Legalizing Prostitution: Morality Politics in Western Australia

2008/05/16 by Ronald Weitzer · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Sex work and related issues #Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology #Gender, Feminism, and Media #Morality #Politics #Political science #Sociology #Criminology #Gender studies #Law

paper · doi:10.1093/bjc/azn027

openalex publication_date 2008/05/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

There is now a sizeable literature examining moral panics and moral crusades in various societies, yet the literature is largely centred on the dynamics of panics and the social forces promoting them, while devoting almost no attention to the state. The state may play a key role in the process—either fanning or defusing popular alarm over a problem. In some panics, the state becomes an arena of struggle, or morality politics, between forces that promote and challenge claims regarding some social evil. The process of legislating morality provides a unique opportunity to examine the state as a dynamic actor in its own right. The article examines this in the context of the recent debate over legalizing prostitution in Western Australia.

Citations

• Loose women or lost women? The re-emergence of the myth of white slavery in contemporary discourses of trafficking in women
• The Social Construction of Sex Trafficking: Ideology and Institutionalization of a Moral Crusade
• Flawed Theory and Method in Studies of Prostitution
• Folk Devils and Moral Panics

Cited by

• Moral panic [wikipedia]

Related

• Tightening the focus: moral panic, moral regulation and liberal government1
• Morality, Empire, and the Global War on Prostitution
• Prostitution as Profession: Histories of ‘Work-Shy’ Labour in a Welfare State, West Germany between 1949 and 1974
• Widening The Focus: Moral Panics as Moral Regulation
• New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective—An Example of a Successful Policy Actor