Oldest profession

Prostitute

Femmes de Maison, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, c. 1893–95
Occupation
Names	Women: whore, hooker, call girl, business girl (B-girl), streetwalker, trollop, strumpet, courtesan, escort, lady of the evening, working girl, doxy, scarlet woman, harlot, drab Men: Rent boy, male escort, gigolo, lad model, gent of the night, sporting boy, weeping willy Female clients: janes, sugar mamas Male clients: johns
Activity sectors	Sex industry
Description
Competencies	Physical attractiveness, seduction skills, interpersonal skills. Male prostitutes usually require an ability to maintain an erection.
Related jobs	Stripper, porn actor

Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment either as money, goods, services, or some other benefit agreed upon by the transacting parties. Prostitution is sometimes described as commercial sex or hooking.

Depending on the jurisdiction, prostitution law may deem commercial sex to be legal or illegal. A person who works in this field is called a prostitute, and is a type of sex worker. Prostitution is one branch of the sex industry, along with pornography, stripping, and erotic dancing.

The legal status of prostitution varies from country to country (sometimes from region to region within a given country), ranging from being permissible but unregulated, to an enforced or unenforced crime, or a regulated profession. It is sometimes referred to euphemistically as "the world's oldest profession" in the English-speaking world. Estimates place the annual revenue generated by prostitution worldwide to be over $100 billion.

Prostitution occurs in a variety of forms. Brothels are establishments specifically dedicated to prostitution. In escort prostitution, the act may take place at the client's residence or hotel room (referred to as out-call), or at the escort's residence or a hotel room rented for the occasion by the escort (in-call). Another form is street prostitution. Although the majority of prostitutes are female and have male clients, a prostitute can be, and have clients, of any gender or sexual orientation.

There are about 42 million prostitutes in the world, living all over the world (though most of Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa lacks data, studied countries in that large region rank as top sex tourism destinations).Sex tourism refers to the practice of traveling to engage in sexual relations with prostitutes in other countries. Some rich clients may pay for long-term contracts that may last for years.