Taken from:

http://www.heart-intl.net/HEART/120606/Prostitution-Then.htm

Russell’s new ‘Renegade History of the United States’ recounts how prostitutes won virtually all the freedoms that were denied to women but are now taken for granted.

The following is an excerpt from Thaddeus Russell’s new book, “ A Renegade History of the United States ” (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2010):
In the nineteenth century, a woman who owned property, made high wages, had sex outside of marriage, performed or received oral sex, used birth control, consorted with men of other races, danced, drank, or walked alone in public, wore makeup, perfume, or stylish clothes — and was not ashamed — was probably a whore.

In fact, prostitutes won virtually all the freedoms that were
women were barred from most jobs and wives had no legal right to own property, madams in the West owned large tracts of land and prized real estate.
Prostitutes made, by far, the highest wages of all American women.

Taken from:
http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/Prostitution.htm

Nineteenth century feminists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Martineau and Margaret Sanger were inspired by the movement by early feminists to start looking at prostitution not viewed in the male terms but see women as victims of male society.

Why Victorian Women Became Prostitutes

Dr. William Sanger was one of the foremost researchers on prostitution during this period;
examined the identity of the average prostitute and sought to understand why she had turned to that lifestyle. He found that the majority of prostitutes were in their late teens or early twenties; they were usually illiterate, poor and from broken families.
Economic poverty, societal disgrace, and lack of education were also causes of girls turning towards prostitution;
they had a limited number of options.
some women had either been expelled from their homes or deserted by their parents and found     prostitution the only way to support themselves.
a number of women would turn to prostitution simply as an escape from typical professions. Many of the girls expected to remain prostitutes only until something better became available.     The conditions for women in the Victorian period caused many young teenagers and women to turn towards prostitution as a means of survival.

They were primarily young, single women, between the ages of 18 and 22. Their first sexual experiences were not extraordinary, usually serial
monogamy within their own social class. Most had previously held low wage jobs, primarily as domestics (maids). Few supported illegitimate children. Their health was generally superior to other working women, who suffered under 14 hour workdays. They had a higher standard of living than others of a similar class background; they had money, clothing and could afford their own rooms. They also had access to the pub, which served as a center of social and political life, but was off limits to the virtuous woman. Prostitution offered the young woman more independence, economically and socially, than could otherwise be available to her.

 

Benefits of this assignment.
This research assignment will help me provide specific facts from outside sources in my paper. I can use this information to explain how women were treated and regarded as prostitutes in the 19th century. It shows the benefits the women had when they were prostitutes. Next, I will focus my attention on the unfortunate affects that modern day sex trafficking have on women today. I will elaborate on the idea that women were, y majority, a part of prostitution as a means to protect and support themselves. Today, many are enslaved and held captive, leaving families at home, potentially to never be seen again. I will incorporate the idea of gender in this, but women being able to be the ones to take advantage of them man for his money, but today, the man takes advantage of the women for her body.

I did not write full essay format for this assignment because I simply want to quote and reference these websites and their ideas while explaining my own thesis throughout the paper. This assignment will greatly help me support some main ideas in my paper.

In this assignment I would like analyze modern sex trafficking  compared to 19th century prostitution.

In the 19th century, women were unable to support themselves and in desperate situations would willingly partake in prostitution in order to survive or take care of their children. Today, women are still performing this act, as you can openly see on the streets in many large cities around the world. Though this behavior persists, the more discernible issue with prostitution today, is the progression of sex trafficking. Sex trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery where sexual acts are being induced by force or coercion. The people in control, or their “pimps”, use psychological and physical coercion and bondage, including threats or physical restraint against the women to force them to exploit themselves. The women themselves do not receive any benefit.  Most of the women are lured into the business by being promised a good job in another country, by a false marriage proposal, by being sold into the sex trade by parents, husbands, or boyfriends, or by being kidnapped by traffickers.
Today, modern prostitution is dominated by sex trafficking. Young girls and women are being forced into this lifestyle, without a choice to leave, with blatant disregard to their safety or personal moral decisions. This business, being dominantly controlled by men, can be characterized by a business of men exploiting women without their consent, leaving the woman powerless. In the nineteenth century, women willingly gave themselves to a life of prostitution to help support themselves, their children, or as a way to live a ‘fabulous’ life. In a sense, the women had the power to charge men what they wanted, in order to gain wealth for themselves.

Today, is of the contrary.

analyze the assignments short- or long-term value.

In this DIY homework, I chose to compare 19th century prostitution with todays modern-day prostitution. The things I found comparable in this assignment was the variations in the women’s role in prostitution over the century. In the 19th century, women were in control of their fate. Women chose to become prostitutes. I know that statement is vague and can be argued, but in the past, women became prostitutes because they had become a fallen women, gave into temptation, or because they wanted to live a fabulous life. When a women had given herself to a man, she became a fallen women. If that man had chosen to leave her instead of marry her, it was a common option to choose to become a prostitute because your chance at marriage had been significantly decreased. Often, the women had become pregnant while with that man, and now had no form of raising her child. It was impractical in that day for a women to be able to raise their own child alone.

In another case, women who came from poor backgrounds or farming towns sometimes gave themselves to prostitution as well. Women who did not want to struggle, work their hands to the bone to survive, and barely graze by, sometimes decided to become prostitutes so that they could earn their riches and be ‘beautiful’.

Today, women are no longer in control of such fate. Though, of course, there are exceptions to this, women today involved in sex trafficking do not have the choice of whether they would like to join or leave the business. Women are forced into this business by threats, coercion, bondage, and kidnapping. Often, family’s who are effected by a family member being kidnapped, often never find their loved one again. Women no longer have the ability to be in control of the situation and willingly charge a man for his pleasures. Today, men exploit the women, using them for all they are worth while they are valuable to them, without the women ever benefiting from their exploitation.

I believe this assignment’s value to me, short and long-term, is by giving me some great ideas for our gender and media study project. I thought of this idea one random day in class and had written it down. I have been wanting to compare these ideas for some time, and had recently realized that I could also tie this to gender studies as a comparison of the 19th century and modern position. I also believe that this idea will help me in the future because this topic does significantly strike a nerve with me. It also frustrates me that such a large issue seems to have minimal support and awareness in the United States. People believe that this issue is not relevant to America, when more than 100,000 girls are taken every year in the country and sold as sex slaves.

(http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr/resource/fact-sheet-sex-trafficking-english).

 

 

In the Goblin Market, the word ‘hungry’ is first used when the text says “Who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots?”.  The word hungry can be, “characterized by a strong desire or craving, (such as) eager; greedy; avaricious.” (EOD.com) The word hungry is well described throughout the text by the mental representations it gives of temptation. Hungry can be used to describe the girl’s wonder and lust for the Goblin men while they are spying at them through the brush. Their hunger is also what drives Laura to be unable to resist her desires for the men’s fruit. It is this hunger that she fulfills when she spends her night with the goblin and by gorging herself with the men’s fruits. It is obvious that the extreme cravings Laura is experiencing is caused by sexual tensions when they describe the fruits as beings “Succus” which, when defined by EOD.com, means, “ A fluid, such as gastric juice or vegetable juice, contained in or secreted by living tissue or any of several liquids of the body.” This hunger or craving is the same thing that causes Laura’s fall. She was a pure, innocent girl who fell to her temptations with the Goblin men. When she returned, she still had a lingering desire, or hunger for the men’s fruits. This craving is what left her starving and unsatisfied after she could no longer fill her hunger again. A hunger that can no longer be fulfilled, would leave a person hungry, and in the extreme sense starving. This is what happens to Laura after her night with the Goblin men when she returns home. She will no longer eat and she begins to dwindle away as her hair turns gray with a craving that will not reside. In turn, the word hungry can essentially describe the entire text by using the definition of one word.