Whore, harlot, slut, and sunda l.we reserve these the most derogatory contemptuous terms in our vocabulary to designate the woman who sells her sexual favour for money. In all the societies that I can think of, nothing is seen as more detrimental to the virtue of a woman than her prostituting herself.

Dictionaries do give current usage of words, and so to a great extent, reflect the prevalent moral thinking of the day on any subject. My Chambers 21st Century Dictionary defines "slut" as 1) a woman who engages regularly in casual sex. 2) a prostitute. 3) an untidy, dirty or slovenly woman. A "whore", according to the same lexicon, is a prostitute, a sexually immoral or promiscuous woman. You get my drift.

Some radical feminists would throw their arms up in protest and disgust of course. If they are also post-modernist after the fashion of Michele Foucault, they would point out that the language of a discourse is the result of a battle for power in this case, a battle of the sexes for domination.

They would perhaps point out how in a male-dominated society, a woman's virtue is overly defined in terms of her sexual fidelity only. They may even demand that men who patronise prostitutes deserve even more derogatory and contemptuous terms of description than the prostitutes themselves.

That is done in good old China of course. They do have a most unsavoury term for men who buy sexual favours from prostitutes. A friend of mine who went to China to tour his old country had these Scarlet Letters chopped onto his passport, after he was arrested in a whorehouse and found guilty in a court there. He has been extremely embarrassed about it ever since.

A pitiful price to pay

Despite their tough stand on containing prostitution, the Chinese government now faces the daunting prospect of dealing with millions of prostitutes in all her burgeoning cities and Special Economic Zones. In their attempt to create a socialist market economy - an apparent oxymoron the forces of free enterprise seems to have prevailed over their socialist aspirations.

That widespread prostitution is the necessary price that China has to pay for her economic boom is a pity. Just prior to the Communist takeover of the entirety of China, there were an alleged million prostitutes in the sin city of Shanghai alone. They disappeared, not only in Shanghai, but also throughout that vast country, after the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949. It is a pity this oldest profession is coming back in a big way nowadays.

And nowadays, there is no shortage of young women from China slipping into Malaysia for a quick buck.

The feminist's protest against moral branding of prostitutes as fallen women in a male dominated world is not entirely ungrounded. Even women themselves subscribe to these male dominated views. I have seen on numerous occasions how two otherwise genteel young ladies, in their rage during a shouting match, caling each other 'sundal' and 'slut'!

Growing up in a small conservative town, I used to witness how such women of ill repute were pointed out to us young ones by elders speaking in hushed whispers, as if imparting a great secret of life. The person in question would walk with extremely self-conscious hunch in public, as if she knew she ought not to be seen in broad daylight.

Nowadays, in the night spots and food centres in Kuala Lumpur, you can still spot these 'working' ladies, by the manner of their loud comportment and demeanour. They certainly do not seem embarrassed about their line of work, and those around them also seem to accept them for what they are, and leave them pretty much alone.

This is the new reality about living in a modern faceless metropolis like Kuala Lumpur. Your ordinary citizens are more likely to stare down their nose at some shabbily dressed poor person rather than a prosperous prostitute, as the old cynical Chinese proverb goes. Money is money, irrespective of where you get it from. Why, we have rumours that some Datuks in town are actually God-fathers of the underworld!

Abject poverty

Those ladies who thrive at the high end of the flesh market may even move among us without anybody harbouring the slightest suspicion about their profession. They would be dressed from head to toe in obscenely expensive brand-name products, drive flashy cars that cost a bomb, and frequent that sort of establishment reserved for the very rich.

Here, perhaps we get some clues as to why this social phenomenon of prostitution is so perennial and ubiquitous among all sorts of human societies, beyond the simplistic moralistic condemnation of these women as merely having fallen, as if they are less than human.

In the case of China, and in many developing nations, widespread and abject poverty is the single most significant push factor that force women into prostitution, wither voluntarily or involuntarily, directly or indirectly.

But poverty alone would not explain all. China was dirt poor right up to their economic reforms in the mid 70s, and yet there was no visible large scale prostitution then. Everybody was poor, and so no one could afford the sort of ostentatious sex industry that comes only with prosperity. The scourge only reared its ugly head after a degree of prosperity has been achieved in the coastal regions.

There has to be also glaring differences in the distribution of wealth. In neighbouring Thailand for instance, poverty among the rural population is the push factor that sometimes compels parents to sell their daughters to the brothels in the large cities and towns, where a newly emergent class of rich and middle-class clientele provides the demand for such warped needs.

The influx of American GIs during the various wars in Southeast Asia flocking into these Thai and other sex pits for their R&R served as an impetus, which was maintained by foreign sex tourists in later decades.

Nowadays, the foreign tourists who fuel the growth of prostitution in countries in this part of the world are not necessarily Caucasians. There is no shortage of new demand from the newly rich Asians themselves. In the Ermita District in Manila, I was told that there were several plane-loads of Japanese tourists who arrived there on their chartered flights weekly with the exclusive purpose of visiting the various forms of brothels. And we all know about the ugly Malaysians in Hadyai and Golok, and the Singaporeans in Batam Island in neighbouring Indonesia.

I have read about how girls in Thailand would return to a warm welcome in their village, after their tour of duty is over, and all the debts have been paid. It is probably true. I have known of communities like that in Sarawak as well.

Nevertheless, one could only surmise that it is hard to leave this profession when one has been stepped in it for a few years. The abducted sex slaves are still there, with girls forced to work against their will. But it is very plausible that many women continue to work at this trade on their own accord.

For one thing, life is good, and money is easy, while the good time lasts...

Most women would find their way into this business from very poor background. Many would have been abandoned with children to feed. Some would have run away from broken homes with a history of domestic violence or sexual violation from close kin. Almost without exception, they have not had much education, or any exposure to better opportunities that middle-class ladies would take for granted.

Life offers little

This is the only way they can share in the good life, a good life that has been exemplified in the lifestyle of their clients and their pimps. With the cynical social environment in which they live and move, they are more than likely to be reinforced in their fatalistic attitude towards living life in the present.

One such lady I happen to know makes from RM8000 to RM10,000 a month. I asked her about her future. She told me the chance of her marrying is nil. Good reliable men who have not yet married would not be able to afford her "lifestyle', she told me. Those who could would have a family already, and would not want somebody like her as a wife anyway. She was saving up to open her own business, when she would be past her prime, and no longer be marketable.

Obviously, their life offers little in terms of career path, promotion and financial security. It is also a life that carries high risks of being entangled with psychotic clients, the underworld, the pimps, the enforcers and the police. And now there is this Aids scare.

In a world of prejudices, I suppose I am entitled to mine as well. I do think that this prudish business of blaming the ills of the world on the sexual temptation of the female gender is a bit much. The temptation often has its source in the minds of those men, who, like the women they make prostitutes, are but victims of the unsatisfactory human condition in which we find ourselves.