Discussions of the issues surrounding women in the workplace
tend to center around a variety of different experiences and struggles of women
in the working world. There’s the one who is ambitious, but stifled by the
still too low-hanging glass ceiling. The one with the three kids who comes home
after a long day in a cubicle only to work her “second shift” as a wife and
mother. Then the woman who bags groceries all day under the eye of a flirty
supervisor and then spends her nights cleaning offices to pay back a mountain
of student loan debt; these are all stories we’ve heard before.
One sector of the working female population that doesn’t
immediately come to mind when questions about women and work are posed are the
women who perform the oldest job in history: prostitutes. While these ladies
might not clock in and work a typical nine-to-five day, for millions of women,
worldwide, the sex trade is where they earn a living.
A study published this year in the Journal of Sex Research
found that for prostitutes, both male and female, the number one incentive to
enter the “field” was the monetary benefits of the work. For most individuals
who find themselves working in prostitution, other options for work are either
non-existent or not ideal.
The truth about sex work is that it pays well, or at least
better, compared to most other options. This was even truer for women, as the
study reports, than it was for the men who participated who in general tended
to have more alternative options for earning a living. The incentives of
working in prostitution, this study shows, are for some people stronger than
working a minimum wage job. Prostitution not only pays more, but it allows the
individual more freedom. They set their own hours, don’t surrender a portion of
their earnings to taxes, and in some cases they are their own boss.
Obviously, this is not meant to sound as glamorous and
viable an option as it does. The “work” these women engage in is illegal and
very high risk, but there is something to be said about what brings someone to
it.
Jacquelyn Monroe of Ohio State University wrote in the
Journal of Poverty that the money prostitutes make isn’t the only incentive to
entering the field, but that many sex workers are forced into it by the
socioeconomic inequity they experience before they start. Thirty million people
in the United States earn less than $8.70 an hour, which if you’re a single
parent isn’t enough to live on, not even uncomfortably. Monroe cites this fact,
as well as the income gap, as the reason most women get into prostitution.
It is important to mention,
however, that prostitution is not exclusive to women chasing a comfortable life
and livable wage among an array of dead end minimum wage jobs. With the cost of
college tuition in the United States has increased more rapidly over the last
two decades than any other product or service available, some young women are
turning to the lucrative world of sex work to pay down student loan debt. While
prostitution is not a typical or common means of paying off debt, it is
something that happens on many colleges nationwide. A 2011 study published in
the academic journal Sex Roles found that nearly half of undergraduate
interviewed noted that they new a fellow student who had engaged in sex work in
order to pay off student loan debt.
Like the many attitudes, stereotypes, and perceptions of sex
workers that have stayed static over the years, the incentive of the earnings
combined with the push of poverty remain the catalysts of the institution’s
growth.
Above is a special released by National Geographic entitled, "Sex for Sale: American Escort". It discusses how prostitution in the United States has evolved with changing technology, the supply and demand of prostitution, and sex work as a trade in America.
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