Prostitution generally is defined as the practice of providing sexual services for money, but because it requires a buyer and seller it can more appropriately be defines as a practice of exchanging money for sexual service. Heterosexual prostitution (men as buyers and women as sellers) is most common; homosexual prostitution between men exist on a smaller scale. Lesbian prostitution between women exist but there is a little evidence in it the research literature.
According to Mellisa Farley, paper presented at the 11th International Congress on Women's Health Issues, University of California college of Nursering, San Francisco. 1-28-2000. All prostitution causes harm to women. Whether it is being sold by one’s family to a brothel, or whether it is being sexually abused in one’s family, running away from home, and then being pimped by one’s boyfriend, or whether one is in college and needs to pay for next semester’s tuition and one works at a strip club behind glass where men never actually touch you – all these forms of prostitution hurt the women .
We can conclude that prostitution is an act of violence against women which is intrinsically traumatizing. In a study of 475 people in prostitution (including women, men, and the transgendered) from five countries (South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, USA, and Zambia):
(Melissa Farley, Isin Baral, Merab Kiremire, Ufuk Sezgin, "Prostitution in Five Countries: Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder" (1998) Feminism & Psychology 8 (4): 405-426