h as courtship and even marriage, are represented by the archetype of prostitution – which is seen as the ultimate embodiment of male domination over female through economic coercion. They argue that the abolition of prostitution is tied to attaining the full equality of women – that prostitution’s existence serves partly as a goad to convince women that they are better off in a traditional relationship(which the feminist views as subservient), as well as being symbolic of the current power relationship between males and females.This view is hardly conclusive, however – while it is obvious that economic disparity exists between the male and female gender, might it not be equally possible to view prostitution as a possible means of self-liberation for the female from economic dependency - after all, a prostitute will be, for the most part, financially self-supporting. Prostitution could serve as a means of economic liberation for an independent woman rather than economic enslavement as a housewife in a marriage. To say that a prostitute is economically enslaved simply because she provides sex for money would mean that everyone is in some sense economically enslaved as long as they perform a some service for pay. Of course, the argument then boils down to one’s perception of the intrinsic value of sex; is it a value-neutral service that can be commodified, as the liberals would have it, or is it something inextricably bound up with issues of self-identity, and hence sacrosanct to the point where to offer it for money under any context, however indirect, is morally objectionable?Secular romanticismThe final perspective I wish to take with regards to prostitution is the one that says that sex is a something that should not be performed unless as an expression of romantic love. A proponent of this view would is that prostitution is immoral because it is the ultimate expression of such sex without love.Such peopl...
