Should prostitution be legalized

Sociology - Sex & AIDS

ETHICAL and SOCIOLOGICAL ISSUES of LEGALIZED PROSTITUTION

According to virtually every available historical record, prostitution has existed in some form, to the extent that it has been ubiquitous and likely pre-date all of recorded human history. In most societies, prostitution is associated with negative labels and social alienation. The sexual revolution of the late 20th century improved life for many women by lessening gender-based stigmas against autonomous sexual expression outside of the confines of the traditional social institution of marriage. On the other hand, it did comparatively little in the way of changing the degree to which prostitution is still perceived as a form of both social and criminal deviance.

Substantial evidence implicates prostitution as a conduit for sexually transmitted diseases (STD) such as HIV / AIDS, as well as criminal enterprises and a blight on the rest of the communities on the social fringes of which it exists. However, various approaches already incorporated into the social framework of two American states and several European countries suggest that it may be possible to extract those elements of prostitution whose demand in human society is too strong to expect outright prohibition ever to be successful.

Proponents of legalized prostitution maintain that, at least in principle, it should be possible address the factors responsible for the genuine potential harms to society represented by prostitution from those that are merely vestiges of earlier social definitions, gender norms, and concepts of sexual deviance. Regardless of which position the most logical analysis supports, it would be most beneficial to conduct that inquiry by differentiating between objective analysis of fact and subjective, socially- biased perspectives about sexual issues and gender roles that are substantially attributable to social convention.

The Argument Against Legalizing Prostitution:

One of the principle reasons that Sub-Saharan Africa nations have developed the highest rates of HIV / AIDS infection in the world is that, unlike in the Western Hemisphere, transmission is substantially from married heterosexual males to their wives (Ainsworth, 2000; Baleta, 1998). The primary route of HIV / AIDS transmission in Africa is from infected prostitutes along the main roads and truck routes (Padian, 2000).

In the United States, prostitution is typically associated with organized crime, illicit drug abuse, violence, and STD transmission.

In that regard, prostitutes are disproportionately at risk of drug addiction, alcoholism, and serious physical assault; they also require a dedication of law enforcement efforts, manpower, resources, and funding.

While legalization might reduce the necessary commitment of law enforcement authorities related directly to its enforcement, that could increase the freedom to conduct other illicit activities on the part of those who run legalized prostitution operations.

Likewise, establishing legal prostitution establishment could provide ideal shelters for unreported income and myriad other criminal activities of varying degrees of seriousness.

Among those recommending against legalization, the belief is that the elimination of prostitution would directly reduce all the forms of criminal activity that it fosters, as well as STD transmission in society. In that regard, opponents of legalized prostitution consider it the only realistic method of reducing the high transmission rates on the African continent.

The Argument for Legalizing Prostitution:

It is indisputable, even by proponents of legalized prostitution that prostitution, in its current form is associated with other types of crimes, substance abuse, victimization of women, and STD transmission. However, if one were to have examined the issue of legalizing alcohol during the Prohibition era of early-20th century, the facts would have suggested that the alcohol trade and consumption was detrimental to society in very much the same ways that prostitution, in its most common form in the U.S., is a cause of social problems in American society (Dershowitz, 2002).

In retrospect, it was actually the doctrine of alcohol prohibition that accounted for the rise of a powerful and well-funded criminal underground (Dershowitz, 2002). In fact, the very phrase underground derives from the earliest illegal alcohol trade in Chicago by criminal enterprises that exploited the infrastructure of the city after the city's late 19th- century and early 20th-century rebuilding and elevation in the decades following the Chicago Fire of 1871.

During the Prohibition era in the 1920s and early 1930s, it was precisely the illegalization of a "vice" whose underlying demand was impossible to eliminate that enabled the emergence and rapid expansion of criminal organizations throughout the biggest cities in several East Coast and Midwestern states like Illinois, Michigan, and New York. The profitability of the illegal trade in alcohol was almost solely attributable to its illegal status despite great continued public demand.

Certainly, the demand for prostitution services is less openly acknowledged than the demand for alcohol, but that is strictly a function of the social stigmatization of patronizing prostitutes and also its fundamental incompatibility with the social institution of marriage. In that respect, customers of prostitutes tend to attempt to do so secretly, but for many of the same reasons people tend to maintain other sexual relationships outside of traditional marriage secretly. It is the fears of negative consequences such as social alienation and labeling that accounts for its secretiveness at least as much as any concern of its illegal status.

On closer examination, the situation in Africa that accounts for such a high rate of STD transmission through prostitution is distinguishable because of the fact that condom use is completely contradictory to the manner in which certain African cultures socialize males to express themselves sexually. For example, African gender norms with respect to the physical act of sex encourage extramarital sex for males, while sexual mores strongly discourage contraception and encourage specific sexual desires among males for the very sexual behaviors that are associated with the greatest risk of STD transmission (Padian, 2000).

It is the combination of such gender norms with mores about extramarital sex directly contribute to the highly-efficient spread of HIV / AIDS in African countries.

Specifically, whereas sex is a means of expressing masculinity in both African and non-

African cultures, in Africa, males consider sexual intercourse that causes bleeding in the woman to be a sign of virility (Baleta, 1998; Padian, 2000).

In that regard, African women often use natural herbs applied topically to prevent any vaginal lubrication during sex with their husbands to please them (Padian, 2000). In other parts of Africa, the same underlying concerns gave rise to the brutal practice of female circumcision by the non-anesthetized crude surgical removal of the clitoris from females during early childhood (Padian, 2000).

Therefore, while prostitution may be the most likely source of exposure of males to STD transmission, it is the learned social rejection of condoms in conjunction with beliefs about the definition of masculinity within sexual expression that makes initial STD exposure virtually certain to guarantee STD transmission from infected males to uninfected females who are not engaged in prostitution. In fact, the experience with legalized prostitution, both domestically and abroad demonstrate that the link between prostitution and STD transmission is fully capable of being redressed by the properly administrated institution of legalized prostitution (Dershowitz, 2002).

In Holland, prostitution has been legal for decades, and instead of continuing to be a blight on society, the manner in which it is regulated and controlled by government authorities demonstrates how much some of the arguments opposing its legalization in the U.S. is more attributable to irrational fears and the persistence of numerous social mores that manifest themselves in negative characterizations, labeling, and stigmatizing definitions of deviance.

In Holland, prostitution is strictly limited to specific areas to reduce any unwanted exposure in society; safe sex practices and regular STD screening are both required by law; and the entire industry is regulated in the same manner as other legal professions.

As a result, there is virtually no transmission of STDs associated with the legal prostitution trade. That is not to say that certain social stigmas are completely foreign as pertains to women who work in the sex industry in Holland, but in so far as justifying the rational objections to legalized prostitution, that is inconsequential; the objective concern relating to human health has been effectively addressed by legalizing prostitution.