In my paradigm shift essay, I intend to analyze society’s perception of prostitutes and prostitution throughout history, with a focus on recent years.  Traditionally, prostitutes were viewed as “bad women.”  The Bible includes many women whose sin is prostitution, and having this role is often portrayed as being on-par with–or even worse than–committing violent sins like murder.  However, with the sex-positivity movement, many people’s view of prostitutes changed from women of no morals to women using the misogyny of their society as a form of “empowerment.”  Many people today still hold this view.  However, even more recently, society’s view of prostitutes changed again, this time from self-empowered, independent women to victims.  I believe that this has coincided with much greater awareness of human trafficking and the knowledge that the vast, vast majority of these people are forced into the profession, whether through obvious force or economic necessity.  This new perception is reflected in legal ideas such as the Nordic Model, which clearly portrays the system of prostitution as “bad” but the prostitute as a victim of that system.

This is obviously a very large topic, and so I am going to instate a few limits.  I intend only to research perceptions of prostitution in the context of American society, which narrows the relevant window down to just a couple hundred–rather than a few thousand–years.  I am going to focus on female prostitutes–this is not to imply that all prostitutes are female, but rather that female prostitutes represent the majority.