referencebooks (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} referencebooks) wrote,@ 2006-01-18 15:28:00 |
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| Entry tags: | politics, sociology, women's studies |
Prostitution
Prostitution: An International Handbook on Trends, Problems, and Policies
Edited by Nanette J. Davis.
Published by Greenwood Press, 1993.
This is a 6" by 9" clothbound book running to 403 pages including a bibliography, name index, subject index, and contributors bios, plus a preface.
Unlike most reference books, this one is the product of extensive original research not published elsewhere. Sixteen scholars, in addition to the editor, contributed articles on prostitution in sixteen different countries. The countries covered are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England & Wales, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Taiwan, The United States, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia (still a country at the time of publication). The book is therefore a strongly multicultural reference work (though Africa and the Middle East are not represented).
Each article covers interdisciplinary angles on prostitution: social and legal definitions; history and trends for each country; social organization of prostitution; theories of prostitution (why people do it and what it means); contemporary status and life-styles of prostitutes; law enforcement; politics; intervention; and social policy.
Though the authors pay attention to varying interpretations of prostitution, including feminist and traditionalist perspectives, none give much credence to libertarian views and all regard prostitution unequivocally as a social problem, owing to its connection to poverty, dependency, vulnerability, inequality, and health issues for the women involved (and though the title doesn't say it, the book is restricted to female prostitution). This would probably make the book somewhat offensive to many self-described "sex workers," who view their line of work as a rational choice and don't see themselves as poor.
Opening the book and putting a finger down randomly, I'm in the chapter on England and Wales, reading the following:
Economic Misery
Overall, the positivist hegemony prevailed when it came to the question of the female offender. But some Marxist-influenced sociologists and economists proposed that prostitution was the result of "infraction," a legal issue, and not "action," a behavioral problem, and studies sought to examine factors external to the individual. Here, prostitution entailed recognizing men's sexual needs and women's economic misery. The common denominator linking all forms of prostitution was the external influence of the role of poverty rather than the stigmatized identity. Even William Acton, the British physician, recognized that the main cause of prostitution was "cruel biting poverty" and the "lowness of the wages paid to workwomen in various trades" (Acton 1857:62). Du Chatalet (1857) similarly regarded prostitution as the outcome of extreme economic need, and, although he recognized that prostitutes "acquired" physical and gynecological problems, he asserted that this was the consequence of prostitution, not the cause."
This section goes on to quote Friedrich Engels on marriage as a form of prostitution, and then continues to look at other theories, including a "neo-positivist perspective on victimology," and a feminist critique. The section I quoted followed a few paragraphs on the "positivist model," which was dominant in England and Wales prior to the influence of Marxism, and "focused on the motivational and behavioral systems of criminals." (I find it fascinating to see how prostitution, which has always had an interesting status as both the first and last frontier of the free market, is typically condemned by capitalist societies, whose systems are based on the same principle.)
This is an interesting and informative book. It has more of a point-of-view than many reference books, but it still gives a reasonably comprehensive treatment of its subject. I think it would be enriched if it somehow incorporated the prostitutes' own viewpoints and perspectives in its presentation of the discourse on prostitution. The book is generally critical of the stigmatization of prostitutes, but the absence of their own voices seems to reinforce that stigmatization.
