 | The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United Kingdom and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(January 2015) |
The Internet has become one of the preferred methods of communication for prostitution, as clients and prostitutes are less vulnerable to arrest or assault and for its convenience. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
During the latter half of the twentieth century, most off-street prostitution was advertised locally using personal advertisements in the printed press or postcards in the windows of commercial premises such as newsagent's shops. As direct references to prostitution were not acceptable, the advertisements were carefully worded with euphemistic terms such as large chest for sale. [8] In larger cities, tart cards were placed in telephone boxes. [9]
By the year 2000, the Internet, and access to it had grown large enough for some in the sex industry to see it as a marketing tool. As use of the Internet has subsequently grown, so has the use of it by the sex industry. [5]
In 2007 Harriet Harman, then Minister for Women in the UK, put pressure on the Newspaper Society, the trade body representing local newspapers, not to carry advertisements for sexual services. As a result, the society updated its guidelines for members in 2008, effectively banning such advertisements. [10] As the majority of local newspapers were members, this ban increased the move towards Internet advertising.
Mobile devices such as smartphones have further increased the use of the Internet both generally and for prostitution websites. [11]
In the Netherlands, the Internet had grown in importance by the mid 2010s as a platform for recruiting prostitutes' clients, with escort workers advertising their mobile telephone numbers online. [12]
There has been a rise in the number of escort/prostitution listing websites, that advertise for both independent and agency escorts. Some are free, while others charge to add a listing. Others are free for a basic listing but charge for some additional features. [5] A notable example is the website The Erotic Review.
Forums were amongst the first sites to be used by escorts. With the rise of other social media, their use has declined.
It has become simple and easy for independent escorts to create a personal website for the purposes of advertising their prostitution services.
A number of sites have a section where clients can leave reviews for escorts. [5] Some outside the industry regard this as degrading to the escort; [13] however, most involved in the industry do not share this view.
The practice of posting online reviews of escorts dates back to 1999 when The Erotic Review, a review site that allows customers to rate their experiences with sex workers, was created. [14]
Punternet was originally the foremost review site despite adverse publicity from Harriet Harman [13] [15] and Vera Baird [16] (see below). In recent years, Adultwork has had a larger number of reviews posted. UK Punting, founded in 2010, is a sex worker review website which only includes client comments and has no input from sex workers. [17]
Books reviewing the providers of sexual services in the United Kingdom have been published by George McCoy since 1996 [18] and by 2013 McCoy was running a website reviewing over 5,000 massage parlours and individuals. [19]
A feature of some early websites, particularly forums, were sections where safety warnings could be posted about dangerous clients, referred to as "dodgy punters" (and to a lesser degree, bad escorts).
As these warnings were spread over about a dozen websites, the process of keeping up to date with the information in them could be time-consuming. In 2006, talks took place in the industry about setting up a centralised warning website that would be automatically updated from the existing websites by RSS feeds. It was agreed that a newly created website, Saafe, would carry the centralised warnings. [20] The new website launched in January 2007. However, the centralised warnings did not work as well as envisaged and the project was discontinued in 2010.
In December 2011, Lynne Featherstone, then Equalities Minister, announced the Home Office would provide £108,000 to establish a national online network to collate and distribute information between schemes that allow sex workers to report violent incidents, known as "Ugly Mugs" schemes. [21] This money was to fund a 12-month pilot scheme run by UK Network of Sex Work Projects (UKNSWP). [22]
On 6 July 2012, the National Ugly Mugs Pilot Scheme was launched. [23] [24] The scheme was a success and continued after the 12-month pilot period. [5] [25]
Since the rise of social media, escorts and escort agencies have used sites such as Facebook and Twitter to promote their services. [26] Because of its more relaxed guidelines, Twitter is the most popular. [27] With the rise of social media as a means of communication, the use of forums by sex workers and their clients has fallen.
The rise of online payment systems have enabled escorts and agencies to take payments for services. When PayPal first started in 2001, escorts were amongst their first customers. [28] PayPal subsequently changed its policies and no longer allows escorts to use the system. [28]
In 2013, escort agency Passion VIP of Birmingham, England became the first agency to accept the virtual currency Bitcoin. [28] [29]
In 2009 Harriet Harman asked the then governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger to close down the Punternet website. She said that it was increasing the demand for prostitution in the UK, an activity which she described as degrading to women and which she said was putting them at risk. [13] [15] Punternet is hosted in California, despite being a review site for prostitution in the UK. Harman's actions did not result in the website being closed down; instead it received an increase in traffic due to the publicity generated. The website owners thanked Harman for the increase in business. [16] [30] [31]
In January 2010 at a Westminster Hall debate on Violence against Women, then Solicitor General Vera Baird again called for the site to be taken down. [16]
In 2018 Trishna Datta, an outreach worker from Ilford, Essex, launched a petition to have the Punternet website taken down. She said that website lacked adequate safety measures to ensure details which could put sex workers in danger were not revealed. Additionally she expressed concern that some of the sex workers reviewed on the site might be underage or victims of trafficking or sexual assault. Punternet commented that they would report underage prostitutes to the authorities, and that they encourage customers to report underage prostitutes and victims of trafficking to Crimestoppers UK. [32] [33]
In 2010, Suffolk Trading standards started Operation Troy, targeting bogus online escort agencies. These agencies promised large earnings in an effort to recruit escorts. A registration fee was charged to those wanting to join, but no work materialised. [34]
In July 2013, six members of the gang running this scam were jailed; the leader, Toni Muldoon, for seven and a half years. It was estimated the scam netted £5.7m from 14,000 victims. [35]
AdultWork is a UK website which allows sex workers to specify the services they provide before being booked for a job. The site is funded by sex workers, who pay to have their profiles displayed. [17] In February 2014, an unnamed Northern Irish woman successfully sued the website for unauthorised use of intimate photographs of herself. She was awarded £28,000 damages. [36]
A call girl or female escort is a prostitute who does not display her profession to the general public, nor does she usually work in an institution like a brothel, although she may be employed by an escort agency. The client must make an appointment, usually by calling a telephone number. Call girls often advertise their services in small ads in magazines and via the Internet, although an intermediary advertiser, such as an escort agency, may be involved in promoting escorts, while, less often, some may be handled by a pimp. Call girls may work either incall, where the client comes to them, or outcall, where they go to the client. Some porn stars are known to escort as well.
An escort agency is a company that provides escorts for clients, usually for sexual services. The agency typically arranges a meeting between one of its escorts and the client at the customer's house or hotel room (outcall), or at the escort's residence (incall). Some agencies also provide escorts for longer durations, who may stay with the client or travel along on a holiday or business trip. While the escort agency is paid a fee for this booking and dispatch service, the customer must negotiate any additional fees or arrangements directly with the escort for any other services that are not provided by the agency involved, such as providing sexual services.
A massage parlor, or massage parlour, is a place where massage services are provided. Some massage parlors are front organizations for prostitution and the term "massage parlor" has also become a euphemism for a brothel.
Male prostitution is a form of sex work consisting of act or practice of men providing sexual services in return for payment. Although clients can be of any gender, the vast majority are older males looking to fulfill their sexual needs. Male prostitutes have been far less studied than female prostitutes by researchers. Even so, male prostitution has an extensive history including regulation through homosexuality, conceptual developments on sexuality, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic impact. In the last century, male sex work has seen various advancements such as popularizing new sexual acts, methods of exchange, and carving out a spot in cinema.
A girlfriend experience (GFE) is a commercial sex service. It ranges from a transactional sex relationship to a client paying a sex worker to pretend to be his girlfriend during the session. If the sex worker is male, the service is called a boyfriend experience.
In Great Britain, the act of engaging in sex or exchanging various sexual services for money is legal, but a number of related activities, including soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, and pimping, are illegal. In Northern Ireland, which previously had similar laws, paying for sex became illegal from 1 June 2015.
Prostitution is illegal in the vast majority of the United States as a result of state laws rather than federal laws. It is, however, legal in some rural counties within the state of Nevada. Additionally, it is decriminalized to sell sex in the state of Maine, but illegal to buy sex. Prostitution nevertheless occurs elsewhere in the country.
Prostitution in Ireland is legal. However, since March 2017, it has been an offence to buy sex. All forms of third party involvement are illegal but are commonly practiced. Since the law that criminalises clients came into being, with the purpose of reducing the demand for prostitution, the number of prosecutions for the purchase of sex increased from 10 in 2018 to 92 in 2020. In a report from UCD's Sexual Exploitation Research Programme the development is called ”a promising start in interrupting the demand for prostitution.” Most prostitution in Ireland occurs indoors. Street prostitution has declined considerably in the 21st century, with the vast majority of prostitution now advertised on the internet.
Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network (BAYSWAN) is a non-profit organization in the San Francisco Bay Area which works to improve working conditions, increase benefits, and eliminate discrimination on behalf of individuals working within both legal and criminalized adult entertainment industries. The organization provides advice and information to social service, policy reformers, media outlets, politicians, including the San Francisco Task Force on Prostitution and Commission on the Status of Women (COSW), and law enforcement agencies dealing with sex workers.
Prostitution in the Philippines is illegal, although somewhat tolerated, with law enforcement being rare with regards to sex workers. Penalties range up to life imprisonment for those involved in trafficking, which is covered by the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003. Prostitution is available through bars, karaoke bars, massage parlors, brothels, street walkers, and escort services.
A bad date list circulates details of persons that may pose a threat to sex workers. Bad date lists can serve as a warning system, so that sex workers can avoid persons who fit descriptions on the list.
Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact 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 and whore, are sometimes used pejoratively to refer to those who work in prostitution. The majority of prostitutes are female and have male clients.
Prostitution in Kenya is widespread. The legal situation is complex. Although prostitution is not criminalised by National law, municipal by-laws may prohibit it.. It is illegal to profit from the prostitution of others, and to aid, abet, compel or incite prostitution.. UNAIDS estimate there to be 133,675 prostitutes in the country.
Prostitution in Scotland has been similar to that in England under the State of Union, but since devolution, the new Scottish Parliament has pursued its own policies.
Prostitution in Northern Ireland is governed by the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act 2015, which makes it illegal to pay for sex in Northern Ireland. Prior to the act coming into effect, prostitution in Northern Ireland was regulated by the same or similar laws to those in England and Wales, as it is elsewhere in the United Kingdom. At that time, prostitution in Northern Ireland was legal subject to a number of restraints which controlled certain activities associated with prostitution, such as soliciting, procuring, living on the proceeds of prostitution (pimping), exploitation of prostitutes, under-age prostitution, and keeping a brothel. However, devolution provided the opportunity for separate legislation in Northern Ireland.
The Erotic Review, also functioning as TheEroticReview.com, is a review site that ostensibly presents clients' assessments of their experiences with sex workers.
Punternet, also known as Punternet.com, is a review site that allows customers to rate their experiences with call girls. Customers are referred to as "punters" on the website.
Sugar dating, also called sugaring, is a quasiromantic or pseudoromantic relationship wherein a financially successful person dates a less financially successful person. Typically, the financially successful person is older and wealthy, while the other person is typically younger, attractive, and interested in improving their quality of life. Sugaring can be classified as a compensatory relationship whereby the recipient obtains gifts such as jewelry, luxury goods, leisure outings, vacations, fine dining, financial support, or mentorship, meanwhile offering social benefits such as companionship, affection, dating or intimacy.
UK Network of Sex Work Projects (UKNSWP) is an umbrella organisation that represents sex work projects in the UK, both agencies or individuals working with sex workers. It facilitates networking between those it represents, so as to share good practice about providing quality support services for sex workers. It is a charity based in Manchester.
Clients of prostitutes or sex workers are sometimes known as johns or tricks in North America and punters in Britain and Ireland. In common parlance among sex workers as well as with others, the act of negotiating and then engaging with a client is referred to as turning a trick.
