg/150px-Rachel_Weisz_2010_TIFF2.jpg)
The Whistleblower is a 2010 Canadian-German-American biographical crime drama film directed by Larysa Kondracki and starring Rachel Weisz. Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan wrote the screenplay, which was inspired by the story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska police officer who was recruited as a United Nations peacekeeper for DynCorp International in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1999. While there, she discovered a sex trafficking ring serving (and facilitated by) DynCorp employees, with the UN's SFOR peacekeeping force turning a blind eye. Bolkovac was fired and forced out of the country after attempting to shut down the ring. She took the story to BBC News in the UK and won a wrongful-dismissal lawsuit against DynCorp. (read more ...)
Wikipedia Featured Article
Selected biography
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/Hogarth-Harlot-1.png/200px-Hogarth-Harlot-1.png)
Elizabeth Needham (died 3 May 1731), also known as Mother Needham, was an English procuress and brothel-keeper of 18th-century London, who has been identified as the bawd greeting Moll Hackabout in the first plate of William Hogarth's series of satirical etchings, A Harlot's Progress. Although Needham was notorious in London at the time, little is recorded of her life, and no genuine portraits of her survive. Her house was the most exclusive in London and her customers came from the highest strata of fashionable society, but she eventually ran afoul of the moral reformers of the day and died as a result of the severe treatment she received after being sentenced to stand in the pillory. (read more ...)
Wikipedia Featured Article
Did you know?
![Dorsey's bordello](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Dorsey_Sporting_House_winter.jpg/130px-Dorsey_Sporting_House_winter.jpg)
- ...that Ida Dorsey built the last standing bordello (pictured) from Minneapolis' three red-light districts?
- ...that Amsterdam's Prostitution Information Center provides the city's visitors with information and advice about prostitution?
- ...that because of an effort to curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, prostitution in Germany has been legal since the 1920s?
- ...that the chrysargyron tax forced some Byzantine families to sell their children into slavery and prostitution?
Quotes
“ | I think it proves that if my business could be made legal, the way off-track betting is in New York, I and women like me could make a big contribution to what Mayor John Lindsay calls Fun City, and the city and state could derive the money in taxes and licensing fees that I pay off to crooked cops and political figures. | ” |
Anniversaries - July
- 3rd
- 1888: Death of Mattie Blaylock, prostitute and common-law wife of Old West lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp.
- 8th
- 1845: Birth of Al Swearengen, an American pimp and entertainment entrepreneur who ran the Gem Theater, a notorious brothel, in Deadwood, South Dakota, in the late 19th century.
- 13th
- 1941: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law a federal ban on prostitution near naval and army bases
- 16th
- 1788: Execution of Elisabeth Gassner, an infamous German pickpocket, thief and prostitute, known as Schwarze Lies (Black Lisa).
- 25th
- 29th
- 1910: Death of Valtesse de La Bigne, French courtesan and demi-mondaine.
Selected image
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Vienna_Sex-bus.jpg/300px-Vienna_Sex-bus.jpg)
Van used to advertise a brothel in Vienna
Legality Map
![Legality of prostitution worldwide](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Prostitution_laws_of_the_world2.svg/300px-Prostitution_laws_of_the_world2.svg.png)
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Recognised content
- 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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