PROSTITUTION LEGALIZATION PRIMER
(A Public Service Announcement from Suburra Publishing.)
Myth #4
Prostitution spreads disease.
This is primarily the product of criminalization. In the many areas of the world where prostitution is legal, prostitutes are regulated and required to be tested regularly. Even in America, where criminalization keeps them from support services, professional sex workers are highly aware of sexually transmitted diseases and know how to spot and avoid them much better than the average woman.
In a 1988 study of 78 call girls in New York City, whose average length of prostitution was five years and whose median amount of sexual partners in the prior year was 200, none tested positive for AIDS.
The dangers from sexually transmitted diseases are frequently exaggerated for political reasons by those on the left and those on the right. The left uses alarmism to promote safe sex programs and the right uses it to damn sex.
The importance of condoms and the gravity of diseases like AIDS are considerable. However, the following chart shows just how rare HIV transferal from unprotected heterosexual sex is. If accurate odds of contraction were known in the 1980s it is questionable AIDS would have spearheaded the massive moral backlash against non-marital sex.
|
Estimated Risk for Acquisition of HIV Per Act |
|
|
Exposure Route |
Estimated infections per 10,000 exposures to an infected source |
|
Blood Transfusion |
9,000 |
|
Childbirth |
2,500 |
|
Needle-Sharing Injection |
67 |
|
Receptive Anal Intercourse* |
50 |
|
Percutaneous needle stick |
30 |
|
Receptive Penile-Vaginal Intercourse* |
10 |
|
Insertive Anal Intercourse* |
6.5 |
|
Insertive Penile-Vaginal Intercourse* |
5 |
|
Receptive Fellatio* |
1 |
|
Insertive Fellatio* |
0.5 |
|
* assuming no condom use |
|
Information taken from You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos, Book I by Robert R. Arthur. Detailed documentation of sources can be found therein.
Page last modified August 29, 2007.