What do we know about mental impact of prostitution on women and what we can expect in the future
1. THE
REASON WHY WE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS TOPIC
The
Association for women protection was founded by a female sexual
worker who was unsatisfied with current situation in the Czech
Republic. The fact is that at least 90% of female sexual workers
start with this profession due to social need, according to our
experience. Mainly we talk about single mothers, women burdened with
debt or women, who are disadvantaged at the labour market in various
ways.
We
are in touch with overwhelming majority of female sexual workers in
the Czech Republic. The sexual workers cooperate with us as
volunteers. The female sexual workers, mainly working in their
lodgings
and escort service, discuss with us their issues and our association
interprets these issues to our government and politicians. These
women have an opportunity to open any topic, that is important for
them.
In
autumn 2022 I was contacted by one of our colleagues who has 8 years
of experience in the field and gained university degree in
humanities. She confided to me that she noticed a worrying
trend. The trend deals with deterioration
of memory
and thinking of her colleagues in erotic private spaces.
She asked
me to do her a favour and deal with this topic.
It
is true that many customers of these sexual workers confirm that they
noticed slow "deterioration" of the female sexual workers they
are in touch for a longer time. But
that impression doesn't necessarily mean that these customers are
right. If
our female sexual workers ask for help it is our duty to pay
attention to it.
I
consider it as essential for our society because new findings in this
area can help ageing sexual workers to return to the legal labour
market. It would be appropriate to say that I am an ambitious person
and I would like to improve the situation in this area.
All these facts as a whole are legitimate reasons why it is important to deal with this topic. From all these topics mentioned above, as possible deterioration of thinking and memory, ability to plan and solve problems, I would like to deal with unsuitable conditions in erotic clubs, possible deterioration of memory and how it affects the return of aging female sex workers to the legal labour market.
It is not only about improving lives of individuals but also our state would get a credit if improves working conditions of these workers. If the conditions will be better these workers can change their career subject more easily. In the future, the state will save some money in social services for homeless people and in the same moment it increases taxes and insurance.
2. THE NEGATIVE INFLUENCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT IN EROTIC BUSINESSES AND POSSIBLE SOURCES OF STRESS
I work as a coordinator for the Association for women protection more than six years. I am regularly in contact with a founder of our association who used to work as a sexual worker. Of course, I am in touch with many sexual workers mainly working in private clubs and escort services. Overwhelming majority of these women offer their service online.
My working area is focused on private clubs and escort service environment. Based on these experiences I can say that significant negative influences that affects sexual workers in erotic clubs are alcohol and drugs.
Alcohol and drugs
Alcohol
and drugs help them to cope with working in the sex business. The
female sexual workers can get some kind of support from their
colleges in consuming drugs and drinking alcohol. Very often it is
their common activity in their free time, that helps tighten up their
fellowship.
Their
customers support them in these toxic habits and offer them actively
alcohol and drugs. Colleges from other organisations would gain more
information about the possible fact if the leadership supports them
in using drugs and drinking alcohol to manipulate them better.
Sometimes the addiction is a reason why people start with this kind
of business – as a source of money needed for buying drugs.
We
spotted a fact that our customers take cocaine and metamfetamin more
for last three years. Some of our co-workers from this field claims
that every third customer takes cocaine, they justify it with an
opinion that cocaine is not a drug.
Commissions
from drinking alcohol in erotic clubs plays a significant role in sex
business. Fatigue, unreliability or deterioration of memory and
thinking as a result of long-term consuming drugs and alcohol is a
crucial aspect that negatively influence a possibility to return to a
legal labour office.
Lack
of sleep and irregular sleeping
Lack
of sleep or irregular sleep is a significant problem of female sexual
workers who work nonstop or staying with customers overnight. We are
informed from our sexual workers that a customer force them to be
awake all night long no matter how tired they are. Sometimes the
customer wakes them up many times per night.
These
women feel tired during a day. According to their opinion this is
connected to interrupted and unsatisfied sleep during nights. The
majority of sexual workers go to sleep in different times. That fact
according to me, can have a negative impact on their sleep quality.
Lack of sleep can cause damaging of memory, by the way.
Lack
of inspiration and stimulation in erotic club environment
Sexual
workers usually spend many years as a part of work team, where the
main topic of conversation is fashion, cosmetics, relationships,
celebrities, customers and children. As a result of that fact is that
these workers forget most of their profession knowledge they gained
at school. They read mainly magazines or not so difficult books, they
are checking their phone and search internet, they are watching TV
series or romantic films.
According
to our field experience I claim that this can bring slower thinking
and memory deterioration. We offer them some tips how to train memory
in erotic club environment. These tips created a sexual worker with a
university degree. She used them in practice. It means that these
tips were created in this specific environment.
The
tips you can find on this web:
https://www.spolekproochranuzen.cz/l/jak-trenovat-pamet-a-dokazat-jednou-zmenit-profesi/
Stress
According to our field experience and studying reference books I am inclined to think that long-term stress in erotic clubs can influence memory and thinking in a negative way. There can be many sources of stress for example arrogant or aggressive customers and many others.
For
many years I am paying my attention to a connection between a level
of aggression of customers and how clever the sexual worker looks in
the eyes of the customer. We describe it on our web and we started an
information service. The main aim of this informational help is to
improve current situation a little bit.
https://www.spolekproochranuzen.cz/l/spustili-jsme-novy-infoservis-chytraspolecnice/
Every
sexual worker I am in touch has her own experience with some kind of
physical violence from their customers. Another source of stress are
bad working relationships, bullying between sexual workers, slanders,
damaging personal belongings or physical violence. This can be caused
by competitive environment. It can be prevented by company leaders,
if they hire different types of women. Company leaders can decrease
the tension and competition. Unfortunately, a great minority of
companies pay attention to this.
Another
source of stress can be bullying from the leadership and other staff.
Sexual workers describe for example a situation how their boss
refuses to pay them or refuses to give them their tips from
customers, that was meant to be extra money for the sexual workers.
Very
interesting is our field observation that indicates a fact that
sexual workers sometimes having an orgasm with a customer, are more
balanced and less stressed. The most important impact is that they
take less drugs and drink less alcohol.
It
corresponds with information we can find in many popular science
articles, where we can observe that a regular orgasm leads to better
mood of women. Although we can notice this fact in field of night
clubs for a longer time, it is of course necessary to verify this by
reliable research.
During
our work we met with a fact that bullying at work would bring a
positive impact for the sexual worker. The positive fact is that she
left bigger erotic private clubs and started to work on her own
business. She stopped paying the half of her salary to her pimps,
that was very positive for the worker and she was pleased with this
fact.
Some Czech experts are worried about safety of sexual workers in private business, who are self-employed. If you are interested how safety works in this type of business according to our experience you can find it in this article :
Another
source of stress can be effort to hide the subject of her profession
from her family, friends, partner and children. Most of sexual
workers, we are in touch with, try to hide their profession. They
have to create reasons why their friends or partner cannot visit them
at work or why they have to go to work at night or during bank
holidays etc.
According
to our experience and experience of our founder this is a source of
stress and can deteriorate memory and thinking. This fact leads to
problems with returning of sexual workers to the legal labour market.
This is not in their interest and our state interest either because
for our state it is important to increase paying taxes.
Mister
doc. Tomás Nikolai confirmed that unfavourable conditions in erotic
clubs and long-term stress can really leads to deterioration of
memory and thinking. Sexual worker with a university degree and their
customers claims that worse thinking and memory can manifest itself
in various ways for example sexual workers are not able to remember
faces of their customers in succession.
According
to our information from the field it happens mainly to sexual workers
who have more customers per a day (some of them has 8 customers per a
day). The fact that they do not remember faces of their customers
does not have to be based on reality but does not have to be
pathologic. It can be natural and logically explainable. It cannot be
excluded that this is "just a feeling" of their customers and
some of sexual workers and the reality can be different.
We
can presume that their research is correct and that it is really
happening. Specialists are not unanimous in an opinion whether it is
displacement (displacement of information about the amount of sexual
partners that could affect their dignity – Doc. Tomáš Nikolai) or
it is an automatic activity (customers faces are not relevant and
important information so this is the reason why they do not remember
it – Prof. Vladimír Beneš).
For
example, prof. Aleš Stuchlík thinks that both points of view are
possible. According to prof. Ivan Rektor it is more probable that
female sexual workers have more emotional problems than problems with
bad memory and brain functioning. All above described should be our
research topics for the next few years.
Another
topic that would be useful to pay attention to is an impact of
long-term stress on sexual workers and point them out in front of the
public and try to avoid them. Sexual workers should have information
before entering this kind of business to pay attention to train their
brain and memory more and eat healthy food.
From
Eysenck (2008, page 507 – 508) we can deduce that not only sexual
workers can have problems with problem solving which they did not
solve for a longer time. Do aged sexual workers have problems with
returning to the legal labour market just because of late decision
(after many years in sex business)? Is the problem that they do not
prepare regularly and they do not have experience with a legal labour
market for a longer time?
If
it is true, I dare to claim that our tips from the former sexual
worker can partially help them. These tips were published on our
self-help supportive social group websites and social media:
For the future it would be reasonable to search other possibilities of help not only in terms of international exit program of the Association for women protection.
3. IMPACTS OF LONG-TERM STRESS NOT ONLY FOR SEXUAL WORKERS
According to Paulík (2017, page 106 – 109) stress can have impact not only for sexual workers:
mood swings, over-sensitivity, tiredness, exhaustion
lack of motivation, lack of productivity, lapses of concentration and short-term memory
Aggression or contrary to passivity
Respiration and circulation problems, problems with motor skills, headaches, longer behaviour changes, increasing unspecific sickness rate, mental health disorder etc.
All these mentioned impacts of long-term stress can complicate aged sexual workers profession change for example planning. According to my opinion these impacts can negatively affect the success rate in the future entrance interview. They can cause health disadvantage that can complicate their profession change.
4. WHY IT IS NECESSARY TO PAY ATTENTION TO THIS TOPIC
In this thesis I mentioned nearly all main reasons why we should pay attention to impacts of environment in erotic businesses on sexual workers. The first reason is that the university degree sexual worker asked the Association for women protection for help.
It
is very important for our association to pay attention to all
problems and requests received from our sexual workers. This is the
reason why we should solve this problem too. Of course, it is
necessary to include other institution to the process. From my point
of view, it is important to talk about sources that cause stress in
erotic businesses and how negative conditions inside them affects
sexual workers.
Although
I have many relevant information from the field and from sexual
workers, I agree that these ideas should be supported by research.
Wide public should be informed too. Everyone who enters into sex
business should know how this environment can have impact on her/him
and how to prevent it.
In
terms of our exit programs, we provide an advice how to train memory
or what should be avoided if they want to change the working subject
in the future. Impacts of long-term stress complicate aging sexual
workers possible change of their working subject.
Profession
change takes longer time and it is more expensive for our state. The
more time sexual workers spend in this sex business the more taxes
are leaking because they usually do not pay income taxes.
International exit program of our association is for free and not
connected to subsidies but it can influence other organizations. This
is the main reason why our state should pay attention to it I mean
mainly complications for sexual workers who would like to change
their profession.
Our
Association for women protection do not agree with a legalization of
prostitution. From our point of view and an opinion of our founder,
the former sexual worker, it would support current condition –
socially motivated prostitution in our republic.
We
would agree with a legalization of prostitution in the Czech Republic
only under some circumstances. The ratio of socially motivated
prostitution would be maximal 30% in our republic. These days the
ratio is completely opposite not only according to our sources. If
you are interested about our point of view and history of our
association you can find it in this interview.
Our fellowship of the same opinion sexual workers uses this information to point out the working risks in sex business and emotional impacts of this erotic business environment.
This is going to be our next argument against legalization and for prevention of socially motivated prostitution for example lobbing for accessible living. This material will be available for potential supporters of legalization and they can use it according to their consideration.
5. SOURCES
Eysenck,
M.W., Keane M.T. (2008). Kognitivní psychologie. Praha, Academia.
Nakonečný, M. (2016). Obecná psychologie. Praha, Triton.
Paulík, K. (2017). Psychologie lidské odolnosti. Praha, Grada.
Sternberg, R.J. (2002). Kognitivní psychologie. Praha, Portál.
https://www.spolekproochranuzen.cz/l/definovali-jsme-novy-obor-psychologie-prostituce
https://prostitution.procon.org/questions/is-prostitution-psychologically-harmful-to-prostitutes/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3992270/
https://instituteofcounseling.org/the-psychological-effects-of-prostitution/
author of this article:
Mgr. Zdeňka Pecharová
coordinator
Spolek pro ochranu žen, z. s.