One last note on the whole Spitzer affair. The reason I think it's dangerous to use the sexual habits of other species (or even other human cultures) as a baseline when discussing prostitution is that the evolutionary argument has very clear policy implications. If, as David Barash argued, sexual infidelity is not only natural but normal and inescapable, then you'd have a strong argument for the legalization of prostitution. (Let's call this the Netherlands model.) After all, why criminalize what can't be helped?
However, if you believe that our sexual urges, while powerful, can still be checked - we have a prefrontal cortex for a reason - you might be inclined to endorse a prostitution policy more in line with Sweden. Nicholas Kristof explains:
The Netherlands formally adopted the legalization model in 2000, and there were modest public health benefits for the licensed prostitutes. But legalization nurtured a large sex industry and criminal gangs that trafficked underage girls, and so trafficking, violence and child prostitution flourished rather than dying out.As a result, the Netherlands is now backtracking on its legalization model by closing some brothels, and other countries, like Bulgaria, are backing away from that approach.
In contrast, Sweden experimented in 1999 with a radically different approach that many now regard as much more successful: it decriminalized the sale of sex but made it a crime to buy sex. In effect, the policy was to arrest customers, but not the prostitutes.
Some Swedish prostitutes have complained that the policy reduced demand and thus lowered prices, while forcing sex work underground. But the evidence is strong that the new approach reduced trafficking in Sweden, and opinion polls show that Swedes regard the experiment as a considerable success. And the bottom line is that if you want to rape a 13-year-old girl imported from Eastern Europe, you'll have a much easier time in Amsterdam than in Stockholm.
A growing number of other countries are pursuing the Swedish model. South Korea had a vast trafficking industry in the 1990s, but a crackdown has led Korean gangs to traffic girls to California instead -- because pimping teenagers there is seen as safer and more profitable than at home.
The reason Sweden's policy seems to be more effective is that it targets the demand side of the equation. It turns out that, by altering the incentives at work, you can even change decisions about sex. Sure, the cheap sperm of men ensures that we're naturally randy and horny. But this doesn't mean we are powerless to resist our primitive impulses. Even the horniest of men will think twice before embarking on a crime that will land them in jail.
Politics
Comments (13)
Intersting point on Sweden/Netherlands. I've seen a few variations on the "Legalization = more trafficing" argument, but haven't seen is spelled out quite as clearly.
A side point is that prostitution may need to be heavily regulated, as opposed to simply "allowed". I admit though, that I'd need to see more evidence of the sort of regulations and enforcement done in places where prostitution is legalized to see if that's an option.
As with a lot of similar "vice" crimes, my interest is not in preserving morality as much as reducing the dangers caused by those actions. I.e. with prostitution, the exploitation of women, related crime, addiction, violence, human trafficking and the spread of STDs are all serious problems that need to be addressed. How best to minimize those dangers is IMHO an open question that may have no "right" answer.
Finally, one problem I have with the Evolutionary Psychology issue is that it seems to miss key elements of evolution: i.e. diversity and fitness relative to the environment. So to say that infidelity is universal ignored the likelihood that there's lots of variation between individuals as to desired mating behaviors (lifelong monogamy, serial monogamy, polygamy/polyandry, bigamy, polyamoury, homosexuality, rape...) and that those behaviors might be affected by the environment (availability of mates, legislation, cultural taboos).
Thus changing the laws to favor certain kinds of relationships changes the environment in which those behaviours exist in, and might over time change the prevalence of those behaviours.
Posted by: Left_Wing_Fox | March 13, 2008 11:02 AM