Are prostitutes criminals or victims?

They aren’t really criminals in other than technical terms, but only in places where it is considered a crime (so not in most of Nevada).

There is some victimization occurring with prostitution, but I would not say a prostitute is a victim and has no other responsibility for their behavior.

So to answer your question, “No.”

The vast majority of the time they are victims. They definitely are not criminals in my mind.

Some are criminals and some are victims.

Both criminals and victims.

Some are just doing a job.

They can be either, both or neither all in the same location.

Neither necessarily. I would want to speak to each individual and find out what their experiences are and their reasons for doing that particular job and still, then I wouldn’t feel it was my place to make the call specifically.

If they could do something else making the same amount of money (or even maybe not; maybe less) I suspect most would

Criminal, victim, both, neither…depends on the situation. If it’s illegal and they’re doing it, they’re criminals. Criminal does not necessarily mean “horrible person,” it just means a person that commits a crime. If prostitution is a crime, prostitutes are criminals. Simple. They can become victims in certain situations – it’s possible to rape a prostitute, of course, or assault/batter them. They can also be victimized by being forced to sell themselves. In that case, maybe they’re not criminals. Like I said, it all depends.

@Dutchess_III So are drug dealers and contract killers. Hey, it’s just a job! :)

I wouldn’t put the working girls in the same league as drug dealers and contract killers. They aren’t hurting anyone.

@Dutchess_III They’re all committing crimes. Some might say drug dealers hurt no one. They aren’t forcing the drugs up your nose or into your vein. They’re just working and earning a living, right? I wouldn’t say a prostitute is the same as being a contract killer, obviously, but the “just a job” thing doesn’t really work. When your job is illegal, you’re a criminal.

How can sex even BE “illegal?”

@Dutchess_III It’s sex for money that’s illegal, not the sex itself. And it doesn’t really matter WHY it’s illegal or if it SHOULD be illegal. It IS illegal – which makes anyone that engages in the act a criminal. It doesn’t make them bad, it’s just the definition of the word that makes it so.

In the muddled way society has things, they are criminals (they are outside the law), they can on top of being criminals also be victims of they are raped by the Johns, pimps, ripped off by anyone, or forced to do what they do. What victimization they encounter as a byproduct of their criminal activity of peddling sex for money; which is different than a porn star since her sex is supposedly not to pleasure her onscreen counterpart, doesn’t lessen the fact that she is outside the law. Just because a dope dealer is cheated out of $200,000 on a dope deal doesn’t make the theft greater than the selling of the illegal dope, or make the selling of the dope better than the massive theft.

Capitalists making money by screwing the consumer.

@Hypocrisy_Central So often many of them wind up in that profession due to prior victimization. Pretty much the same can be said of most criminals though, I think.

I agree with @Dutchess_III . Sex for money shouldn’t be illegal. I do think it should be seen as unethical, though.

Why should it be unethical @filmfann?

usually victims who work for criminals.

Where I live, they can be arrested for prostitution, thus if convicted they are criminals.

@josie “They” are trying to change some laws surrounding that in the US. Maybe it has changed in some states. Where the Johns are seen as the crminals, and the pimps, but not the women.

Did you fall asleep at the wheel @gorillapaws? You’ve been hovering for hours now.

In my country, (Canada), prostitution is not a criminal act.
Pimping and benefiting financially from the prostitution of others is a crime.

I hope that helps.

No one should mistake being a criminal for a moral shortcoming. Every woman who walks outside without her kneecaps covered in Saudi Arabia is presumably a criminal. I think your average American commits about three crimes a day.

Yes, they’re criminals any time they voluntarily prostitute themselves where prostitution is illegal (it’s that pedantic). They’re victims any time they’re forced to by circumstance or violence.

If a woman engages in prostitution where the laws clearly define it as an illegal activity, she is committing a crime.

If a woman voluntarily chooses to prostitute herself and isn’t forced to do so in any way, shape, or form, she’s not a victim.

Amazing. Women having sex can be a crime!

‘Whatcha gonng do when your baby’s at home, crying on the floor cause he’s hungry and the only way to feed him is to sleep with a man for a little bit of money’

Like @cheebdragon and @filmfann, there are both victims and criminals. The victims are heartbreaking, and I’ve been lucky to know a few just trying to survive.

@KNOWITALL I think you mean…

“What would you do if your son was at home crying all alone on the bedroom floor ‘cause he’s hungry, and the only way to feed him is to sleep with a man for a little bit of money?”

…And his daddy’s gone – somewhere smokin’ rock now, in and out of lock down, I ain’t got a job now. So for you this is just a good time, but for me this is what I call life. :)

@livelaughlove21 Yes, ma’am, you must like that song, too. :)

I’d do what it took to feed my child, too, Lord knows there are plenty of skeezy bags who’d pay for THAT but not formula.

Technically you’re a criminal if you break the laws of any government that has jurisdiction over you. I’m sure it was crime to criticize the Nazis Party too during the 1930’s. I would have to answer that both prostitutes and johns are criminals technically.

The term ‘victim’ seems rather tacky to me, but I’m sure in some cases there are prostitutes who are forced into the trade, or have had such horrible lives that their standard of thinking is very limited. I don’t consider a criminal a bad person all of the time, and many times I have found many ‘law abiding’ citizens to be worthless scumballs.

One can be a victim or criminal in one’s trade regardless of what said trade is.

In my opinion, there are criminals strictly in the legal sense—people who are victimized by an unjust, unforgiving system and thrown into the perennially unemployed life of the registered felon, the pariah; like those who inhabited the permanent underclass of unfortunates described 150 years ago by Victor Hugo. And then there are sociopaths who couldn’t play a straight game if their life depended on it and have absolutely no social responsibility or feeling for others and will fuck anybody over to feed their own selfish ends. When I use the word criminal, I am describing the latter bunch of shitheads. I don’t consider prostitutes in the former group.

When I drove cab in this tourist town, I would get prostitutes. There were “pro’s” of all kinds. There was the high-end call girl who needed a driver for the day and who paid extremely well above the going rate to get to her appointments in the finest hotels, and some of the best addresses. These were generally polite people. Well dressed, clean, well spoken; interested only in making her business appointments. No sign of a habit. Some worked for a service—often managed by women—and others did very well free-lancing. Free-lancers fly by wire, without the protection offered by an organization. I liked the free-lancers best. They were not victims or criminals in my book. They were businesswomen who had decided for one reason or another to make money selling their bodies—at great risk—and were able to do so at incredibly high prices. The ones working for an escort service may or may not have been working under duress and they never gave any indication that this was the case. But discretion is key to their business, so they may or may not have been victims.

On the other end, there was the crack whore who would offer to suck a cabbie’s cock for under ten bucks or for a ride to her next trick a few blocks away. These girls were generally nutcases. Whether they were nuts to begin with or if drugs made them that way I have no idea. It doesn’t really mater. These girls aren’t even worth pimping as they are too crazy, dirty, diseased and unpredictable. And they didn’t last long on the street before they’d be carted off to jail or end up in a dumpster somewhere. Later, as a nurse working the ER, we’d get one of these every month or so. They come to us beaten, raped—raped with objects in every orifice—and thrown away bleeding like so much bad meat. Next time you are tempted to laugh at a crack whore joke, keep that in mind. They are definite victims.

I ran into a few pimps. These are invariably bad motherfuckers, real criminals, who usually have a drug sideline and who can’t go running to a lawyer when things go bad. So they protect their income stream with guns instead. These guys are often very charming and attract insecure women who like dominant males who always appear in control and offer a warm, protective intimacy as well as material comforts. They most often recruit their prospective employees from strip clubs by dating a dancer and giving them free drugs during the seduction period—until the girl eventually goes to work for her main supplier. And that’s when he starts getting his pound of flesh both literally and figuratively. There are no labor organizations to protect those in nefarious professions, so pimps are free to abuse their employees in the worst ways imaginable and under incredible duress 24 hours a day. And the girls take it. And they will do things that I would consider criminal at the behest of the pimp, but I doubt they would if he were removed from the equation. These girls often end up as crack whores as described above. They can get used up surprisingly quick. I consider them victims as well.