I was recently listening to a podcast interview about efforts in Colorado to legalize prostitution. The host kicked off the interview with this statement: “Colorado is considering a bill… that would make it the second state in the country, along with Nevada, to legalize the world’s oldest profession.”
Legalizing prostitution is a terrible idea. It has been tried and the evidence is consistent: it expands markets, increases trafficking, and fails to deliver the safety improvements promised. But that’s not what I want to talk about here. This post is about how it’s time we all banish the phrase “prostitution is the world’s oldest profession.”
That phrase is often used to communicate that prostitution has always been here and always will be. It makes it seem inevitable. Calling it a profession is both deceptive and destructive. Merriam-Webster has three definitions for the word profession, and all three use the word “calling”:
1. principal calling, vocation, or employment
2. the whole body of persons engaged in a calling
3. a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation
To say that prostitution was the first thing women were called to do, or chose to do, or wanted to do is, well, absurd. Prostitution is not a profession. It is not a calling. It is an oppression (Merriam-Webster defines oppression as “unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power” which is a pretty accurate description of prostitution). Calling it a profession gives it legitimacy. It makes it seem like something women have been choosing or aspiring to since the beginning of time.
Whether you look at the Biblical record of human history or anthropological records, by all accounts, the oldest professions would be gardening/agriculture, hunting/foraging, animal husbandry, tool-making, and likely midwifery. Prostitution does have ancient roots, and so do slavery and human trafficking. In fact, you could make the case that human trafficking, including prostitution, is the world's oldest oppression.
So the next time you hear the phrase “prostitution is the world’s oldest profession,” feel free to interject, “I think you mean oldest oppression.”
