The "Money" in Sex

This piece by Amit Varma on victimless crimes reminds me of something I've been thinking of recently about illegal prostitution.

Like I wrote earlier on this blog, there's no such thing called free sex. Sex has costs, just like any other thing, not all of it is monetary - emotional baggage, burden of relationship, so on. But money can (and often is) used to incentivise sex between two consenting adults (think flowers, booze, etc) none of this is considered a crime. But when money changes hands directly - without flowers intervening for example - it suddenly becomes a crime. Hypocrisy? not a new term for governance is it?

Medical Prostitution?

During the days of recent the spilitzer scandal, A reader of Andrew Sullivan's site asked, Why can't there be "medical Prostitution". That is, prostitution be legal for medical requirements. After all, in some states in the U.S. have legalized Marijuana for medicinal use.

This report from TOI confirms that Sullvan's reader definitely has a case,

According to a research from Queen’s University in Belfast, a good morning session at least three times a week, decreases the risk of heart attack or stroke by half and a regular session improves circulation, thereby reducing blood pressure.

According to a study in New Scientist, a steamy session twice a week enhances IgA, an antibody that provides protection against microbes that multiply in body secretions, reports the ‘Sun’. Morning sex also helps in alleviating arthritis and migraine. It burns around 300 calories an hour that simultaneously diminishes the risk of developing diabetes.

Moreover, an American study involving 300 sexually active women whose partners did not use condoms revealed that they were less prone to depression.

Sex increases the production of testosterone that provides stronger bones and muscles thus helping to stave off osteoporosis.

A good morning session can make the hair shine and skin glow by raising the output of oestrogen and other hormones which are associated with it.

According to Yale School of Medicine researchers, having morning sex can aid in averting endometriosis, a condition where the tissue that normally lines the uterus, grows in other parts of the pelvis. [link]

Best form of exercise too.. maybe prostitution joints can pretend to be gyms.

Pimping Morals

The American politico-blogosphere is going crazy over the Eliot Splitzer story, virtually every U.S. blog I read has a post on the New York Governor's involvement in an international prostitution ring. The Governor, a democrat, will step down from his job next week.

If something like this happened in Sri Lanka, (like a few years ago when a government deputy minister was caught in the infamous Liberty Plaza brothel, who later explained he went there to have tea) it would be an almost non-story, finding itself space only in perhaps the satire pages of Sri Lankan news papers without even their name being mentioned .

But wait, aren't we supposed to be morally superior to these yankee-pankie Americans? we are of course. Just that, our strategy is to pretend stuff like this never happens. Which I'm down with, by the way.

Thankfully, spitzer's scandal has opened the debate on legalizing prostitution. It's time the Sri Lankan lawmakers accept the reality of their own moral standing and legalize prostitution here as well no?

Who knows, it might even solve the 'abductions' problem.

Sex, for a good cause

The term "Commercial Sex Work" doesn't cut it any more.

A Chilean prostitute has auctioned 27 hours of sex to raise money for the country's largest charity during an annual fund-raising campaign.

Maria Carolina became an overnight celebrity in the conservative Roman Catholic country, making news headlines and appearing on talk shows since she made her unusual donation to the televised charity event, which runs for 27 hours starting on Friday evening.

"I've already auctioned off the 27 hours of love," Maria Carolina told Reuters on Wednesday, saying she had raised about $4,000. "One of my clients already paid. It seemed like a good deed to him. [More..]

[via Indiauncut]