1. Farley claims that prostitution is not a free choice because most people involved in prostitution don’t have any other options to get the basic necessities in life. She even goes on to talk about how one prostitute in the Netherlands called prostitution “volunteer slavery”. And that the women involved in prostitution are the ones without the choices. I personally believe that prostitution is a free choice. Yes there are people out there who  are desperate and think they have no other options in life but to resort to bad behaviors but there is always other options besides selling yourself. You could work multiple part time jobs.  You ultimately choose to become a prostitute so it is a choice.
2. People tend to choose their prostitutes based on what they look like, their preferences so usually there are certain types of prostitutes.  Also people of lower class are more likely to be desperate enough for money to resort to prostitution so the lower class are more likely to be prostitutes. The lower class tends to be made up of minorities like African Americans and immigrants so they are usually more likely to become prostitutes. Prostitution keeps the people involved in it in the class their already in. So it oppresses the minorities, certain races and certain sexes because they are more likely to become prostitutes.
3. IN legal terms according to Farley legalization would give the state or local authorities the position to control prostitution. They in terms act as “the pimp” in the situation. Offering up zoning areas for certain people. I would be a lot safer because then prostitutes would be required to have STD tests. Also it would gain the state money from taxes and such. Decriminalization, Farley is saying, would give men the right to abuse women and children. Which isn’t true because legalization would make women more able to take legal action against men who have harmed them. And it wouldn’t be legal prostitution for anyone under 18, which the state could regulate.

By Shauna

Many people think that prostitution is a free choice but Melissa Farley thinks differently. She thinks this because of all the research that is done on prostitution, most of the women are in it because when they were young children they were beaten or sexually abused themselves. Because that happened to the young girls, they think that they are worthless and they go to the only thing that they have ever known, prostitution.

On the view of this issue I believe the same as Melissa Farley. Before reading the article in Seeing Ourselves by John J. Macionis and Nijole V. Benokratis, I already knew that most women did it because of bad childhoods and they thought that they were worthless, but I didn’t know the extent to why they thought they way that they did. I never thought of tanning salons and massage parlors prostitution. I knew that rape happened at these kinds of places, it can happen anywhere, but I never knew that people prostituted there.

Prostitution reflects the intersection of race, sex and class oppression. It reflects race in the studies we read about in Seeing Ourselves. It says that “women of color are overrepresented in prostitution(172)’.  “96 percent of White European American, more than half of the women in strip club prostitution are women of color(172).  It reflects sex in a way that it’s alright for the women to become prostitutes. Their pimps tell them that they’ll make a lot of money and have nice things, but they accually get almost to nothing except for beatings. The girls think that it’s the only way to live and they don’t feel like they are good for anything except sex. When the girls are young before even going into the world of prostitution they are raped and molested, by family members or acquaintances. All they know from a young age is sex. Class oppression also plays a big role in why a girl is in prostitution. If a girl is poor and has little to no money, and was abused as a child whether it be sexually, mentally, or physically, she has a much larger chance of ending up in prostitution than a wealthy girl who has everything she wants or needs. In a lot of countries, including out own, a lot of the high-up wealthy people looks down on the poor. They see them as doing nothing with their lives and the wealthy accept prostitution more for the poor than they do themselves.

Decriminalization and legalization differ. The way that they differ is that decriminalization says that it’s not totally criminal act to have sex for money, clothes, food, or housing but in a way its not the right thing to do either. Legalization is saying that it’s okay for young girls to go out and have forced sex with men to live. Farley is opposed to this because a girl should never be forced to have sex for money, clothes, food, or shelter. She should never have sex unless she to wants it. I agree with her on this position because young girls and women should have options. They need to know that they are worth something and they they aren’t a nobody and they can do something amazing with their lives. By LAURA

Blog discussion 4 Prostitution

This blog discussion is based on chapter 31 of the book Seeing Ourselves, the article PROSTITUTION: A WORLDWIDE BUSINESS OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION by MELISSA FARLEY.
Answer and discuss the following questions:

Many people believe that prostitution is a free choice. Farley argues that this belief is false. Why? What is your view of this issue? How does prostitution reflect the intersection of race, sex and class oppression? In terms of the legal and status of prostitution, how do decriminalization and legalization differ? Why is Farley opposed to both? Do you agree or disagree with her position?

The students who are assigned to answer these questions are asked to do an original posts and comment on the posts of another student. Other students may comment on these posts. The instructions for these discussions are found on the class Moodle site.