Behavioral Convergence and Destigmatization

Since time immemorial, prostitution—“the world’s oldest profession”—has been regarded primarily as a women’s crime. It was believed that women’s prostitution was basically a sort of involuntary behavior into which they were forced helplessly and against their will, or even as a sort of aberrant and self-debasing behavior. Social scientists (including sociologists) saw prostitutes as “depraved women” and, of course, “whores,” who generally served as a synonym for negative values in the domain of morality (He 2002; Ning 2002). In the view of feminists, who customarily put female prostitutes in the role of victims, women selling themselves is indicative of oppression and injustice, and the prostitution of women is an outcome of a male-centered sexual ideology (Ai and Li 2001; Huang 1998 and 2001; Lin 2001). From the 1990s to the present, studies in China on female prostitutes have been