Sociologist View Prostitution as a Victimless Crime — Tell That to the Victims
“Sociologists use the term victimless crime to refer to crimes such as prostitution…that involve an exchange among willing participants [6, 133].” Is this a poor choice of words or is this how sociologists really view prostitution? The book goes on to say that all other crimes involve at least one party who is victimized [6, 133]. Perhaps they are referring to the parties who benefit most often from the exchange, the pimp and the client, when suggesting that prostitution does not have a party who is a victim. However, I believe that the phrasing unfortunately reflects what our society believes about prostitutes. Society, as a whole, believes that prostitutes all choose their profession and are in it for the money. They fail to recognize that most prostitutes are trafficking victims. Part of the reason for this is the way prostitution is treated in our media and our legal system.
It’s difficult to find a true depiction of the life of a prostitute in American media where prostitution is often glamorized by movies and television shows. One example is The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a comedy musical starring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds. Parton’s character, who is well respected, runs a brothel in a Texas town where she has a good relationship with the sheriff played by Burt Reynolds. Those who want to put an end to her business are villainized. Additionally, the movie Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts as a prostitute and Richard Gere as a customer was billed as a romantic comedy. Neither movie tells the truth about the victimization of young women in the prostitution industry. Both movies failed to mention venereal diseases, aids or the drugs needed by most prostitutes to get through the days and nights.
Before I and my fellow Christians become too pious and think that only Hollywood is ignorant of the truth and lack concern for the well-being of these women, I have a confession. Many years ago, shortly after my family began attending a local church, the pastor stood before the congregation and confessed to having lied to the church about an incident that occurred where his car and wallet had been stolen when he had been knocked unconscious by a prostitute that he had hired. When the truth came out to the congregation nearly a year later, like many of the congregation, my attention was focused on the church and the good of the church and the pastor. I was appalled that he had lied to the people of the church, but it never occurred to me to give more than a fleeting thought to the young woman prostitute. I didn’t think about who she might have been, why she was doing this or where she would be in the next few years.
Have you ever heard the story of Rahab? In Joshua in the Old Testament, we read the story of how the Israelites with God’s help were able to conquer the city of Jericho. Tucked into the first few chapters of this book is the story of Rahab, a prostitute. Rahab is credited for saving the lives of two spies and in return the spies saved the lives of her and her family when the city was overtaken by the Israelites [7]. Have you ever wondered how Rahab became a prostitute and what her life must have been like? There isn’t much information about who Rahab was or how she came to be a prostitute. In the culture in which she lived being a prostitute would not have had the same taboo as it does in our culture, but this doesn’t change the humiliation and dangers that come with the lifestyle.
Rahab’s age is not given in the Bible, but we do know that she was a business woman so we can guess that she was somewhat mature. By today’s standards in the United States, Rahab would have become a prostitute between the ages of 11 and 14 years of age. She could have been much younger like the children, who were according to the FBI, rescued on October 18, 2017, the youngest being a 5-year-old child and a 3-month-old baby. If she was 50 years of age, she would have outlived her fellow prostitutes by about 30 years, most who would have died by the age of 21.
If she had lived in present day United States, Rahab would most likely not have chosen her lifestyle but would have been a victim of trafficking. She would be among the 50,000 women and children trafficked each year throughout the United States for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation, which comes in various forms including prostitution [4].
Because Rahab was able to convince her family to come to her home during the invasion, her relationship with them would probably break the norm of today’s prostitutes where the father is often absent either physically or emotionally and mothers are often too overwhelmed by life to be available to their children, emotionally. If we can believe the US Department of Justice statistics, she would have been among 50% of trafficking victims who are controlled by a pimp. However, it is more likely according to information obtained from conversations with women prostitutes, she would have been a part of 90% of them who are pimp controlled [5].
Long before she reached the age of 50, she would have been raped about 6,000 times. It is not surprising then that her life expectancy would have been only seven years after entering sex traffic, meaning she would have been dead by the age of 21. She would have had a 1/100 odds of being rescued from trafficking.
She would have been arrested multiple times, but the paying party or her pimp would not have been. Current headline stories involving high profile traffickers show the disparity between punishment of the prostitute and her customer when they are arrested. When billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in 2019 for sex trafficking, many were disgustingly surprised to find that he had already been arrested in 2007 for raping young girls. His sentence was a mere 13 months in a county jail because of a deal he signed with the US attorney. When he was arrested in 2019 he was accused of running a sexual pyramid scheme. 80 women were identified, but the numbers are most likely much higher. His associate Courtney Wild was paid to recruit girls for him and she said that to him, it was never enough [2].
In early 2019, when Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriot’s football team was arrested for soliciting a prostitute in a massage facility, the prostitute’s business was immediately shut down and she lost her passport, as it should have been. However, Robert Kraft remains free and has denied any wrong doing despite being video-taped. It remains to be seen if he will receive punishment equivalent to what the prostitute receives.
Unlike most current day prostitutes, Rahab’s story has a happy ending. She was justified by faith in God and lived out the rest of her life with the Israelites. Perhaps Rabab’s story shows up in Joshua to give hope to others. God could have chosen any number of ways to save the spies. Why did God think it was so important to put this story in the Bible? Perhaps Rahab had spent the 40 years after the Israelites left Egypt, beseeching God to save her life? God in his grand and glorious way rescued her and gave her a piece in the history of the world.
Whether Rahab was forced into prostitution or chose it to supplement the income from her other businesses, like all of us she was a sinner in need of salvation. Liz Curtis Higgs refers to Rabab as one of the bad girls in her book “Bad Girls in the Bible” [3]. But she reassures anyone who might be or was involved in prostitution that these verses are for them too. “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so, we know and rely on the love God has for us” (John 1:4:15–16).
I wonder sometimes what happened to the woman prostitute that the pastor of our church hired. Odds are good she is no longer alive. How could things have been different if as a Christian the pastor had confessed his sin to the congregation, and we sought her out to get her the help she needed to change her situation? What if we understood that she was most likely a trafficking victim? Christians need to become educated, first in understanding that prostitution is not always a choice. Then we need to understand how to recognize the signs of a traffic victim. Finally, we need to be willing to step up and get them to organizations like North Star Initiative (www.northstarinitiative.org) which has been created to help trafficking victims.
We can become educate by reading books by women who have been trafficked. These women may not fit the profile that you have in your mind. Trafficking victims can be anyone we know. These victims can be your neighbor, friend, class mate, cousin or your own daughter. Both Theresa Flores [4] and Katariina Roselblatt [8] were living in their own homes while being trafficked with their parents being unaware of what was going on.
There is some hope that we are starting to see an awareness in the United States of the victimization of prostitutes. Despite Epstein’s suicide in prison, the investigation continues, bringing hope that trafficking will be brought out into the open and sociologists and society will no longer see prostitution as a victimless crime. Maybe if those who witness miserable, malnourished young women leaving a business, as Goodfella’s Pizza owner admitted following the arrest of Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft, speak up, sociologists and the rest of us will recognize that prostitution is not a victimless crime [1].
References:
[1]Ax, Joseph. “Patriots Owner Robert Kraft Charged in Florida Prostitution Sting.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 23 Feb. 2019, www.reuters.com/article/us-people-robertkraft-charge/patriots-owner-robert-kraft-charged-in-florida-prostitution-sting-idUSKCN1QB21V.
[2]Coaston, Jane, et al. “Jeffrey Epstein, the Convicted Sex Offender Who Was Friends with Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 4 Sept. 2019, www.vox.com/2018/12/3/18116351/jeffrey-epstein-case-indictment-arrested-trump-clinton.
[3]Curtis Higgs, Liz. “Bad Girls of the Bible: Rahab.” Liz Curtis Higgs, 20 Oct. 2013, www.lizcurtishiggs.com/bad-girls-of-the-bible-rahab/.
[4]Flores, Theresa L., and PeggySue Wells. The Slave across the Street: the True Story of How an American Teen Survived the World of Human Trafficking. Ampelon Pub., 2010.
[5]Grough, Mark, and Toby Goldbach. “Relationship Between Pimps and Prostitutes.” Relationship Between Pimps and Prostitutes, 2010, courses2.cit.cornell.edu/sociallaw/student_projects/PimpsandProstitutes.htm.
[6]Grunlan, Stephen A., and Milton Reimer. Christian Perspectives on Sociology. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001.
[7]NIV Thinline Reference Bible. Zondervan, 2011.
[8]Rosenblatt, Katariina, and Cecil Murphey. Stolen: The True Story of a Sex Trafficking Survivor. Revell, 2014.
