Should sex toys sale and use be legalized in order to prevent rapes?

 Rapes continue to happen worldwide. The steps taken by society, government, and law have been futile. None of them have helped to even significantly bring down the growing rape numbers especially in a country like India. India is one of the worst place for females and female travelers, as per a survey done by Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2018. Last year, nearly 4 lakh cases of crime against women were reported in India. And of these, 32033 were incidents of rapes. This implies 88 cases per day. But one should not forget that since rape is a social stigma on such lands, many more cases might have been not reported. The figures are just the tip of an iceberg and there may be many women who get sexually assaulted behind closed doors and it goes unreported. In India, marital rapes are not considered an offence.So such cases also go not notified. 

There have been some suggestions that legalizing pornography and sale and use of sex toys might be beneficial in bringing down rapes in the community. 

Thailand politicians and their suggestion

Last year, Thailand politicians have suggested that the government should allow pornography and sale and purchase of sex toys. They feel this might help reduce sexual assaults against women. Treerat Sirichantaropas, secretary of Pheu Thai Plus, a party think tank posted this idea on his Facebook page:

"Legalising [pornography and sex toys] might be the solution ... as it would make the means of channeling sexual desires more easily available,"

Rapes of minors (Source: Gulf News)

Thai Civilised Party MP Mongkolkit Suksintharanon also holds similar views. Earlier he had suggested it in a lower house meeting. But not everyone there feels the same. 

Supensri Phuengkhoksung, director of the Social Equality Promotion Foundation felt that this would not be of use except helping blue industry people. Social Development and Human Security Minister, Chuti Krairiksh also is against this idea. Chuti felt that it would counteract the efforts of the government in stopping illegal human trafficking. Because the adult entertainment industry would get people for the roles in blue films via wrong means. 

Prostitution and rapes

There are some selfish people who also feel that prostitution can help prevent rapes. But they forget that women are used there and most of them are plucked when innocent and small. They live a wretched life and legalizing it is an insult of womanhood. Besides, people who do rapes do not go there because it needs money and there is the fear of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases in these areas. 

Current steps for rape prevention

Countries worldwide have some programs for prevention of rapes. Teaching boys and men and sensitizing them, defense training for girls and women, help lines for women are some such programs in place. But many of these are poorly implemented and have been totally ineffective in control of rapes. In countries such as India, politicians themselves are verbally and physically abusive towards women and give no respect to them. So should sex toys legalization be given a try? An American bioethicist and medical historian, Jacob M. Appel spoke about their social goodness of sex toys:

" There does there appear to be any remotely rational basis for keeping sex toys out of the hands of married adults, or single adults, or even children.

On the list of items that I might not want children to be exposed to in stores—guns, matches, poisons, junk food—sex toys are way down the list."