Price of Vice

Watch our new series, Price of Vice. Every week on RT Documentary, starting on October 7. Each year the global sex industry rakes in millions of dollars, profiting off prostitution, adult movies, the international sex trade and pornography. But, apart from serving as a breeding ground for all sorts of criminal activities, it exploits people, luring thousands of the underprivileged into the degrading business and treating them as commodities. The RT “Price of Vice” documentary series gives an insight into the world of the oldest trade in Russia. Police officers, psychologists and social activists, and working girls share uncomfortable truths demonstrating the current scale of the problem.

Most women are pushed into prostitution by poverty and social issues, while some join the ranks of ladies of the night in the hope of making quick money and capitalising on their youth and good looks. Calling themselves “escorts” rather than prostitutes, they hope one day to meet a prince or marry a sheikh and leave the trade behind. Others turn to careers in porn, seeking recognition and fame. But both professional paths come with a myriad of social consequences, like alienation from friends and families, health and psychological issues. For some women appearing in the documentary, their work experiences cost them their freedom and almost their lives.

The series also demonstrates how the digital age has changed the face of adult entertainment, pushing it from strip joints and street corners online. Although hiring a night companion is easier than ever, sexual services are not safer or less morally damaging to all parties involved. Watch the Price of Vice to glimpse the ever-darkening world of the sex industry and its practices.