Sex work is "the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation". Sex work only refers to voluntary sexual transactions; thus, the term does not refer to human trafficking and other coerced or nonconsensual sexual transactions such as child prostitution. The transaction must take place between consenting adults of the legal age and mental capacity to consent and must take place without any methods of coercion, other than payment. The term emphasizes the labor and economic implications of this type of work. Furthermore, some prefer the use of the term because it grants more agency to the sellers of these services.
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.
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.
Procuring, pimping, or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute or other sex worker in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. A procurer, colloquially called a pimp or a madam or a brothel keeper, is an agent for prostitutes who collects part of their earnings. The procurer may receive this money in return for advertising services, physical protection, or for providing and possibly monopolizing a location where the prostitute may solicit clients. Like prostitution, the legality of certain actions of a madam or a pimp vary from one region to the next.
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 Turkey is legal and regulated. The secularization of Turkish society allowed prostitution to achieve legal status during the early 20th century. Known as "general houses" (genelevler) in the country, brothels must receive permits from the government to operate. In turn, the regulatory agencies issue identity cards to sex workers that give them rights to some free medical care and other social services. However, many local governments now have a policy of not issuing new registrations, and in some cities, such as Ankara and Bursa, brothels have been demolished by court order.
Prostitution is the business or practice of 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, putana, or whore, are sometimes used pejoratively to refer to those who work as prostitutes.
Prostitution in Portugal is legal, but it is illegal for a third party to profit from, promote, encourage or facilitate the prostitution of another. Consequently, organized prostitution is prohibited.
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.
The sex industry consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related services, such as prostitution, strip clubs, host and hostess clubs and sex-related pastimes, such as pornography, sex-oriented men's magazines, women's magazines, sex movies, sex toys and fetish or BDSM paraphernalia. Sex channels for television and pre-paid sex movies for video on demand, are part of the sex industry, as are adult movie theaters, sex shops, peep shows, and strip clubs. The sex industry employs millions of people worldwide, mainly women. These range from the sex worker, also called adult service provider (ASP), who provides sexual services, to a multitude of support personnel.
The Erotic Review, also functioning as TheEroticReview.com, is a review site that ostensibly presents clients' assessments of their experiences with sex workers.
Tanya Moore and Tina Rodriguez were two transgender friends and sex workers on 13th Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The pair disappeared on June 30, 1986 after getting into the car of a couple of clients. On July 3, 1986 their mutilated and dismembered bodies were found burning at a baseball diamond in Middletown.
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 prostitutes as well as with others, the act of negotiating and then engaging with a client is referred to as turning a trick. Female clients are sometimes called janes, although the vast majority of prostitution clients are male in almost all countries.
Feminist perspectives on sex markets vary widely, depending on the type of feminism being applied. The sex market is defined as the system of supply and demand which is generated by the existence of sex work as a commodity. The sex market can further be segregated into the direct sex market, which mainly applies to prostitution, and the indirect sex market, which applies to sexual businesses which provide services such as lap dancing. The final component of the sex market lies in the production and selling of pornography. With the distinctions between feminist perspectives, there are many documented instances from feminist authors of both explicit and implied feminist standpoints that provide coverage on the sex market in regards to both "autonomous" and "non-autonomous" sex trades. The quotations are added since some feminist ideologies believe the commodification of women's bodies is never autonomous and therefore subversive or misleading by terminology.
