Prostitution: sex and merchandise

Abstract

This paper discusses socio-spatial transformations and its relation to prostitution. It addresses the motivations for this activity to perpetuate throughout historical periods to the present time, even under further liberalization of the society in relation to sex. This paper aims to understand prostitution as an activity that adapts to social change, and that has transformed sex into a commodity in the context of a capitalist society. It is noted that such relationship is permeated by a variety of economic and social violence that have served as basis of discussions on the topic, such as human trafficking and extreme poverty.  Herewith, prostitution is conceptually considered crime such as human trafficking, sexual exploitation of children and slave labor. The approach taken is that female prostitution, whilst not the only type of prostitution, is the most significant from an economic point of view. The methodology adopted was the use of primary sources (reports, interviews) and secondary (large bibliography on the subject), from the data obtained sought to interpretation based on the geographic method of Milton Santos.