Akshat Meharia, week 10

The difference between voluntary and forced prostitution has highly influenced the abolitionist model of prostitution in international discourse. This difference which earlier was not clear was subverted by the governments in such a way that it had become a new explanation for denying sex workers their human rights. The attempts to deal with prostitution were heavily influenced by the nineteenth century feminist activism. Feminists in the repeal movement were indecisive in their attitude towards prostitutes. Under the Contagious Disease Act in Britain, any woman who was identified as a common prostitute was forced to undergo internal examination and was kept in specially designated hospital wards. The feminists realized that these Acts actually posed a threat to the civil liberties of all women since any woman could be identified and detained on the word of a police officer and forced to submit an internal examination. After the successful repeal of the Act, the focus shifted towards the ‘white slave trade’. This distinction between forced and voluntary prostitution came as a response to all those feminists who saw prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation. Even though the distinction has been implicitly recognized, they are rarely as vocal about promoting prostitutes rights largely because of two factors. Firstly, there is no implied agreement on how to define voluntary prostitution and secondly the focus being more inclined towards eliminating forced prostitution than supporting the right to self-determination. The dichotomy creates a more frightening division between sex workers where the Madonna is the forced prostitute who is a victim of trafficking ad is exonerated from sexual wrong doing and the whore who is the voluntary prostitute and deserves whatever she gets. Claiming prostitution to be a choice is a major step and it is time to reconsider the usefulness of choice versus force as the model of sex workers’ experience.