Melissa Farley

Prostitution Research & Education, San Francisco CA USA

Background: Extreme violence and psychological abuse have been extensively documented and are pervasive in prostitution. Survivors of prostitution report high levels of posttraumatic stress disorder, dissociation, depression, and self-loathing. These are the same sequelae reported by torture survivors. Objective: Severe forms of violence have been...

This research was a 6-country study (Germany, Cambodia, USA, Scotland, UK, India) with 1.5-hour in-person interviews of 763 sex buyers, including 96 freiers in Germany. In these anonymous interviews, sex buyers provided candid information about prostitution and trafficking that mirrored decades of testimony from exited prostitution survivors. Using...

Pornography has been perceived as existing separate from prostitution and trafficking. We suggest that pornography, prostitution, and trafficking overlap conceptually and empirically. We discuss similarities between pornography and other arms of the sex trade such as escort, street, or massage prostitution via a review of survivor testimony and exi...

This article describes the connections between resource extraction, prostitution, poverty, and climate change. Although resource extraction and prostitution have been viewed as separate phenomena, this article suggests that they are related harms that result in multiple violations of women's human rights. The businesses of resource extraction and p...

In the traditional model of consumer risk, the product that is consumed is understood to be the agent that is imbued with risks. In prostitution, it is the woman who is being consumed as a commodity who is at great risk, in spite of the fact that prostitution is sometimes (erroneously) described as “sex between consenting adults.” Prostitution occu...

We examined social and physical violence experienced by American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) women in prostitution and their impacts on the mental and physical health of 105 women (81% Anishinaabe, mean age = 35 years) recruited through service agencies in three Minnesota cities. In childhood, abuse, foster care, arrests, and prostitution were typ...

We investigated attitudes and behaviors associated with prostitution and sexual aggression among 101 men who buy sex and 101 age-, education-, and ethnicity-matched men who did not buy sex. Both groups tended to accept rape myths, be aware of harms of prostitution and trafficking, express ambivalence about the nature of prostitution, and believe th...

The use of Internet technologies to traffic women and children to prostitution will be described in this article. We will summarize the history of online trafficking and the remarkably effective use of the Internet for advertising prostitution locally, regionally, and internationally beginning with the development of social networking sites, discus...

Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress offers the reader an analysis of prostitution and trafficking as organized interpersonal violence. Even in academia, law, and public health, prostitution is often misunderstood as “sex work.” The book’s 32 contributors offer clinical examples, analysis, and original research that counteract common myt...

We investigated attitudes, behaviors, and demographics of 110 men who bought sex in Scotland. Those men who most frequently used women in prostitution were most likely to have committed sexually aggressive acts against nonprostituting women. High-frequency users of women in prostitution used pornography more frequently than men who used women in pr...

In this issue of Women's Studies International Forum it's refreshing to read Limoncelli's observation there are points of agreement between abolitionists and non-abolitionists regard- ing trafficking. There is agreement that trafficking is harmful and that it is a "gendered component of economic globaliza- tion" (Limoncelli, p 16⁎). There is no arg...

In The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucracies, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS, Elizabeth Pisani becomes a whistle-blower to the multibillion-dollar global AIDS industry, in which she has long been an insider. Using keen observation and an epidemiologist's attention to data, Pisani provides a rarely encountered analysis of what has gone wrong with the...

Current and past history of domestic violence (DV), including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse is common among women patients seen in health care settings and is associated with a higher frequency of many health problems. However, the association of DV with self-assessed social functioning is less well known. We administered a telephone survey...

We interviewed 100 women prostituting in Vancouver, Canada. We found an extremely high prevalence of lifetime violence and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Fifty-two percent of our interviewees were women from Canada's First Nations, a significant overrepresentation in prostitution compared with their representation in Vancouver generally (1....

With examples from a 2003 New Zealand prostitution law, this article discusses the logical inconsistencies in laws sponsoring prostitution and includes evidence for the physical, emotional, and social harms of prostitution. These harms are not decreased by legalization or decriminalization. The article addresses the confusion caused by organization...

We estimated the prevalence of trauma history and relapse in a sample of 959 patients at two outpatient chemical dependence clinics of a managed healthcare organization. A large majority (89%) reported a history of at least one traumatic event. The most common traumatic events were serious accidents, being robbed, seeing someone killed or seriously...

We interviewed 854 people currently or recently in prostitution in 9 countries (Canada, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, United States, and Zambia), inquiring about current and lifetime history of sexual and physical violence. We found that prostitution was multitraumatic: 71% were physically assaulted in prostitution; 63%...

The historical background of sex trafficking from the United States to Mexico is briefly described. We also summarize two case examples that illustrate the complexity of providing physical and emotional safety, as well as immigration protection to victims of trafficking. We emphasize the importance of understanding the varied cultural contexts in w...

The authors summarize four studies on dissociation among women in prostitution, and discuss clinical aspects of the relationship between trauma, dissociation and prostitution. Dissociative disorders are common among those in escort, street, massage, strip club and brothel prostitution, and are frequently accompanied by posttraumatic stress disorder...

The harm of prostitution is socially invisible, and it is also invisible in the law, in public health, and in psychology. This article addresses origins of this invisibility, how words in current usage promote the invisibility of prostitution's harm, and how public health perspectives and psychological theory tend to ignore the harm done by men to...

We interviewed 854 people currently or recently in prostitution in 9 countries (Canada, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, United States, and Zambia), inquiring about current and lifetime history of sexual and physical violence. We found that prostitution was multitraumatic: 71% were physically assaulted in prostitution; 63%...

In the context of an international comparative study 54 prostitutes in Hamburg have been interviewed about traumatic life experiences (TLEQ), symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; PCL-C according to DSM-IV) and substance consumption. The women were on average 26 years old and prostituted themselves mainly in order to finance their drug c...

We tested the hypothesis that a history of trauma (especially sexual trauma) was associated with a reduced likelihood of having had medically appropriate cervical cancer screening. A case-control study using mailed self-report questionnaires. The questionnaires were completed by an age-stratified random sample of adult women members of a large heal...

Rape myths and prostitution myths are a component of culturally supported attitudes that normalize violence against women. Prostitution myths justify the existence of prostitution, promote misinformation about prostitution, and contribute to a social climate that exploits and harms not only prostituted women, but all women. This study investigated...

For four groups of women: no abuse, physical abuse alone, combined sexual and physical abuse, and unclear about memories of abuse, we examined the associations between childhood sexual and physical abuse, chronic physical symptoms in adulthood, PTSD, and health care utilization. Of a randomly selected sample of 600 adult femalc members of a health...

The prevalence of mammography screening is unacceptably low. A history of trauma has been associated with poor health status, decreased health prevention behaviors, and increased mortality. We predicted that women who had a history of trauma were less likely to obtain mammography screening than women who did not report such a history. The relation...

In the recent literature on prostitution, there has been a focus on HIV which has tended to exclude discussion of the physical and sexual violence which precedes and which is intrinsic to prostitution. The literature of two time periods (1980-84 and 1992-1996) is critically reviewed in order to describe this trend.The normalization of prostitution...

In the recent literature on prostitution, there has been a focus on HIV which has tended to exclude discussion of the physical and sexual violence which precedes and which is intrinsic to prostitution. The literature of two time periods (1980-84 and 1992-1996) is critically reviewed in order to describe this trend. The normalization of prostitution...

We initiated this research in order to address some of the issues that have arisen in discussions about the nature of prostitution. In particular: is prostitution just a job or is it a violation of human rights? From the authors' perspective, prostitution is an act of violence against women; it is an act which is intrinsically traumatizing to the p...

One hundred and thirty people working as prostitutes in San Francisco were interviewed regarding the extent of violence in their lives and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Fifty-seven percent reported that they had been sexually assaulted as children and 49% reported that they had been physically assaulted as children. As adults in...

This study investigated the relation between history of sexual abuse, somatization, and dissociation in 53 women with a self-reported history of sexual assault in childhood and in 30 women who did not report such a history. Dissociation and reporting of chronic physical symptoms were positively correlated in subjects who had a history of sexual abu...

Conceptual and methodological difficulties exist in assessing coping behaviors. This study investigated coping behaviors in 102 psychiatric outpatients. We used the Dissociative Experiences Scale, a 17-item posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) checklist; 2 measures of somatization (the Wahler Physical Symptom Inventory and the Physical Symptom Ques...

Researchers are providing evidence for the presence of dissociative symptoms in patients with histories of childhood sexual abuse. A total of 53 outpatient women who reported sexual abuse in childhood were interviewed and compared with 30 outpatient controls who reported no abuse. Controlling for the effect of physical abuse or maltreatment unrelat...

Photocopy of typescript original. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Iowa, 1973. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-136).