Prostitution in Eorzea

[Cilia]

Many characters make mention of prostitutes, and it does seem to be a fairly accepted practice in Eorzea and on Hydaelyn in general.

Many of the dancers in Ul'dah implicitly get by on prostitution as well. A few instances are scattered about Thanalan as well.
Gegejuru employs courtesans, and one of the lines from a "rough" female Roegadyn retainer is "So - sellin', buyin', drinkin' whorin'? What's it to be today?" There are also wenches in Limsa...
Prostitution doesn't seem to be terribly extant in Gridania.
There are prostitutes in Ala Ghiri, and during the protagonists' first (stealth) foray into the Ala Mhigan Quarter toward the Resonatorium, a couple of Garlean soldiers discuss one of them having hired a local prostitute last night. (Thought they had "comfort women" for that, but I digress...)
It's rather widespread and accepted in the East, with Kugane's Sanjo Hanamachi district being devoted to brothels and records of such establishments existing in Doma. (One SAM quest has the Warrior of Light protecting an important Hingan government official while he's in Kugane, ah, sampling its pleasures... and as everyone knows Yotsuyu used to be a slave at one such establishment.)

I mean... it makes sense when you consider the time period the game world is modeled after. Prostitution was legal up through the Renaissance; in fact it was one of the few ways single women could make a living. (See Ezio's Assassin's Creed games; courtesans are not looked down on and actually used as a resource, and his sister takes ownership of a brothel during Brotherhood.) It wasn't until religious reforms pushed for outlawing the practice that prostitution became looked down upon and, eventually, illegal. In the East it was common during the Sengoku era, which both Hingashi and Doma are modeled on.

The problem isn't really the prostitution itself, but the human trafficking that tends to fuel it, such as Yotsuyu's case. It's one thing to go into the profession either because you have no other options or of your own free will; it's another to be forced into it, either through being abducted or sold to a brothel. We do fight against human traffickers, and that practice does seem to be illegal and rejected by society, regardless of whether or not people get away with it.

[Alacran]

The problem isn't really the prostitution itself, but the human trafficking that tends to fuel it, such as Yotsuyu's case. It's one thing to go into the profession either because you have no other options or of your own free will; it's another to be forced into it, either through being abducted or sold to a brothel. We do fight against human traffickers, and that practice does seem to be illegal and rejected by society, regardless of whether or not people get away with it.

Aye, glad to see someone making that distinction. Human trafficking and forced slavery are introduced early in the game as early as the first dungeon Sastasha, again similar themes are brought up in the Arcanist questline. Leaving Limsa, one need only look to lore of Dark Knights to understand depravity some members of the Ishgardian clergy adhered to, to say nothing of what happened in false investigations carried out during Inquisitions, see the quest for entry to Dusk Vigil: For all the nights to come. Focusing on War crimes committed/ atrocities by both Garlemald and the Corpse Brigade (former Ala Mhigan royal army and personal butchers of the king of ruin), one can say the people of Gry Aabnia know all to well this disgusting and tragic distinction.

Prostitution chosen as an occupation is rarely done so willingly, but being kidnapped, sold, and held against ones will is a whole other abhorrent issue especially so when it involves children.

I for one think Hien was very much in the wrong, and it greatly lessened him in my eyes. Gosetsu was in the right to ask. "You speak of sins my lord, but at who'a feet do those sins lie?"

[FJerome]

The problem isn't really the prostitution itself, but the human trafficking that tends to fuel it, such as Yotsuyu's case. It's one thing to go into the profession either because you have no other options or of your own free will; it's another to be forced into it, either through being abducted or sold to a brothel. We do fight against human traffickers, and that practice does seem to be illegal and rejected by society, regardless of whether or not people get away with it.

There's a slight cultural/historical dissonance going on here in that prostitution didn't carry the same stigma in Historical Japan that it did in Historical Europe and a daughter going into the sex trade to pay a family's debts was seen as a filial sacrifice and actually somewhat respectable. If she managed to pay off the debt she could transition into the "normal" life of a wife and mother without much issue.

Her family selling Yotsuyu to a brothel wasn't that much worse than their earlier act of selling her into a very young marriage to an abusive spouse.

[Cilia]

Prostitution chosen as an occupation is rarely done so willingly, but being kidnapped, sold, and held against ones will is a whole other abhorrent issue especially so when it involves children.

I agree on the latter point, but some women did choose to be prostitutes during certain time periods. While this isn't reflected on Hydaelyn, oftentimes single women had little choice but to be a prostitute or a nun in the approximate equivalent real-world time period. Hydaelyn is very gender-equal compared to what the real world was like - craftswomen and female soldiers abound - but it wasn't like that in the real world. Patriarchy was real back then, not the silly issues people complain about these days... but I digress.

Point is, unmarried women often did enter sex work before prostitution was outlawed, since it was the one of the few ways they could support themselves, and sex workers weren't looked down upon until religious reforms pushed for its outlawing.

I for one think Hien was very much in the wrong, and it greatly lessened him in my eyes. Gosetsu was in the right to ask. "You speak of sins my lord, but at who'a feet do those sins lie?"

As I recall the context of that was more or less Gosetsu using flowery language to persuade Hien not to kill [Yo]Tsuyu by telling him the soldiers who carried out her orders are just as guilty as she. You raise a valid point, but that's an inherent flaw of collectivist cultures - the needs and desires of the individual are set aside in favor of the needs and desires of the collective (family, community, country, etc).

Her family selling Yotsuyu to a brothel wasn't that much worse than their earlier act of selling her into a very young marriage to an abusive spouse.

The ultimate problem with that is that is still made a monster - one whose trauma and reason for being can be sympathized with, but who needed to be stopped all the same. As long as cultural practices like that exist, Doma will simply remain a breeding ground for the next Yotsuyu, waiting for an opportunity to seize power and rain down their revenge because its culture dehumanized them.

Now I'm not saying that Doma is at fault for Yotsuyu - that's mostly her family - or that individualism is strictly better than collectivism - it comes with its own host of problems one need look no further than Ul'dah to see, but had someone simply asked Yotsuyu what she wanted... perhaps that tragedy could have been avoided. But, y'know... patriarchy, the real kind, and cultural stuff. What's done is done, and it just needs to be learned from.