The Expansion Of Prostitution In Europe

1758 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Relationship betwwen industrial revolution and urbanisation

Sexual commerce has existed for millennia and crosses all cultures. In the modern period, the Industrial Revolution enabled the spread of prostitution as no other period had. Historians debate as to whether prostitution increased to a significant degree during this period, their dispute being the unreliability of many statistical sources. However, regardless of the varying and unreliable data, historians do agree that two facts make the expansion of prostitution a likely possibility: industrialization and urbanization. These two major factors led to changes in society during the 18th and 19th centuries throughout Europe that caused additional problems which inevitably led to many women turning to prostitution. Industrialization had many positive effects on society in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. The creation of new technology and factories provided several new job opportunities along with new machinery that increased production and gave people the capability to transport raw materials. For women, the Industrial Revolution throughout Europe lead to many leaving their private sphere of society and joining others in the need to work in order to support their families. In a domestic view, Industrialization affected women most profoundly through the separation of work and home. It also clashed with their perceived roles as society dictates that men should be the one to collect the family income and are defined by the work they do whilst women should stay at home and carry out the work there. This gives us a clear idea of how women were bring defined by their familial status as single or married, daughter or mother and not by their job outside of home if they chose to have one. For women in a less fortunate positio... ... middle of paper ... ...nd 1860, with its main factors being Industrialization and Urbanization. Yet these causes also brought about additional reasons as to why so many women turned to prostitution. With a huge increase in population, urban poverty, and desperation increased the demand for prostitutes and the amount of women willing to degrade themselves for money. The continuing problem was that prostitution was still legal throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century and not suppressed but permitted as a tolerated profession due to a double standards in society. Also the on-going theme throughout is that women would turn to prostitution when in dire need of money. The economy throughout Europe was unstable at times and poverty among the lower classes was common. Extreme poverty generated survival crimes such as prostitution to enable women to earn money in order to keep them alive.

Show More
Related

  • Ap Euro Dbq Industrial Revolution

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    The industrial revolution had mainly negative effects. The industrial revolution was a time in world history that has technically never ended. It is the time when society started to mass produce goods in order to provide enough goods for the booming population. People started to move from villages to cities where factories were looking for workers. New medical advances were made and people began to live longer. While some might argue that industrialization had primarily positive consequences for society because of the increased amount of new and cheaper products, it was actually a negative thing for society. Industrialization’s negative effects were the dangerous and sometimes lethal work areas, poor living conditions and cramped housing,

    Read More

  • History Of Prostitution In America

    1028 Words  | 3 Pages

    the needs of the newcomers. The sex trade continued to expand as the traffickers and sailors replacing some, if not all, of the family men. Female indentured servants, if they chose not to marry after servant-hood, found sex work lucrative. Protest from clergy and the religious voice of colonies prospered at getting whorehouses outlawed in 1672. One Because women could no longer work out of the "shops", so many took t...

    Read More

  • Prostitution During the Eighteenth Century

    1664 Words  | 4 Pages

    During the late eighteenth century, particularly 1770s through 1790s, the common woman of London, England had a primacy through life because of the growing center of prostitution. Women, specifically single women, were considered to be destined for prostitution because of the absence of a male role model. However, some women found great success in this lifestyle because of the beneficial assets garnered within their interactions with their clients. As to the courts, benefiting some of these assets were due to involuntary judgments which lead to women imprisonment. Women who worked as prostitutes were compared to materialistic property used for pleasurable encounters. Often in London, these women were categorized in three different demeanors according to some of the case trials brought against them. The major characteristic was focused on the means of survival. Women struggled to survive in London because of the male dominancy overruling their judgment of their own behaviors and beliefs. Another demeanor of prostitutes was identify with theft and abuse of taking what should have been rightfully owed to them for their services. Lastly, the behavior of organized crime was in favor of prostitutes; for what they did against their clients was only to gain recognition and praise from their brothel-keeper. There was a concerned discourse about the city on whether the act of prostitution was right or wrong. London usually showed a humane attitude towards prostitutes and maintained justice for the women who choose this profession.

    Read More

  • Social Classes, Prostitution and Jack the Ripper in the 19th Century England

    1213 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the 19th century prostitution became one of the most common ways of earning money because of the economical and industrial changes, which raised tensions between classes and became a major concern of the Victorian Era.

    Read More

  • Prostitution In The American West

    941 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many women became prostitutes as a result of their skills no longer being needed, and they needed a way to provide for themselves. So, women found one aspect of themselves that society told them they could sell. Unfortunately, prostitution was a bleak affair. Occasionally, a woman got lucky and bought her way out of the profession, but she was the exception. Most lived and died in poverty. Furthermore, because of the destructive nature of the profession, most prostitutes grew to be disheartened and disillusioned, many even diseased. Prostitutes were socially ostracized, victims of the gender roles that were placed upon them. Women who lived the life of a prostitute often faced harsh realities, far from the promised lure and attraction of the American

    Read More

  • Discuss The Negative Effects Of Industrialization In America

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    Industrialization was the result of lots of new machines and inventions happening in America. It happened in the 18 and 19 hundreds and caused cities to grow and immigrants to come. Some of the leaders of this time were George Eastman and John Rockefeller. Industrialization had a negative impact on U.S. society because it led to poor working conditions, child labor, and bad tenement conditions.

    Read More

  • 19th Century Prostitution

    2272 Words  | 5 Pages

    The overwhelming reason for 19th century prostitution can be attributed to the need of survival. There are few people who would argue that jobs for women were scarce in whatever part of the country in the 1800’s. Was it superior to penalize the women who prostituted themselves or offer them ways in which they could “better” themselves? Jail time, fines, social reform was all ways society judged the working women.

    Read More

  • The Conflict of Prostitution

    1085 Words  | 3 Pages

    Barry, Kathleen. "Prostitution." Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History. 480-482. US: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1998. History Reference Center. Web. 21 Oct. 2013

    Read More

  • Factors Determining Entry into the Prostitution Lifestyle

    865 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is called the oldest profession in the world, and employs approximately one to two million people in the United States alone. Prostitution is defined as the practice or occupation of engaging in sexual activity with someone for payment. This payment could be money, drugs, and in some cases mercy. The lifestyle of a prostitute can be extremely dangerous and damaging, consisting of being raped, robbed, beaten, threatened, materialized, pimped, and the list goes on. Add to the situation a sexually transmitted disease, drug addiction, and unplanned pregnancy for a mixture of devastation and total depravity. Countless men, women, and children are forced into prostitution through sex slavery, but others choose this life on their own. What would cause someone to pursue this kind of lifestyle? Women deliberately enter the streets of prostitution due to childhood sexual abuse, out of economic necessity, and in order to sustain a previous drug addiction.

    Read More

  • Pro Legalization of Prostitution

    1146 Words  | 3 Pages

    “social evil” and refused to accept it in their society. Prostitution was tolerated in a

    Read More

  • Prostitution In Ancient Greece

    753 Words  | 2 Pages

    The outright condemnation of prostitution came in the 16th century with the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. With these new reforms a new moral compass began to point at prostitution and the wickedness of women, and society began to panic. This new morality was then used to restrict the autonomy of women. The attempts to stop prostitution or regulate prostitution has basically punished the working class and poor women, for behavior that would be innocent when engaged in by others (Ditmore 2006 pg.xxvii). Meanwhile in America in 1721 the French sent sex workers from prisons to the Louisiana territories in hopes that they would marry the 700 French men settled. These women upon arriving in the colonies realized the sex trade provided them with more independence than any arranged marriage could (Grant 2013 pg.3). As we moved into the 20th century, social reforms started to kick in and these new social reformers took up the cause of ending prostitution reframing it as a social disease. With the efforts of prohibition and abolition this social disease could be cured. This is when anti prostitution policing and social campaigns were stepped up (Grant

    Read More

  • Prostitution

    1961 Words  | 4 Pages

    The concept of prostitution is one that causes a visceral revulsion in conventional Western morality -- a symptom of which is how the many colloquial terms for a prostitute, such as 'whore', or 'harlot', are commonly used as denigratory pejoratives towards women. Although a persistent phenomenon throughout human history , it remains difficult to view prostitution in an objective light -- various cultures have alternately tried to ban it on religious or moralistic grounds, or stigmatise it under a "don't-ask-don't-tell" sort of veneer which was a barely-tolerated but necessary evil of society. It is interesting to note that despite an increasingly secularised attitude towards sexual relationships, as seen in society's increasing tolerance of homosexuality or pre-marital sex, prostitution retains much of its social stigma. Faced with the strong reactions which the concept of prostitution tends to elicit in common moral viewpoints, any discussion of the topic must be prepared to look beneath these reflexive attitudes, examine the motivations and justifications for such attitudes, and, hopefully, come to a more informed judgment on the morality of prostitution, or lack thereof that is not founded in mere blind adherence to dogmatic social norms.

    Read More

  • Decriminalization Of Prostitution

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since the beginning of time prostitution has been an ongoing controversial debate. Prostitution has been practiced throughout ancient and modern culture has been described as "the world's oldest profession” and despite consistent attempts at regulation, it continues nearly unchanged. Prostitution is the act or practice of engaging in promiscuous sexual relations for money. It occurs across cultures and political systems, even operating in socialist societies. The exploitation of engaging in sexual relations for money is considered to be a serious global issue in most countries around the world. There are many debates on why one of the world's oldest professions should be decriminalized, but prostitution should not be legalized because it is

    Read More

  • Male Sex Workers

    928 Words  | 2 Pages

    Why is prostitution a criminal and degrading activity among the eyes of society? Is it the labels and stigma attached to this profession and its association with drugs, disease, violence, and pimps that make it deviant. Moreover, its demeaning behavior furthers its disapproval due to the issue that it furnishes the possibility of spreading sexually transmitted diseases in a community. This in turn affects society with financial matters in the healthcare industry.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Prostitution

    3096 Words  | 7 Pages

    Although prostitution is illegal in the United States, it is a commonly known criminal activity. Prostitution is not something that is talked about often due to the fact that it is not the norm which makes it a moral issue as well as a legal one. Selling sex for money was not outlawed in the United States until well into the 20th century (with the exception of Nevada). There are large economic markets for things such as pornography and prostitution. Prostitution is a multimillion dollar industry, and it occurs all over the world. Prostitution is mainly a female dominated market. Prostitution is a rough subject to study because it is so stigmatized and has had such a bad reputation for so long. People have varying attitudes on prostitution because many see it as sinful or even abnormal. For centuries, the United States has attempted to suppress sexual deviation. Prostitution, brothels, etc were seen as sinful things that tear a man away from his family. The moral blames (drinking, sex, etc) were placed on criminals in the beginning. Women who are involved in such an industry are stigmatized and especially they are exploited in a variety of different ways. Solov’ev (2014) surveyed attitudes about prostitution using social networks and found that thirty four percent of the respondents had a negative attitude toward prostitution, but indicated that they understood that life can sometimes push someone into the industry. Women in the sex industry are abused and drug association is commonplace among prostitutes. The sex industry breeds violent behavior and victimization of women and men (Dalla, Xia, & Kennedy, 2014).

    Read More

More about The Expansion Of Prostitution In Europe

Open Document