Talk:Prostitution/Archive 2

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Oldest profession

What proof supports the phrase that prostitution is the world oldest profession? [[User:Nichalp|¶ nichalp | Talk]] 19:04, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

It's simply an old saying, not an actual statement of fact. I've clarified. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 19:10, 2004 Jul 26 (UTC)

It's likely a very old profession, anyway... Probably much older than the written sources referring to it...

Bah. Does every elegant metaphor have to be crudely spelled out? The first prostitute was Cavewoman Jane who said to Caveman John, "I'll sleep with you if I can have some of that mastodon meat." Or, in the vernacular of the day, "ug ug, ug ug ug ug, ug ug, ug." The first "trade" was overwhelmingly likely to have been the first woman of our species, trading her sexual favors for protection and amicable relations with the first man of our species. Why anyone should think money was involved is beyond me; silly thought! Since when does money have to change hands for something to be a profession? -Kasreyn

But in that case should we characterise the relationship between Caveman John and Cavewoman Jane as prostitution or marriage? Part of the problem here is exactly how you define prostitution.

PatGallacher 16:41, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

I believe prostitution came first, and the first marriages were simply formalized prostitution. Look at the "bride price" and "dowry" and other such holdovers; fathers essentially sold their daughter's vaginas to the highest bidder. Fathers were the first pimps in history. As for definitions, I define prostitution as trading sexual favors for anything else of value, including shelter, food, protection, even companionship or love. The only true loving relationship is one where love is traded for love; if sex is traded for love or good relations, I consider the relationship to be emotional prostitution. Since few marriages, in my observation, exemplify "love for love" trades, and are usually an example of two people bartering various behaviors and goods, I consider most marriages to be de facto prostitution, so I have no problem with calling my scenario of the "first marriage", prostitution. -Kasreyn

Drugs, disease and prostiution

Controversial text removed from article:

A significant number of prostitutes in some areas have resorted to prostitution to feed their drug addiction: they will generally not only have poor health from their drug dependency, but will be more desperate, and more willing to perform sex acts without safer sex precautions. If they use injected drugs, they may also carry blood-borne diseases transmitted by the sharing of needles.

• Here's a (non-govermental, non-NIMBY) cite in support of some of this: http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/peddr0031.htm
• For a view on the other side, see http://www.bayswan.org/notes.html

-- The Anome 23:30, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Prostitution is termed as the "oldest institution in the world" because God created women for men to enable them cohabitate so as to produce children to populate the empty lands. Such act was not meant for making money, but for producing children. Human beings brought monetary gains to it later. The same reason God sanctions polygamy to populate the world.

Firstly that's the wrong section to say that in, secondly this is not a religious encyclopedia, but a scientific ("neutral", hence NPOV) one.

You're going by the assumption that a deity created human males and then created human females (technically it works the other way, btw: males are mostly derived from females, hence the useless nipples) and that there was a certain implication behind that creation.

Scientifically the reason we have two sexes is a practical one (two sexes is the optimal compromise between survival and evolution, allowing us not only to replicate, but also to improve genetically -- with the odd mutation to ensure actual change) and non-procreative sex was "invented" for simple reasons:

1. sex is a fun thing to do (had to be, because procreation won't happen if both partners hate the act)
2. procreative sex results in children, which need to be taken care of because it'd make (most) humans feel bad not to
3. taking care of children just because you like sex is troublesome

Thus non-procreative sex came into being (even if it's as simple as "pulling out" or using other forms of sex than vaginal intercourse) and became an easier choice as bribe (more among women, I guess -- at least in the Western World) -- nevermind the moral dilemma inherent from the idea of sex being a means of procreation (and thus not an activity to performed with strangers).

I personally think that any evolution/mutation resulting in favor towards non-procreative sex is nature's way to regulate the population. Note that I don't believe in ID, although one could say I believe our design is inherently intelligent because evolution is really just a natural equivalent of trial and error, which is considered an "intelligent" approach to a problem, but I digress...

Oh, wait, I'm feeding the troll, ain't I? -- Ashmodai 12:28, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Yessir, you are. Incidentally, I checked your user page to see if you were in fact a sir and not a mam, so as not to offend, and saw that your interests include Fallout. You've good taste, I must say.--Lord Shitzu 07:51, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

The word "hooker"

where did the word hooker come from? the word doesn't even appear in the article. - 70.18.38.122 22:40, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The just-so story is that this comes from the camp followers of General Joseph Hooker. However, according to that article: "There is no basis for the popular legend that the slang term for prostitutes came from his last name due to a certain lack of military discipline at his headquarters. The term 'hooker' was used in print as early as 1845, many years before Hooker was a public figure." -- The Anome 11:16, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I believe it is well established that it comes from Croeland's Hook, or something like that, a red light district in Manhattan.

PatGallacher 16:41, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

During the revolutionary war, no less, if I remember correctly. Does anyone object to my removing the allegation re: Joe Hooker? It's a myth that's been sufficiently exploded that it really doesn't deserve mention on wikipedia. -Kasreyn 08:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll take that silence to mean that it's ok to proceed. I am removing the reference to Gen. Hooker. Wikipedia should not be propagating myths. -Kasreyn 10:52, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Change of plans. I've left the reference to Hooker in order to point out that it was a myth. I'm worried that blanking the reference altogether will lead some well-intentioned but ill-informed editor to restore it. -Kasreyn 10:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

See also http://tafkac.org/language/etymology/hooker/hooker_tindall.html and http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hooker The New Oxford Dictionary of English does not give an etymology: has anyone got an OED? -- The Anome 11:23, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My assumption always was that it's based on the slang phrase of "hooking up" with someone, but I don't know how old that one is. -- Ashmodai 12:33, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I had heard somewhere that a possible origin was in the Red Hook neighborhood in New York. But that could be folk etymology, I don't recall the source. The OED doesn't seem to shed any light on this but I have a number of slang dictionaries laying around here, I'll look into it when I get time. Airosche 19:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Animal kingdom

In the section 'In the animal kingdom' : The author finds no possible motivation for unattached male penguins to have sex with females aside from pleasure. Perhaps we haven't heard of Charles Darwin's work yet? With a bit of Googleing I see that this silliness was lifted from this fluff piece: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/60302.stm

I read somewhere that the female penguins sometimes ran off with the stones, without giving the male penguins "services" beforehand..

---

This kind of information belongs under animal behaviour, not under prostitution, especially with the moral/legal aspects surrounding it. The interesting part is that this behaviour was observed, not that it happens. The way the section is written seems to imply surprise that this happens in animals, like it's bad or inherently wrong. Regardless, most of the information in that section is incorrect or extremely misleading anyway. Whoever wrote that section should read the actual paper.

The researchers proposed several explanations for the behaviour which aren't mentionned here. To say this is prostitution with the amount of information left out is like saying that anyone who leaves a marriage with more money than they had originally is a prostitute.

In any event, the penguin situation doesn't fit the definition of prostitution set out in the article, specifically, the "sale of sexual services...with many persons".

• Penguins aren't persons.
• Is the male penguin entering into a sales contract with the knowledge that he will be required to exchange a material item?
• Was the same female consistently doing this?
• Was it clear in the male penguin's mind that no partnership will be formed after the fact?

Additionally, "In a more general sense of the word, anyone selling their services for a cause thought to be unworthy can be described as prostituting themselves."

• Do penguins consider reproduction unworthy?

The penguins engage in sex and the female takes a stone (something of no value to the male) and then leaves. In the human world, this would be like having a date (who spent the night) leave after you've cooked them breakfast or with your sweater. That hardly makes them a prostitute.

See paper here: [1] --jag123 06:23, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Penguins aren't persons" -- speciecist. Just because we tend to use the term "person" instead of, say, "individual", for speciecentric reasons doesn't mean concepts can't be applied to other creatures. I don't blame you, but you're not really making much of a point with that statement.

"Is the male penguin entering into a sales contract with the knowledge that he will be required to exchange a material item?" -- are you a telepath? Unless you are or you develop means to ask the penguin, that's really not a question either of us can answer, so you're not really disproving anything.

"Was it clear in the male penguin's mind that no partnership will be formed after the fact?" -- sometimes I wonder that about humans too. See above for the mind reading problem. Also who says other creatures don't do sex for fun too? Sex has to have simple benefits (e.g. fun) for any creature to engage in it. We also don't know whether the penguin actually knows that sex results in new life (although we have no reason to doubt that that thought occurs to Average Penguin Joe at some point before he engages in sex for the first time).

"Do penguins consider reproduction unworthy?" -- if the female penguind does it for the rocks rather than impregnation, the cause is getting rocks, not reproducing. Since we're using the original meaning (the cause being getting money, which is then (POV) generalised to mean "something unworthy"), we're only talking about exchanging sex for something of worth (unless you want to make up words to describe prostitution prior to the invention of abstracted worth in the form of currency). To the female penguin the rocks are of worth (even though it's questionable whether this is the actual motivation, considering she only takes a few), so it's exactly that.

This is rather the equivalent of promising someone a breakfast in order to make them have sex with you. If you consider that a normal date, I'm worried (although I'd consider that your problem).

Now, I'm not saying there are actually penguin girls out there wiggling their feathers at engaged males to get rocks for their nests, but you're not exactly providing good points to counter this thesis, especially considering how most of the issues you present only counter anything if you go by the hypothesis that humans are the only creatures capable of deductive thought.

-- Ashmodai 13:07, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

About the Thai stuff

Do we really need to know, in the context of this article, what exactly goes on in some bars in Thailand? Looks to me like it gets disproportional attention here. Someone enjoyed his vacation travels, I guess...

Yes, I think this needs fixing too. It sounds a little like original research to me. I suggest some sources are cited if we're going to keep any of this. But it needs trimming down; maybe it can be summarised and moved to a sub-article? — Matt 00:55, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The section about Street Prostitution also feels as if it is either original research or an unfortunately POV warning about the dangers of selling one's body on the street. With all of the books & in-depth sociological research available, I would think someone could quickly rewrite this with numerous citations to both investigative news articles & peer-reviewed sources, & convey much of the same material. -- llywrch 05:14, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The current version kind of seemed like an impassioned defense. Much of it was POV, and what was included was a function of perspective. Comments like some lawyers are drug users are irrelevant, and clearly have an agenda. More editing of this section is needed. In fact, I recommend it be merged in. Superm401 00:06, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Psychological impact on prostitutes

I believe that this article should not ignore research and/or debates on prostitution's psychological effects on prostitutes. For some prostitutes, work is degrading and soul-numbing, yet for others, (a minority) it is probably a delightful way to express their sexuality and to get paid at the same time. These are important issues -- we need to look at how the prostitutes themselves are affected by this trade.Zantastik 23:43, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Degrading" and "soul-numbing", huh? You just described my wage-slave job in a factory to a T. Does that make me a whore?  ;) Fortunately, there aren't a bunch of misty-eyed weirdos waving ancient books around and criminalizing me and my profession. Lucky me! -Kasreyn

Yes. Yes, it does make you a whore. But aren't we all?

Anyway. Unless you are forced into prostitution (with the other option being exposure to violence and/or death), which is what happens with illegal immigrants in various countries (might be more common where prostitution is not subject of legal regulations, or where it is illegal (and thus uncontrolled where it occurs) in the first place), you have no reason to choose prostitution over any other (possibly mundane) trade.

If you work as a prostitute out of choice and hate your job, that's not exactly something worth of anyone's pitty. Unless you happen to live in a country where there is no other occupation than prostitution (which would be a very weird country whose economy is entirely based on prostitution and thus would have to have "sex" the universal currency -- which, apart from being unrealistic, would result in an interesting average workday), there really isn't a reason you have to work as a prostitute. If prostitution is against your values and beliefs, and you choose to work as a prostitute, your values and beliefs really don't seem to be worth a lot.

Welcome to the Real World. Most people consider their job degrading and soul-numbing. That you chose the job you chose simply means you find it to have a better "degradingness/soul-numbingness vs. benefits" ratio, so if you like the other jobs you could have chosen worse, that means you find your current job better. Wait until something better comes along or work towards a better qualification for a job you'd prefer over your current one.

If you don't hate your job enough to quit it (given you have the ability to do so), you don't hate it much more than other people hate theirs.

Suckiness (no pun intended) of jobs really isn't worth mentioning in articles about professions. ::Or do you think every trashman (or would that be "trashperson"? That sounds kinda awfully more degrading to me) is particularily proud and happy about their job choice? I'd demand the note about people hating their particular profession being added to every profession article then, especially for the ones about programmers and other white collar peon jobs. -- Ashmodai 13:30, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Removed POV Paragraph

I removed the following paragraph because I felt it to be way too POV:

Non-commercial prostitution in mainstream circles of society

This is one of the many dark corners of almost every capitalistic society. Sexual favors are exchanged in respectable circles of the society, in a very sectretive way, for various kinds of non-monetary advantages. The most notable are the film industries, where beginning actresses offer free sexual services to film directors to get acting contracts, and enter into the business. Likewise, military officials offer their wives to their seniors, who are in control of granting or delaying promotion, in order to climb up the militiary ladder quickly.

— Ливай | ☺ 01:54, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I hesitate to revive this subject but trading sexual favours for non-monetary favours are very commonly heard of. Methods include:

• "Sexual bribery": Offering sexual favours instead of money or other things material for illicit gains. This is to circumvent loopholes in anti-corruption laws that prohibit just dealing of property for favours.
• Exploiting the enemy's sexual prurience as a weakness. Xi Shi and Diao Chan are known to be devices for this.
• Offering free sexual services to superiors who are in control of one's own or someone else's career ladder. Note: to be distinguished from quid-pro-quo sexual harassment.

Imperial China is replete with occurrences of this kind of manoeuver, known as 美人計/美人计 ("trickery with beauty"). Note that for them to work they must be wielded in a partiarchal social background. Mission9801 08:18, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

How common is prostitution?

Given the Colorado Springs data, we should probably be able to estimate the number of "have-ever-been" female prostitutes in the age range 18-59, so we can provide a more realistic comparison with the male figute of 16% "have-ever-been" 18-59 year old prostitutes' clients. Guessing wildly, something like: 0.023% of women are prostitutes at any time, assume steady-state and (from data) 5 year career and 59-18 = 41 years, so a woman who is a prostitute for 5 years in that period is effectively "5/41 of a full-time prostitute" over the entire period. Therefore, the female "has ever been" prostitution figure jumps to 41/5 * 0.023% = 0.19%. Comparing this with the male "has-ever-been" figure of 16% gives a more believable [?] 84:1 ratio between "have-ever-been" classes of clients and prostitutes. Or are my back-of-an-envelope estimates nonsense? -- Karada 15:32, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think you heavily underestimate the percentage of women who have ever worked as a prostitute. The National Task Force on Prostitution even suggests one percent of the American women has worked as a prostitute once in her lifetime.(stats on www.bayswan.org) If I take for instance the Netherlands, there are an estimated 25.000 prostitutes in the Netherlands (based on research in 1999, van Mens and van der Helm, source). App. 32% of them is Dutch (based on research in 2002 from Van Dijk, source). That should mean there are 0,32*25000=8000 Dutch prostitutes in the Netherlands. The Netherlands has a total population of app. 16 million people and half of them is female. That means 0.1% of the Dutch women is a prostitute. If it's true the average career of a prostitute is 5 years, that would mean that 20%(1/5) of those prostitutes has to be replaced every year by new prostitutes. The average lifespan of a woman is 80 years, so 80 years multiplied by 8000*0,20 new prostitutes per year would mean 12800 Dutch women will be or has been a prostitute. 12800(have been/will-be prostitutes)/8000000(number of Dutch women)=1.6% of the female population who has been or will be a prostitute. But.... you want to know how many women have been prostitutes and not how many will be. The average age of a Dutch prostitute is app. 30 years.(source,in Dutch). Let's say, remove those 30 years from the rest of the 80 years a woman lives on average. Then you'll get 1.6% multiplied by (80-30)/80=1 percent!!! Isn't that great!!! And I believe the same thing might be true for the United States. Now, app. 25% of the Dutch men has ever visited a prostitute. That means a more realistic ratio of 25:1 "have-ever-been" ratio between prostitutes and clients, instead of 84:1. I refer to a study which indicates that even many men have ever been paid for sex once in their lifetime(source). Then you'll see a percentage of 1.6 at least!!! And most of them were paid by women!! I don't get it. I believe prostitution is more widespread that most people could ever imagine. (I have to stress though that only (app.) 3 percent of the men in the surveys admitted to ever have visited a prostitute) I have a gut feeling that a more realistic estimate of the "ever-have-been-female-prostitutes" is more like 4 percent of the total female population. But I can't prove it. --Bruno Junqueira 21:59, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Definition and Legality

The article could use a section on definitions of "prostitution," legal or otherwise. For example, the State of Pennsylvania does not consider peep shows where men are allowed to gratify themselves to be "prostitution." There has to be some bodily contact between the client and the putative prostitute. This definition could be contrasted with others.

AFAIK, German law only considers sexual interaction with actual contact to be prostitution (thus excluding strip shows (private or not; regardless of masturbation rules)). Since prostitution is legal and regulated in Germany, there's really nothing interesting to say about it.

However I think the note about advertisement of prostitution is wrong -- I'm pretty sure brothels such as Pascha are running magazine advertisements along with phone sex hotlines, callgirls and callboys, and dating services. While Pascha does, in a way, also function as nightclub it is known to be a brothel and has also been featured in "documentaries" (or to use the buzzword: docutainment) where its function as a brothel has been openly described.

In comparison to the way restricted video games are treated, the advertisement ban (if existant) on prostitution is a very loose one.

Street prostitutes usually don't advertise their services in magazines, but since the red light districts are usually publically known (not always as prominent as the "Red Mile" of Hamburg), their only advertisement needed usually consists of their looks, prices and services.

"Escort services" and callgirls/-boys usually need some form of advertisement to exist (after all the concept behind callgirls/-boys is that you call them via a phone number you need to acquire somehow in order to be able to call them) and although their advertisements follow the same restrictions as other advertisements of adult products or services, they ARE advertised and they ARE usually offering prostitution.

I'd rather remove that note about the ad ban unless someone can find the actual legal text on the issue or the book and paragraph stating it. -- Ashmodai 14:03, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

In Indonesia, where the prostitutes are often called PSK(Pekerja Seks Komersial), the situation is very interesting: The goverment tries to fight the street prostitution, whereas the "Club" variaty is silently tolerated, though Indonesia is the largest Muslim country. Perhaps that comes from the traditional tolerance of the Indonesian people towards gays (banci), transvestors (waria) and prostitutes (pelacur, econ). Compared to other asian countries the indonesian prostitutes contracting expats usually stay with the customer untill ordered to leave on the next day and the payment negotiation is never "per hour" or "per shot". That happens of course if they are treated well andwith respect. Many of them has another job and just add additional money to their income which is combined with the fun they have in the so called "clubs" - safe bars at major 4-5 star hotels and some other lower ranked spots. Those girls are independent operators. Of course they are all the other forms of that "profession" there.

Historical discussion and images?

Kocek with tambourine
Entertainers and sex workers, köçeks were in high demand in the Ottoman empire. They were sought by high and low, including the Sultan.
Photograph, late 19th c.

I would like to populate this article with a couple of historical images (either art or photographs) such as the one I am posting here. What are opinions of present users regarding the whether and how of the thing? Haiduc 22:40, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Urban legend

Italy does not allow prostitutes to work who are called Mary. This is because Mary is the name of Jesus's mother and Italy is home to the Vatican which is sacred to all Christians.

This feels like an urban legend to me. Can someone back it up? --Carnildo 05:24, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't even sound like much of an urban legend, closer to nonsense. Also, I think a lot of people would like to dispute the claim that the vatican is sacred to all christians. Removed. --W(t) 05:32, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

"Some Cultures"

There are several mentions that "some cultures"treat prostitution as X or Y in the history section; this seems rather vague to me (not to mention a bit frustrating for my curious mind: they tickly my interest, yet not able to satisfy it! :-) ). Are there concrete examples? --The Minister of War 14:36, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

The Price of Sex

There should be a section discussing price ranges and the social norm and what constitutes a fair price and are we being ripped off?--220.238.26.54 01:29, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Idiotic religious guys

The editing I did around Oct. 17th 2005 was very good, and included prices and pictures.

THE USER AVERYKROUSE ERASED EVERYTHING. He thinks that belonging to a church gives him the right to exercise censorship

Derschlimme

Nope, he probably thinks that the sections you added need to rephrased heavily to fulfil the NPOV requirement and are partially out-of-scope. Try to rephrase your contributions apropriately or don't revert deletions. Editing an article is not a personal attack on previous editors. Be bold. --Ashmodai 07:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, your additions are highly opinionated, unsourced, have little to no encyclopedia value, and seem to be largely heresay. Cite your sources, and keep it Wikipedia appropriate.--Avery W. Krouse 13:43, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

The pictures were unsourced and not that good. Ericd 08:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Good god, you think that was good editing? I hate to be disrespectful, but it seemed like an ill-conceived ramble with poor grammar and execution. I suppose I wouldn't have minded if Krouse had merely corrected its flaws, but I can't say I'm sorry it's gone, either. I don't see why Wikipedia needs a pricing guide, either. Are we planning to include prices for every other object and service that has an article? I suspect the reason this article got a price list was more for prurient interest. -Kasreyn

worldsexguide

for prices see worldsexguide.org

If you are going to add a link to this site, follow Wiki standards for External links, place it in the category at the bottom of the page like all the rest, and cite it appropriately. I don't personally care to visit that site to verify any of its content, and will therefore not do so myself. --Avery W. Krouse 06:25, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Discussion of the word 'whore'

Another generalization is using the term or an equivalent to mean any form of earning well in an unscrupulous degrading manner, e.g. quote whore, media whore, karma whore, attention whore. The term pimp is also sometimes similarly used figuratively, as in poverty pimp. Among modern day youth, a pimp can mean both a manager of prostitutes or a guy that attracts female attention easily.

Is it just me, or is this entire paragraph not relevant? The article is supposed to be about prostitution, not the myriad uses of the word "whore". The article on the Butterfly does not talk about "social butterflies". I'll remove the paragraph if noone objects... --Bletch 02:09, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

New Picture

I uploaded a better picture for the top of the page than the one before. It's at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/Whore-smaller.gif but I don't know how to position it the same way the other was positioned. Anyone want to post it for me? -Barry- 04:03, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Better? For your pocket only I hope. 'That' belongs in Street prostitution or better still, unexpected tip. Newsmare 23:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I saw that Street Prostitution article, but there are all those problem with it, indicated by those banners on top, and that should really be covered here. My choice of picture is better than the old one because it at least shows a stereotypical prostitute. What you have in mind would only work if you see her accepting money from some old guy on a street corner, or in his car, or if it's a police photo with a reference. -Barry- 23:57, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The new photo is waaaaay over the top, completely unsuitable for an article like this. You're not going to find a hooker like that outside of Vegas. --Kiand 00:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I saw some good prostitute photos on Google of women in tight clothes looking in car windows. The photo you want adds nothing to the article, and who knows if it's even a prostitute. The photographer might just want her work published somewhere. I wouldn't worry as much about the prostitute in my photo whether she signed a release form or not. -Barry- 00:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I have to concur with Newsmare. The original pic of the German prostitute is a higher quality shot (better lighting and focus) and is slightly more representative of prostitutes in general. My concern is that the article should not be seen as glorifying prostitution. Whether you believe prostitutes are evil sinners, victims of male oppression, victims of poverty, or some mix of all three, the vast majority of them definitely do not live a Julia Roberts lifestyle. I'm not saying we should find a picture of the ugliest hooker alive, since that's also not representative. Just try not to use a picture that glorifies what is at best a sordid and unpleasant job. -Kasreyn