Safe Sex Now Safe in NYC

On Monday, May 12 the New York City Police Department announced it will no longer seize condoms as evidence of prostitution.  While this policy clearly needed to go for a number of reasons not least of which are the fact that seizing condoms as evidence encourages riskier sex, it speaks volumes to the types of messages Americans, especially youth, get about sex.

In the United States, nearly a quarter of the schools teach abstinence only education despite the fact that these programs are linked to higher teen pregnancy rates.  While some teens may be ready to become parents, many more who find themselves young parents are ill prepared for the responsibility.  These abstinence-only policies teach kids that sex is immoral and dirty, but they ignore the reality, that many teens will have sex. New York’s policy similarly ignores the reality of the situation.   This marginalizes kids that do have sex and prevents them from accessing resources that are available, either out of shame or because they simply do not know what their options truly are.

Furthermore, the majority of people who had their condoms seized were trans people of color, a population already marginalized with few good resources available.  These dangerous stereotypes about trans people and sex workers are particularly dangerous for teens who might otherwise be interested in having safe sex but will avoid carrying condoms because of fears that they could be used as proof of prostitution.

Teen girls in particular are inundated with “slut shaming” messages that tell them that their sexuality is impure and wrong.  Girls who express their sexuality are labeled as sluts and are ridiculed.  By keeping policies like this on the books, cities are sending the message that anyone who attempts to have safe sex is bad.  Many people who advocate sending these types of messages hope that teens will simply stop having sex altogether, but rarely is that the outcome.  Instead, teens are afraid to seek help and as a result end up engaging in high-risk sex.

Without realizing it, New York is taking a positive step in helping to change those dangerous attitudes by stopping the seizure of condoms because it sends the message that there is nothing wrong with protecting ones self should one plan to have sex.

New York is also taking a huge step in addressing a real public health crisis; criminalizing prostitution and prosecuting prostitutes does not prevent prostitution, but it does increase the chances of the spread of diseases as a result.  By linking carrying condoms to an act criminalized by the state, New York was only exacerbating these problems further.  With a significant percentage of the Black and Latino populations HIV or AIDS positive, New York is truly facing an public health crisis, and policies like this one only exacerbate that problem.

Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco still have similar policies in place.  All of these cities face staggering rates of STD infections.  Isn’t it time to have helpful sex policy?

Kirstin Kelley is graduate assistant at The WIP who is completing her master’s degree in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.