Mav
I think Marianna and others make the points quite well. Me, I'll stick to matters linguistic and query the phrase you have used: ...some sort of contract of exploitation...
This, to my mind, is Marxist language. Which is not necessarily bad in itself, but seems distinct from 'natural' language. In this terminology, all work for wages is exploitation, thereby depriving the natural use of the word of any meaning. I may be entering a contract which earns money for the company that pays me, that cycles over into bigger profits/pay for the people who own the company and so on - but I have made a pretty free, informed choice in this matter. Now if prostitution were habitually like that (and the set up in the Netherlands, I believe, commonly approaches that standard) then it would simply be paid work, or rather, freelance work. That's fair enough.
My problem is that exploitation, in its natural sense, occurs when, for instance, underage people, who cannot make an informed decision, are involved in the industry. Whether its the running shoe manufacturer's factory in a developing country, or the runaway teenager pumping up her courage with a cigarette as she hangs around King's Cross looking for her next 'trick', there is exploitation.
Similarly, even a grown up can be exploited if no credible options are provided that she/he can use. Again, I am not a bonded worker, and far from being a slave. I have the choice of a variety of jobs I can perform, with varying grades of commitment to the jobs, and proportional pay from them. I am aware of these options, and qualified to take advantage of them. A number of people (again, as I say, primarily women) in the sex industry (let's lump prostitution and pornography together) do not have these options, or the awareness of them, or the ability/qualifications to take them up. That, for me, is exploitation, and I haven't yet spoken of the seedier side of prostitution - the pimping, the deliberate drug addictions, the beatings, the breaking of the spirit rituals that those who make money out of it perform.
It may well be that if prostitutes were properly organised in unions, with recognition of the legitimacy of their trade, that a lot of this would be ameliorated. I don't know. What I do know is that, in our currently far from ideal world, I'd be loath to recommend it as a profession to a person I cared about - particularly if that person happened to be female. I would, as a corollary, feel no moral repugnance towards one who is a prostitute, though if I felt she was being exploited in that profession, I would certainly feel pity for her. I doubt if we've really become a mature enough society for completely well adjusted young people to take up prostitution as a legitimate career - there's a long way to go before we get there, if we ever do.
cheer
the sunshine warrior
