General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The unspoken issue at the center of prostitution is causation [View all]The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)It is certainly true there are people in the trade who are coerced, by what all would agree were acts of direct threat and violation that meet the dictionary and legal definitions.
It is certainly true there are people in the trade who act under internal compulsions which are clearly beyond their control, by addiction or deeply rooted disturbance.
Past the crystal clear first grade and the reasonably evident second grade, though, the ground becomes pretty shaky, for a view that 'coercion' is operating, to a degree that you can say people are not making voluntary choices.
A person who copes with a traumatic upbringing, say, or with bleak economic prospects, in a manner contrary to someone else's idea of how these things should be handled, may still be making a voluntary choice, choosing one of several available courses, and doing so on grounds as rational and informed as most choices made by most people.
The point is worth pressing, because the claim a person who says they are acting of their own volition really is not doing so, opens up a number of possibilities for dehumanization and coercion of its own.