Prostitution voluntary or forced. A contribution to the debate

Abstract

The abolitionist thesis that no one can freely choose to sell their body has been hallenged by those who advocate the recognition of the employment rights of sex workers. The result has been a fierce argument about the voluntary or forced nature of prostitution. The evidence from in-depth interviews with twenty three women (including five ex-prostitutes) points to them being located at a midway point on the continuum that stretches between prostitution as a result of criminal coercion and prostitution as a career choice. Those parts of the respondents’ stories which relate specifically to the different routes of entry to this world enable us to distinguish three types of prostitution, differing according the degree to which taking up a route is a structurally constrained course of action: classic prostitution, economic, in the strict sense of the concept, and voluntary, although the boundaries between these types cannot be traced precisely. Once more there is evidence of the diversity which characterizes prostitution, a diversity which is also reflected in the different ways in which it is practised: full time or part-time, recurrently or sporadically. In Spain, public intervention policies do not recognize this diversity and take for granted a stereotype of the prostitute as a victim of exploitation, a view informed by the abolitionist perspective. This can produce undesirable results, including a deterioration in the living and working conditions of the women involved in prostitution.

Keywords: Coercion, structural constraint, sex work, abolitionism, employment rights, public policies, Spain.