The Debate between Prostitution and Drugs
The debate between prostitution and drugs has been raging on for a long time now, with the main argument seemingly being that many turn to prostitution in order to fund their drug habit. Prostitution can be defined as being “the performance of acts of non-marital sex as a vocation” (author, date, p29). In short, it is the exchanging of sexual acts for money and therein lies its controversy: some nations, such as The Netherlands, have created laws which allow prostitution to be legalised but many more have refused to do so, leading to prostitution being classified as something which greatly reduces the moral fibre of a society.
In truth, its complete impact upon society and its moral fibre is something which cannot be quantified: “the encouragement of hypocrisy by outlawing a trade that is nonetheless covertly allowed to continue may be just as, or more, damaging to a social system than the tolerance of lawful prostitution” (author, date, p52). Based on this view, it is clear that prostitution does cause a paradoxical lowering of morals in society and this, in turn, indicates that the relation between prostitution and drugs (as well as other morally-reducing factors) is palpable.
It is worth clarifying that drug use fits into two categories: recreational users and users who life focuses on their use of such materials (author, date, p78). It is the latter which addresses the use of drugs in conjunction with prostitution and it is the shared lack of interest in morals which these two social issues have that causes them to become so closely linked. In many cases, it is prostitution which allows the individuals in question to gain quick cash in order to propagate their continued drug-focused existence. Equally, because of their shared lack of legality, it is nigh on impossible to garner reliable data on whether the two are inter-connected or not and it is their lack of moral fibre, in either case, that allows them to become so intrinsically linked. In terms of a definition, ‘drugs’ can refer to both good and bad things: “depending on which drugs, who is taking them, the conditions under which they are taken, and a host of other more personal reasons” (author, date, p62). When the conditions are illegal and contraband, then drugs are an extremely bad aspect of society which greatly depletes the level of scruples in society. However, under the same guise, it is important to note that legal drugs also do a great deal of good in society.
The aforementioned hypocrisy which prostitution and drugs bring to society is, arguably, a greater problem than the acts of drugs and prostitution themselves. In truth, legalising both would greatly reduce their influence in society and would, in all likelihood, reduce the need for one to fund the other. For those whose drug use is at the center of their world, their legalisation would mean a higher level of safety as well as a reduced influx of criminality – assisting in the improvement of society’s ethics. This would be further seen in the opinions of prostitution and drugs too as their stigmas would be removed. It would seem to naturally follow, therefore, that without the increased cost of illegality of one, the other would not be needed.
The links made between drugs and prostitution will continue unabated all the time that they are both illegal and frowned upon within society. The reasons behind prostitution will forever be linked to funding the cost of drugs due to their shared criminal interest. However, it is also clear that there is no easily definable set of data which can prove this since neither drug users nor prostitutes will willingly submit such information. Therefore, the debate between drugs and prostitution will continue to rage on, in spite of their obvious connections.
References
Surname, initial. (year of publication). Title of the book. Place of publication: Publisher.
