Immoral Support Services for Prostitution

[Snowcatpa]

[color=purple]I have been working with a support group for those involved in prostitution for a few months now and have been learning a lot about the reality of life that faces those working on the streets. The support organization is a Christian one and does a lot of wonderful things for these [mostly] women and their families. However, I am the only Catholic, I believe, that volunteers or works there, and found myself taken aback with some of their support methods.

Namely, on their outreach programs, they disperse clean needles and condoms. As a Catholic, I know that we believe this is not morally licit, for it is never permissible to commit a sin in order to achieve a 'good' end. The ends do not justify the means.

I've decided to write an essay of sorts on this for a university course but am having difficulty finding specific information about the morality/legality/practicality of using condoms and clean needles [b]as it specifically relates to prostitutes leaving the trade and regaining control over their lives[/b] [particularly prostitutes who are on the streets because of a drug habit and conditions of poverty]. I am looking for good arguments and reasons against using them...but the majority of things I find are about regulating prostitution and how condoms and clean needles [b]help[/b] prostitutes to gain control over their bodies and lives and off the streets. [main reasonings being - their already terrible situation isn't compounded by an unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, like AIDs, et al -- it's stupid and impractical to argue from a lofty moral position something that is not going to practically help anybody or the institution of prostitution].

I feel like I could find information about how condoms don't work that well [in addition to being morally illicit], and make a good case for not distributing clean needles, but [i]as far as how these two factors actaully help prostitutes get off the streets and in control of their lives[/i]...I'm a little lost.

If anyone can point me to any resources on this issue, from a Catholic or any perspective that helps argue for this position, I would be greatly appreciative!

Much love in Christ[/color]

[Fides_et_Ratio]

wait... are the clean needles for drugs? that's only encouraging the use of drugs! utterly pointless... pointless...

[avemaria40]

There are many prostitutes who are teen runaways, sex slaves, and women who feel degraded or are addicted to drugs. The solution isn't condoms and clean needles! they need their dignity back!

Personally, I find the whole thing idiotic, especially when they argue this policy when the fact is many women are addicted to drugs and only do this to fund their habit, or are runaways or are forced into it by slavery! Or they are so poor that this is the only way for them to pay for their families! Get them out of prostitution and put them in therapy, I was even n a website that was unbiased completely about sexuality, (gave equal advice about contraception, NFP, and abstinence, etc.) and even that said that prostitution was deviant and if you did it, you should be in therapy.

how can they promote a promiscous lifestyle in which many of these women and children are forced into it (physically or by desperation), where you can still get pregnant or an STD even with condom use, where many women will be more likely to get cervical cancer, and with drugs that are dangerous contaminated or not? Not to mention harmful emotional and psychological side effects it could have. And what about women who are abused by the ones they work for?

Edited January 5, 2006 by avemaria40

[Nathan]

Handing out condoms and syringes is just enabling these poor women to continue living the very lifestyle that is destroying them.

[Cure of Ars]

I don’t think that the researchers are asking the questions that you are asking. They take it as a given that giving condoms and needles will reduce HIV they never question if it will help them break away from prostitution.


I would start by placing prostitution as an element of addiction. I think this article would support this view;

[url="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7950854&dopt=Citation"]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...4&dopt=Citation[/url]


Then I would argue that giving condoms and needles act as cues or triggers that make relapse into prostitution more likely.


[quote]Addictive behaviors do have special characteristics related to the social contexts in which they originate. All of the environmental cues surrounding initial drug use and development of the addiction actually become "conditioned" to that drug use and are thus critical to the development and expression of addiction. Environmental cues are paired in time with an individual's initial drug use experiences and, through classical conditioning, take on conditioned stimulus properties. When those cues are present at a later time, they elicit anticipation of a drug experience and thus generate tremendous drug craving. [b]Cue-induced craving is one of the most frequent causes of drug use relapses, even after long periods of abstinence, independently of whether drugs are available.[/b][/quote]

[url="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:t_SG4hrKp9MJ:www.csam-asam.org/PDFFiles/brain%2520disease.pdf+addiction+cues+triggers"]http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr...n+cues+triggers[/url]


I would then argue, that like treatment for addition, treatment of prostitution should try to teach people to avoid the triggers and cues that will lead to use again, not encourage it.

You should be able to find lots of research on triggers in addiction treatment. I hope this helps. God bless

Edited January 6, 2006 by Cure of Ars

[Snowcatpa]

[quote name='avemaria40' date='Jan 5 2006, 05:54 PM']Get them out of prostitution and put them in therapy, I was even n a website that was unbiased completely about sexuality, (gave equal advice about contraception, NFP, and abstinence, etc.) and even that said that prostitution was deviant and if you did it, you should be in therapy. 

how can they promote a promiscous lifestyle in which many of these women and children are forced into it (physically or by desperation), where you can still get pregnant or an STD even with condom use,
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[color=purple]I share your anger too at the injustice of it all, avemaria, but we know that it is complicated. Many of these women, especially those that have already been contacted by support groups like the one I work for, are in therapy...or at least a form of it. These women have responsibilities, jobs, children, and addictions...and pulling them out of society for a full-time therapy program is impractical financially, physically and emotionally for the majority of them. Separating them from their present society to keep them out of prostitution can often be even more harmful...because they are deprived of many positive factors that help them reorient their lives [access to their children, for example]. [Although granted, their homes are surrounded by baggage, patterns and triggers that are extremely unhealthy for them as well]

Prostitution may be deviant behavior, but you admitted as well that most of the women in prostitution are not there because they like selling their bodies. They have addictions which impair their judgments, relationships which abuse and degrade them, and extreme financial and personal stress.

Those who provide support services for those in the sex trade do not think they are encouraging or promoting immoral behavior. They are trying to be nonjudgmental, and help the women they have grown to care about very deeply in any way that they can.

In their logic, it makes perfect sense that when you disperse condoms and clean needles, you are preventing disease [a good thing] and enabling them to have a bit of security while they are still trying to work out the problems that chaotically run their lives.

We know this logic doesn't make sense, or else, as others have put it, we should say:

* Don't drink and drive...but if you do, wear a seatbelt!
* Don't have an abortion...but if you do, insist they anesthetise the baby.
* Well if you're going to kill someone, do it when his children arn't looking as to spare them the years of emotional pain and therapy
* If you cheat on your wife, use a hooker rather than a friend that way her feelings wouldn't be so hurt
* Don't steal money from anyone. But if you do, do it by credit card fraud so they get reimbursed

Those who are well-intended in this field, I think, view our position, firm in logic and Christian teachings, as highly moralistic and impractical. That God would understand the need to prevent at least some evil if you can't prevent it all...or as you work to stop other evils in other ways [legislatively, helping prostitutes find counsellers and pay their bills, giving them healthy food, etc.]

That's why it's so important to find ways to argue the immorality of these support services with both the above logic and practical proof. We know it must exist, because God would not have made a world where those who find themselves in this situation can be solved best by using condoms and clean drug needles, which go against His teachings and will for the dignity of all mankind. We just have to find it. [/color]

[Snowcatpa]

[quote name='Cure of Ars' date='Jan 6 2006, 12:12 AM']I don’t think that the researchers are asking the questions that you are asking.  They take it as a given that giving condoms and needles will reduce HIV they never question if it will help them break away from prostitution.
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[color=purple]I couldn't agree with you more! As I said, it's been very difficult to find research on if condoms and clean needles help prostitutes break away from their trade.

Your suggestion was really helpful. By talking about prostitution as an element of addiction (the majority, at least in this area, are there because of a drug habit), having condoms and clean needles available would make it easier to justify to themselves that its ok to prostitute yourself because you're doing it in a safer way. They then act as cues or triggers to allow this to take place after drug use as well.

I'll definitely look into this argument and see if I can bring in any research about that to argue my case.

Many thanks [/color]