Prostitution as Morality Politics or Why It Is Exceedingly Difficult To Design and Sustain Effective Prostitution Policy Hendrik Wagenaar & Sietske Altink # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 Abstract This paper argues that prostitution policy is less developed than more established policy domains such as health, education, social welfare, or the environment. While all policy is about the struggle over values and categories, conceptually prostitution policy can best be un- derstood as an instance of morality politics. Without hypos- tatizing morality politics, we define it as having six characteristics: it is ruled by an explicit ideology; experts have limited authority as everyone feels they “own” prosti- tution policy; it is highly emotionally charged; it is resistant to facts; the symbolism of policy formulation is seen as more important than policy implementation; and it is subject to abrupt changes. We then analyze three implications of the adversarial nature of prostitution policy. First, we discuss the cavalier attitude of relevant actors towards precise and reliable numbers. Second, by focusing on “forced prostitu- tion” and “trafficking”, we discuss the ideological and ob- fuscating nature of key concepts in prostitution policy. We suggest instead using the concept of “exploitation”. Finally, we focus on policy implementation. We argue that the common concept of policy regime has limited value and that to understand the development of prostitution policy, its outcomes, and its impact on society, attention to the mun- dane details of policy implementation is required. The paper suggests some conditions to prevent prostitution policy to enter the realm of morality politics and to attain an effective and humane form of policy making. Keywords Prostitution . Sex worker . Morality politics . Policy implementation . Policy instruments . Exploitation . Trafficking Introduction 1 This paper discusses prostitution policy, the concerted attempts of administrators and elected officials to deal with the societal impact of different forms of prostitution and the 1 For various reasons, some of which are explained in footnotes 2 and 3, this was a difficult paper to write. As a common Dutch expression goes: we often felt we were walking on eggs in the writing of this paper. Our writing has benefitted tremendously from the comments of the participants of the ESF Workshop “Exploring and Comparing Prostitution Policy Regimes in Europe” at Birkbeck University, London, September 15–17, 2010, where we presented a first draft of this paper. Also, the extensive and detailed comments of four anony- mous reviewers of this journal were invaluable in pointing out where we fell into the morality trap ourselves and in nudging us to formulate key sections of the argument more precisely and carefully. Joyce Outshoorn provided us with helpful and encouraging commentary. Finally, John Mollenkopf, Yuri Kazepov, and John Forester, members if the international scientific committee of Nicis Institute gave us valuable feedback on a later draft of the paper. H. Wagenaar (*) Department of Town and Regional Planning, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK e-mail: hendrik.wagenaar@gmail.com S. Altink Leiden University-Campus Den Haag, Postbus 13228, 2501 EE Den Haag, The Netherlands e-mail: smaltin@planet.nl Sex Res Soc Policy DOI 10.1007/s13178-012-0095-0