Friday, September 26, 2008

Auctioning virginity

After designer babies, surrogate motherhood, this was inevitable in capitalistic society and free-market mechanism. Actually it is not much difference than age old prostitution, what is different is promotion of said act. When we espouse the idea, we must bear the consequences, for there is no half-hearted support for freedom of choice and free market. Any half-measure will struggle to define boundaries and will lead to hijacking by special interest groups.

When Netherland made prostitution legal, it got more control over underground market; could better control trafficking, violence against women and spread of sexual diseases; and was able to raise funds through taxes. However, when business became legal, advertising too became legal. In one alarming case a woman's unemployment benefits were revoked after she refused to work in brothel. If I recall the incident correctly, law required that state provide two opportunities for employment to unemployed and if they don't take any of them, they will not be entitled to unemployment benefits. Sounds fair, after all, when you don't want to work, why should government pay you for free. Except in her case, she was offered prostitution job from database of unemployed available to all business, including brothels, now legal.

See my reflections on related subject on progress of society here (in Hindi).

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