ABSTRACT
In 2004, the “Traditional Values Coalition,” a group claiming to represent thousands of Christian churches in the United States, compiled a list of over 150 researchers receiving federal funding that the group complained appealed to “prurient” interests. Morality policy has its basis in the “oppression paradigm”, which defines prostitution as inherently exploitative and harmful to workers. New Zealand is often presented as the alternative to morality policy. In 2003, the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) was finally passed and replaced previous laws criminalizing sex work. Sex work has long been equated with disease in public health from nineteenth-century efforts to curb the spread of “venereal diseases” to late twentieth-century efforts to halt the spread of Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The selective visions of social policy, funding streams, and disciplinary frames have created, promulgated, and disseminated a limited constellation of facts about sex workers resulting in stereotypes so pervasive as to be accepted as fact by large proportions of individuals.
