appendix
U.S. Military and Prostitution
Militarized prostitution develops around foreign U.S. military bases. Militarized prostitution is seen as providing for the sexual needs of the soldier, rationalized in different ways as "boys will be boys," maintaining morale, and rewarding long overseas service.
At first glance, the rape of women by warring soldiers may seem unconnected to soldiers' use of prostitutes for R&R away from combat. But they have much more in common than one might think. First, war rape and recreational military prostitution both occur within the context and under the auspices of militaristic structures. Moreover, both rape and use of prostitutes are thought to be inevitable, if not normal, behavior of warring soldiers. Military leaders recognize that soldiers will rape women during warfare. It has happened in every war since the beginning of time. Rape is a weapon in warfare. The expectation of rape was captured succinctly by General George Patton during WWII, when he told an aide that in spite of efforts to thwart it, "there would unquestionably be some raping" by American GIs7. R&R prostitution is often condoned under the assumption that providing soldiers access to prostitutes will reduce wartime raping—when, in reality, the two are complementary.
Militarized prostitution for R&R rewards soldiers away from the battlefield by giving them sexual access to and use of others' women. Because access to women after a battle has been a traditional reward of war, it is impossible to discuss rape in warfare without touching also on prostitution, since the two have been linked in history. Not that if prostitutes are not readily available men will turn to rape "to satisfy their needs," but that the two acts—raping an unwilling woman and buying the body and services of a more or less cooperating women—go hand in hand with a soldier's concept of his rights and pleasure.
Militaries have been instrumental in ensuring soldiers access to prostitution across time and cultures. The extent to which military leadership has been proactive in or supportive of the organization of prostitution during modern wars has varied. By the time of WWII, some military leaders had determined that prostitution was too important to their soldiers to be left to develop on its own. In fact, the U.S. military thought back on WWI, when prostitution for its troops was available, but not regulated, and STD infection rates among GIs were high. In WWII and thereafter, the U.S. military took a more proactive role in organizing and regulating prostitution for its troops.
The organization of prostitution close to military bases and installations has resulted in the evolution of prostitution economies in towns or areas nearby. During war or war threat, the demand for prostitutes is met by trafficking women to those areas near U.S. bases. When troops leave, prostitution towns lose their customer base and move the women elsewhere.
Demand for prostitution is virtually always high when and where men gather collectively for war, as well as for peacekeeping and other kinds of work and play. In the last half of the twentieth century, it has been the buildup of organized military prostitution for soldiers' R&R that has set the stage for a country or city's sex industrialization. Once a prostitution economy has become firmly rooted in a town or country (because of the presence of the U.S. military), sex trade entrepreneurs move in to either share in or take over the industry. Given the military customer base in poor countries with poor women, sex industries flourish. And as demand begins to outstrip supply, the trafficking of women into prostitution goes global.