Economics, not morality, controls the sex business

• Source: Global Times
• [23:14 November 30 2009]
• Comments

By Rose Helin

Is it a path to empowerment, or the epitome of degradation? The wages of sin, or a woman's democratic right to profit from her own body?

The debate over the morality (or immorality) of prostitution is a debate as old as the profession itself.

I'm not going to debate that here, because philosophical deductions and good intentions are not going to sway Adam Smith's invisible hand. In tackling the realities of the sex trade, the facts of economics have more relevance than abstract moralizing.

Where significant demand exists, supply will inevitably follow. The currentillegality of prostitution not only has not eradicated it, it has not even made it discreet. In China it's highly visible, from red lights in massage parlors and "barbershops" to street solicitations to the inevitable 11 pm phone call any single man receives when staying in a hotel. In the news, there was an incredible 900-person party bust in the not too distant past.

With estimates on the number of prostitutes in China running from 4 to 20 million, and a population reacting to one of history's most dramatic imbalances in gender distribution, prostitution won't be wished away any time soon.

Beyond the moral abhorrence that many feel for loose sexual relations, there are arguments that prostitution should be illegal because of the public health risks associated with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis, and HIV/AIDS.

While these are real problems and promiscuous sex is a real contributor to them, it's a facile conclusion to say that outlawing prostitution will eradicate either prostitution or its associated risks. An analogous situation is that of Prohibition in the US during the 1920s and 1930s, during which alcohol production, transport, and sale was made illegal under the assumption that they caused social ills like poverty and domestic violence.

While the intentions were arguably good ones, Prohibition didn't alleviate domestic strife and it didn't stop the consumption of alcohol. It did, however, create a massive wave of violent organized crime that profi ted from
supplying it.