The collective sexuality of the nation is still very Victorian, and now moving toward worse Victorian. Moral judgments around sex are such that sex is near dead beyond the instinctive “itch” that gets tittered about by frustrated women or blustered about by equally frustrated men.
I think we need to accept that sex exists, lots of people enjoy it and that it is not all that evil. In the next budget the government could have more alternatives to fleece the population than raising taxes on cigarettes alone. We need a legitimate sex industry. Give people loads of jobs, earn money in taxes, and so on. Win. Win.
- Legitimize everything to do with prostitution. Enforce policing against child prostitution and other exploitative practices – you will now have the budget for it as well as legal businesses interested in maintaining legal status.
- This means everyone from pimps to brothel owners are legal. Regulate them on how services should be advertized, living standards to be maintained where applicable, consent of sex workers to be paramount.
- Enforce police protections for prostitutes. If a person can be arrested for assaulting a prostitute, that goes a far longer way to making lives of prostitutes better and reducing exploitation than hiding prostitutes under some socio-political carpet.
- Encourage sex related services beyond prostitution – education services for safe sex, coaching for better sexual skills, etc
- Legalize production of porn and sex toys and accessories and adult-only sex shops. Will give jobs to countless people. People buy their sex toys covertly anyway. Make their sale taxable. Let quality control reach an area of intimate use. I dare say many people may move away from prostitution services if they have other interesting things they can do with themselves.
Exit the British Raj, make the country sex-positive.