Is Prostitution An Abuse Itself Or?

Prostitution is a word which applies to far more circumstances than the usual legal definition, where the meaning is focused only upon 'whoring'. Google defines it as, "the act, or an instance of, offering or devoting one's talent to an unworthy use or cause". This is far more akin in meaning to the word 'pollution' than to whoring.

Every society is not only about flowers and butterflies; there are a lot of pricks, thorns and needles to it. Living in a developing world which has many sides to it, we need to accept, as a society, the realities of life and learn to find a way around them because only when we accept a problem will we able to figure out ways to eradicate it, or at least learn to accept it. One of these realities which desperately needs to be accepted is prostitution as it cannot be banned or eradicated completely. In that case, it would still be practiced under cover. Who can say that two adults agreeing on a price and entering a room to have sex are actually committing a crime? Sex is not illegal in itself so common sense would suggest prostitution is not a crime. If both the parties have agreed on doing it, it would be hard to consider either of them as a victim. But prostitution has almost never been treated as just another transaction. This is where the society discriminates.

Prostitution is the sale of sexual services that consist of sexual acts, while payment may be a nonsexual consideration. Most commonly it is in the form of money, other forms may include doses of narcotics, jewels or real estate. Prostitutes go through the hardships every day. The majority lives in dingy apartments and survives in a suffocating environment. They don't have a normal life like any other person. Its not all about glamour and quick money, that is only limited to the way they dress up to attract the customer. They give up on most of their earnings as commission to their pimps. The results leave them with little amount of money to support themselves. They are illiterate since most of them are kidnapped and sold at a very young age, in most cases by their relatives. At an age when they were supposed to be taught what to choose best for their own selves, they already got forced into this business and were left with no option to choose from.

A person working in a bank, for example, would learn the basics of banking in the beginning. Same is the case in other professional fields. People learn of the risks and benefits they would have to face. But this business doesn't teach anything that could allow a prostitute to protect herself hygienically. Prostitutes are not educated in the matters of intellect nor are they taught the basic; how to protect oneself from STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases). If a prostitute is suffering from a disease, that would affect the customer's health too. As stated before, they don't even have the required sex education to ensure their health and that of their customer's. They have no access to standard medical facilities due to which they suffer from diseases which they don't know about. Their concern is not what disease their customer is suffering from but how much he is paying them for their services.
As it so often happens, unwanted pregnancies occur, resulting in the next generation growing up unprotected from this profession as well. They get trained, and later adopt the same profession as they live in iron-curtain societies where interactions with the outside world are prohibited. The only home these children have is the brothel and their family is the prostitutes and pimps. They cannot even talk to anyone outside the brothel. The pimp provides them with whatever they want, i.e., cosmetics for make over.

What needs to be realized and understood here is that these prostitutes are humans too. Because of the hardships they go through each day, they become more isolated and there is no relief to their pains. Anyone who would not be satisfied with what he is doing could consider try doing something else professionally as an option. But once a woman becomes a prostitute, she cannot go else where as mentioned above, even if she does, nobody would respect or accept her. Prostitutes adopt this profession because it is their last resort in most cases, or they are forced into it. As this profession has been degraded for years, whatever the reason may be, a good one or a real one, people's degrading attitude towards prostitutes would never change. The question remains - why? Can they not be considered as any other person doing his job? Yes there might be a certain number of prostitutes who enjoy doing this willingly, but that is an exception. If one fish in the pond is infected, doesn't necessarily mean all the other fish in the same pond are infected too. The people in the society do not sympathize with them even though many of them are the ones who use them. They are the customers. So why not accept them when we use them? Why not give them the respect they deserve for being humans like us? Why not look at them from a positive perspective when they are just doing their jobs like any other person?

Prostitution is considered to be illegal though. Police takes action against them by arresting them, if found on the road waiting for a customer. But this is routinely done. If there is a prostitute found on road, in most cases these policemen take money as a bribe from them and move on with their work as if they didn't even see a prostitute around. In a condition where one of them gets arrested, the treatment she gets in jail is somewhat similar to what she does professionally; she gets physically abused by a lot of policemen one after the other. Is this kind of abuse justified?

Getting back to the same question, instead of dealing them with a degrading attitude, why not give them the respect they deserve for being humans?