Prostitution

On the basis of information provided by the Prostitutes Education Network (2000), it is believed that over one million people in the U.S. have worked as prostitutes, or about one percent of women. According to prostitution research papers, the commercial sex industry today includes street prostitution, massage brothels, escort services, outcall services, strip clubs, lapdancing, phone sex, adult and child pornography, video and internet pornography and prostitution tourism. Most prostitutes who are in the business for longer than a few months drift in and out of these various forms of work within the sex industry. The average age of entry into prostitution is 13 years. Prostitution research papers have indicated that mpost of the younger girls involved in prostitution were coerced into working within the sex industry. Many others involved in the work have been found to be women without job skills who had escaped from or were abandoned by abusive husbands and partners who went into prostitution to support themselves and their children.

Additionally, in order to further understand the occurrence of prostitution today, as provided by the Prostitutes Educational Network (2000), average prostitution arrests include 70% females, 20% males, and 10% customers. It has also been found that a disproportionate number of prostitutes arrested and sentenced are women of color, even though a minority of prostitutes are women of color. Most prostitutes who are arrested are those that work on the streets even though only 20% of all prostitutes engage in street work. As well, as reported by the Prostitutes Education Network, the incidence of substance use and addiction vary extensively. Those who work on the streets have been found to have a prevalence rate of 50% while those who do not have been found to relatively free of addiction. Furthermore, as evidenced in information provided by the Prostitutes Education Network, utilizing information provided by the U.S. Department of Health, only 3-5% of the sexually transmitted disease in this country is attributable to prostitution.