Prostitution and Motherhood

Focusing on prostitution as it relates to motherhood magnifies some of the myths, misunderstandings, and ambiguities that surround society's theorizing about the sex industry in general, and about women prostitutes in particular. This is because prostitutes are more often than not perceived by society as women who do not deserve, or are emotionally unfit, to be mothers.

Despite the fact that most prostitutes become mothers at some point in their lives, very few studies have focused on the connection of motherhood with prostitution, and even less so on non-Western prostitution and its settings. There are studies supporting the claim that prostitutes are unfit to be mothers, with others arguing that motherhood is one of the reason some low-income women have entered the sex industry as a ...