Treatment of Prostitution Using Integrative Therapy Techniques: A Case Study

This case study examines a pattern we believe to be common among female prostitutes: a woman (Bonnie) who, like most prostitutes, is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Bonnie's prostitution is part of the unconscious repetition compulsion common in trauma victims; by prostituting herself, Bonnie re-creates the scenario of sexual abuse that occurred during her childhood, while maintaining an illusion of control over the situation. We maintain that an effective approach to treatment for Bonnie is integrative therapy, a type of psychological counseling designed to address the major aftereffects of sexual abuse: dissociation from the body and sexuality in general; a profound sense of powerlessness; critically low valuation of the self; and mistrust and fear of intimacy. Bonnie's story shows the dynamics of both prostitute behavior and integrative therapy, providing an example we believe to be applicable far beyond this case study.     

Philosophical Debates about Prostitution: State of the Question

This article aims to present “the state of the question” concerning prostitution. It is organized around an analysis of the various questions that current theorists take themselves to be answering when they defend decriminalization, some form of legalization, or the so‐called “Nordic model” of sex equality. By assessing these “framing questions,” as I shall call them, and the arguments stemming from them, we gain a powerful basis for understanding and critiquing the literature as a whole. In the end, I argue that the Nordic Model is superior in both its orienting method and its solution.     

Prostitution and the Invisibility of Harm

Abstract

The harm of prostitution is socially invisible, and it is also invisible in the law, in public health, and in psychology. This article addresses origins of this invisibility, how words in current usage promote the invisibility of prostitution's harm, and how public health perspectives and psychological theory tend to ignore the harm done by men to women in prostitution. Literature which documents the overwhelming physical and psychological harm to those in prostitution is summarized here. The interconnectedness of racism, colonialism, and child sexual assault with prostitution is discussed.     

Prostitution of sexuality: A cause for new international human rights

Abstract

The social normalization of prostitution, even where it is still illegal, in post-industrial states has led to a legitimization of many dimensions of sexual exploitation. This paper examines the social construction of exploitative sex in the prostitution exchange. The harm of being sexually objectified, a precondition for the prostitution exchange, that is repeated in mostly anonymous sexual contacts over weeks, months, and years, is evident in the split in the self that is constructed to sustain one in prostitution. This research finds that the buying of sex is a specifically gendered human rights violation. Identifying the harm in the social construction of prostituted sex and its normalization explains a significant aspect of the context of sexual exploitation in Western, postindustrial states. This paper further explores how prostitution, as an institution and an industry, is shaped by the socioeconomic development of the state and world region. Trafficking in women, military prostitution, and sex industrialization, are differentiated from normalization of prostitution. New international human rights have been developed by the author working with UNESCO and U.N. nongovernmental organizations to address sexual exploitation individually and globally. The proposed Convention Against Sexual Exploitation is summarized in relation to the macro- and micro-research presented.     

Entering Prostitution in Adolescence: History of Youth Homelessness Predicts Earlier Entry

The effect of youth homelessness on age of entry into prostitution was tested, controlling for other known covariates using a multivariate model. Women (N = 96) who self-identified as having engaged in prostitution completed cross-sectional standardized questionnaires (M_age = 42.6, SD = 9.18; 62% African American). Women with a history of youth homelessness entered prostitution nearly 8 years earlier than their peers without this history (at 18 vs. 25 years old). Lack of a high school degree or equivalent also predicted an earlier age of entry (at 20 vs. 28 years old). Findings highlight the poverty dynamics that underlie the relationship between early entry into prostitution and homelessness. Young women, living on the street or in shelters, with limited education and employment opportunities, are at high risk of entering prostitution when they are barely out of adolescence. Future research will be better able to design age-specific prevention strategies.     

Attitudes Toward Prostitution and Acceptance of Rape Myths1

Rape myths and prostitution myths are a component of culturally supported attitudes that normalize violence against women. Prostitution myths justify the existence of prostitution, promote misinformation about prostitution, and contribute to a social climate that exploits and harms not only prostituted women, but all women. This study investigated the relationship between prostitution myth acceptance and rape myth acceptance in a sample of university undergraduates. Rape myth acceptance was positively correlated with prostitution myth acceptance among 783 university undergraduates from California, Iowa, Oregon, and Texas. College men were significantly more accepting of prostitution myths than were college women. Results suggest that acceptance of prostitution myths are a component of attitudes that justify violence against women.     

Case Study: The Case of Joyce F.

This case review identifies the use of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) principles and concepts while detailing the plight and fight of one woman in overcomingagoraphobia with panic attacks. It illustrates how the frequency of anxiety disorder symptoms can be lessened, their intensity minimized and their duration reduced. Techniques plus the value of persistence, boldness, risk taking, eagerness to learn, gumption and guts in confronting her symptoms cognitively, emotively and behaviorally are meant to come through the following narrative explanation.     

日伪统治时期南京的娼妓业

南京沦陷后,抗日战争前被明令禁止的娼妓业在日伪政权的大力推动下公然发展起来.日伪政权对娼妓业的发展并非漫无限制,而是采取了划定妓院区域、定期体检、征收妓捐等措施.但是,南京娼妓业的泛滥,严重败坏了南京社会风气.     

Prostitution,Sexual Autonomy,and Sex Discrimination

Feminist critics of the stigmatization of prostitution such as Martha Nussbaum and Sybil Schwarzenbach argue that the features of the practice do not, or at least need not, differ essentially from those of other more respected sorts of labor. I argue that even the least degraded forms of the current practice of prostitution remain objectionable on feminist grounds because patrons demand a semblance of sexual self‐expression that engages discriminatory beliefs about women's sexuality.     

“If He Looks Clean…”: Condom Use Decisions in Prostitution

ABSTRACT

Prostitutes engage in sex acts with multiple partners and have higher than average rates of intravenous drug use. For these reasons, unprotected sexual contact with a prostitute constitutes high-risk activity. The present study includes interviews with 34 indoor and outdoor sex workers that explore the factors involved in their condom use decisions. Three themes common to participants’ protective behavior decisions (interpersonal, situational, and personal factors) were elucidated and then analyzed within a rational choice framework. Policy implications include court-ordered sex education programs for women cited for prostitution and the expansion of harm reduction programs.     

Secession: The Case of Quebec

ABSTRACT I argue that people have a right to self-determination when they are plainly predominant in a certain territory and do not violate the civil liberties of minorities. But there is no self-determination without the preservation of self-identity and the cultural preservation that goes with its secure existence. So to preserve autonomy and self-determination people must preserve their cultural identity and this cannot be securely sustained in modern conditions without a nation-state concerned to nourish that identity. Such considerations support a right to secession when certain conditions are met. The conditions are that the people in question have a cultural identity, live in a distinct territory which they have inhabited for a long time, form an extensive majority, and respect the civil liberties of the minorities living in that territory (as well as elsewhere). Where they are such a group they have a right to secede from a larger state to which they are historically attached. These conditions, I argue, are met in Quebec.     

Predicting Prosocial Behavior Toward Sex-Trafficked Persons: The Roles of Empathy,Belief in a Just World,and Attitudes Toward Prostitution

Human trafficking has been identified as a global human rights violation. This study aimed to investigate the predictors of prosocial behaviors toward sex-trafficked persons. Participants were 223 undergraduates randomly assigned to read a vignette and answer follow-up questions along with measures of empathy, just world belief, attitudes toward prostitution, and proactive behavior. Empathy was highest for trafficked women, regardless of citizenship status. Trafficked foreign women received the highest empathy, and U.S. prostitutes received the least. Path analysis results indicate just world belief, beliefs about prostitutes, and family values relating to prostitution had direct effects on empathic concern; in turn, empathic concern had a direct effect on proactive behavior. Explanations for the results are discussed, along with educational and clinical implications.     

Community Psychology: The Case of Cameroon

Community psychology in Cameroon is a budding discipline even its practice, given the scarcity of professionals with specialised training. However, this paper highlights public and private community-oriented projects that resonate with the principles of community psychology. The demands are high with the impact of globalisation, corruption, poverty and HIV/AIDS. Yet it is evident that professional responses to these demands will be slow because even the teaching, research and use of the main discipline of psychology face major problems, blocking its expansion and use. There is the need for strong academic and professional leadership that is usually blocked by tribalism, weakness in the pedagogy of programmes and underdevelopment and unawareness of social problems including the absence of structures for strengthening institutional capacity. These explain why only rudimentary psychological services exist for Cameroonians. There is therefore an urgent need for the rapid formalisation of community psychology in teaching, research and service for alleviating people's distress in Cameroon.