Brazil to U.S.: Keep Your Money

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Beestie

I'm not personally interested in debating whether legalized sex for hire raises or lowers the HIV infection rate.
...
Is it possible that the premise is incorrect? Is that a debatable subject or am I stupid and wrong for even presuming to ask?

I guess you're interested now. And yes, it is debatable. In fact, that is the subject of the thread.

Personally, I think that legal prostitution with health benefits and regulations is a good thing. Complaining that unregulated prostitution will still exist is like saying alcohol should be illegal because there will still be poisonous bootleg alcohol available even if alcohol were legalized. That's true, but the legal stuff will be safer, for both customer and provider.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Personally, I think that legal prostitution with health benefits and regulations is a good thing.

That's not the question. The question is simply does legalizing prostitution raise or lower the AIDS infection rate - all other variables equal.

I read the studies cited by jag and found the connection between the legality or illegality of prostitution to be tenuous. Thailand, where prostitution has been legal since before the AIDS epidemic, had the highest rate of AIDS infection in the world (outside of Africa). Only after the government made AIDS prevention a public policy matter with a massive budget did the rate go down. Public policy programs (awareness/prevention/treatment) are NOT limited to environments where prostitution is legal.

And until someone explains why many countries in Latin America where prostitution is illegal have a fraction of the AIDS rate of Latin American countries where prostitution is legal then I will continue to assert that there is reason to question the claim that legalizing it lowers it.

I honestly can't be sure what effect legalized prostitution has on the rate of AIDS infection and nothing I've seen in this thread other than a lot of wishful thinking, selective evidence picking and ignoring data that refutes the hypothesis justifies a conclusion either way.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Beestie

That's not the question. The question is simply does legalizing prostitution raise or lower the AIDS infection rate - all other variables equal.

Does anyone know which came first, the higher AIDS rates or the legalized prostitution?