If having multiple sexual encounters can save lives, monogamy can be deadly.Consider a country like India where almost all women are monogamous but a lot of men are clearly not. These men are usually serviced by a few prostitutes or as Chanakya called them- ganikas. Considering the fact that so few prostitutes service such a numerically large clientèle, the chances of them getting AIDS is extremely high and the industry being a banned and unregulated one-the chances of these ganikas spreading it is even higher-anybody who is serviced by her after she had got HIV is sure to get it.
Well, there are 2 solutions to this problem and both involve discarding our Victorian morality.
1) If as many monogamous women as the number of men who are not monogamous decide to take atleast one extramarital partner, the requirement for common prostitutes will go down drastically however niche businesses will survive. We as a society are still too intolerant towards logic and rationality to use this solution and this solution itself might be too impractical in the short-term. Therefore, I dont think it will be acceptable.
2) We as a society and our government has to discard Victorian Law about prostitution and make the oldest profession in the world legal. We should listen to Chanakya when he says in the Arthashastra that the state should control the prostitution industry and earn revenue out of it. You might be wondering why I subscribe to this thought of Chanakya despite my long-standing belief in the principle ' The Government has no business to be in business'. The reason I believe that prostitution is an exception is that it has far too many ramifications on the health of the people.
How would state control of the prostitution industry prevent AIDS from spreading?
Just state control wont have a favourable effect for the society as a whole although it will be favourable to the prostitutes. The state control should be accompanied by daily HIV testing, testing for other STDs and also record keeping of all the customers. This allows the health authorities to track down those who might be infected with a high level of accuracy .
Though the second solution will garner a vocal initial opposition, it is the more acceptable of the two ideas.
To a person with a basic knowledge of the theory of demand and supply, it is clear why people with a limited sexual history/past supplies so little sex- their services is under priced.If only such people can easily advertise their histories, HIV concious mates would find them an attractive prospect, but unfortunately it is not possible.
Such people raise the standard of the partner pool just by entering it and reckless people (like Rahul) will lower the standard by entering it.Like in any necessary programme's implementation- there are too many Rahuls and too few Narendras.
The challenge for our society in the face of the AIDS pandemic is to wean the Narendras away from celibacy and/or porn sites and coerce them into performing roles required of them in this fight to prevent the spread of AIDS . I have not been able to think of a plausible solution to this problem .If you ever figure out a solution please write to me about it..
Thank you for reading this post.
Well, there are 2 solutions to this problem and both involve discarding our Victorian morality.
1) If as many monogamous women as the number of men who are not monogamous decide to take atleast one extramarital partner, the requirement for common prostitutes will go down drastically however niche businesses will survive. We as a society are still too intolerant towards logic and rationality to use this solution and this solution itself might be too impractical in the short-term. Therefore, I dont think it will be acceptable.
2) We as a society and our government has to discard Victorian Law about prostitution and make the oldest profession in the world legal. We should listen to Chanakya when he says in the Arthashastra that the state should control the prostitution industry and earn revenue out of it. You might be wondering why I subscribe to this thought of Chanakya despite my long-standing belief in the principle ' The Government has no business to be in business'. The reason I believe that prostitution is an exception is that it has far too many ramifications on the health of the people.
How would state control of the prostitution industry prevent AIDS from spreading?
Just state control wont have a favourable effect for the society as a whole although it will be favourable to the prostitutes. The state control should be accompanied by daily HIV testing, testing for other STDs and also record keeping of all the customers. This allows the health authorities to track down those who might be infected with a high level of accuracy .
Though the second solution will garner a vocal initial opposition, it is the more acceptable of the two ideas.
To a person with a basic knowledge of the theory of demand and supply, it is clear why people with a limited sexual history/past supplies so little sex- their services is under priced.If only such people can easily advertise their histories, HIV concious mates would find them an attractive prospect, but unfortunately it is not possible.
Such people raise the standard of the partner pool just by entering it and reckless people (like Rahul) will lower the standard by entering it.Like in any necessary programme's implementation- there are too many Rahuls and too few Narendras.
The challenge for our society in the face of the AIDS pandemic is to wean the Narendras away from celibacy and/or porn sites and coerce them into performing roles required of them in this fight to prevent the spread of AIDS . I have not been able to think of a plausible solution to this problem .If you ever figure out a solution please write to me about it..
Thank you for reading this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment