Our bodies belong to God
by Mark Tooley, World:
The growing “sex work”movement does not make it moral.
Prostitution is legal in India, and the country’s Supreme Court recently expanded the rights of “sex workers” (i.e., prostitutes) by defining their profession as one with protected employee rights.
Legitimizing prostitution is a growing cause. And the mainstream media increasingly replace the term with the supposedly more value-neutral “sex work.”
Christians naturally must reject prostitution for theological and ethical reasons—so, too, should believers in natural law and classical liberty. Our faith and liberties are premised on the understanding that our bodies ultimately are not our own but God’s.
According to The Washington Post, prostitution has been legal in India for more than 30 years. Advocates for prostitutes in the country complain, no doubt justifiably, that “sex workers” are commonly abused because of the “ambiguous” nature of their work. By some estimates, there may be 20 million prostitutes in India.
As persons, prostitutes certainly should be protected from cruelty. But trying to legitimize their profession accomplishes the opposite because prostitution is exploitative by its very nature, even when dressed up as legal “sex work.” Activists who combat sex trafficking stress that prostitution rarely involves adult women choosing that work deliberately as a profession. More typical are desperate underage girls coerced into selling their bodies, often by boyfriends who benefit as pimps. By the time these young women or men become legal adults, they are already captive, compounded by addictions to drugs and alcohol, often reinforced by threats of violence. Legalization and polite language for “sex workers” don’t change this reality.
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