NCJ Number
101172
Journal
Victimology Volume: 10 Issue: 1-4 Dated: (1985) Pages: 164-173
Date Published
1985
Length
10 pages
Annotation
The social etiology of crimes against women (rape, wife battery, incest, assault and sexual harassment) is explained by analyzing the derivation of their specifically sexual character for the aggressor which is simultaneously not sexual in the victim's experience of the criminal act.
Abstract
Prostitution is included as a crime against women because (1) it has been identified as a form of female sexual slavery and (2) for the aggressor (customer) sex is rendered into a commodity for purchase. The reduction of the self to a commodity service raises questions about fundamental violations of human rights consequent of sex commoditization for prostitution which includes acts of humiliation, degradation and violence in the market exchange. It is the thesis of this paper that the sex which is purchased in prostitution is the same sex that is sought and seized in rape and other crimes of sexual violence. Neither the prostitute nor the rape victim experience the act as sex. (Author abstract)