Factors Determining Entry into the Prostitution Lifestyle

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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.

Negative childhood experiences can leave a damaging, lasting impact on a person with long term repercussions. According to the psychoanalytic perspective on abnormality from Feldman (2013), childhood conflicts that are unresolved in the unconsciousness result in abnormal behavior in adulthood. Experiencing sexual abuse as a child certainly does not always cause an adult to participate in the prostitution lifestyle, but has been identified as a mutual link amongst street workers. According to Murphy (2010), childhood sexual abuse was a common factor found in the women engaged in prostitution who participated in his study. It seems as though women who experienced this kind of sexual abuse as an adolescent may associate sexual relations with a part of their identity. One theory from Wilso...

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... support their drug addiction.

References

Feldman, R. S. (2013). Psychology and your life (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw/Hill.

Murphy, L. (2010). Understanding the social and economic contexts surrounding women engaged in street-level prostitution. Issues In Mental Health Nursing, 31(12), 775-784. doi:10.3109/01612840.2010.524345

Wilson, H., & Widom, C. (2009). A prospective examination of the path from child abuse and neglect to illicit drug use in middle adulthood: The potential mediating role of four risk factors. Journal Of Youth & Adolescence, 38(3), 340-354. doi:10.1007/s10964-008-9331-6

Wilson, H. W., & Widom, C. (2010). The role of youth problem behaviors in the path from child abuse and neglect to prostitution: A prospective examination. Journal Of Research On Adolescence (Wiley-Blackwell), 20(1), 210-236. doi:10.1111/j.1532-7795.2009.00624.x

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