On September 6, newspapers in Chongqing carried this item on a local government proclamation: All sex-related entertainment venues must provide condoms.

The goal is to be achieved in five years, through the joint efforts of health, commerce and public security departments in five of the districts and counties of this sprawling municipality in southwest China.

Local authorities may have hoped that only those who needed to know would notice it, but pundits swooped in from across China. Their denunciations have been loud and clear.

Doesn't the decree imply that prostitution is legal in this town? They cry.

I asked a similar question 20 years ago while living in San Francisco. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, the city government introduced a policy that allowed drug users to obtain clean needles, free of charge.

Why should taxpayers foot the bill for these addicts' habits? Besides, won't it encourage drug addiction? And isn't drug use supposed to be illegal anyway?

But I wasn't as wise then as I am now. Basically I was looking at the issue through a moral prism, not taking into account that the kaleidoscopic happenings in the real world can not be neatly categorized in black-and-white terms.

It is true that prostitution is illegal in China as in most other countries. The question is, could the practice be outlawed out of existence?

There are millions of entertainment venues karaoke bars, massage parlors, hair salons that may or may not venture into the shady territory. They're not supposed to, but there is a reason, or rather multiple reasons, that some take the risk to offer different sex services. Top on the list of reasons is demand.

And you can't blame the police for not trying to stop it. They have tried all kinds of ways some ethical and others less so. It is not unknown for corrupt cops to collude with hookers to blackmail their Johns.

But none of the police's anti-prostitution drives have put a visible dent in the business.

The only way to ensure prostitution is wiped off the surface of this land would be to keep human movement to an absolute minimum, or simply install a police state.

If history is any indication, neither of these options is attractive.

Unless one insists on the total extermination approach, one has to consider the existence of vice as part of our social fabric. One has to use logic to analyze the whole process and find the feasible solution.

For example, the old way was to catch prostitutes "red-handed," meaning with condoms in their pockets or in their drawers. So, how do you think they would react? They would forego the incriminating evidence by simply not using them.

Now, China is on the cusp of an AIDS crisis, with the virus threatening to spread to the general population from more concentrated groups such as drug addicts and prostitutes. Discouraging the latter from using condoms would add fuel to a simmering flame, making it easier for the blaze to engulf us all.

As for the accusation that Chongqing is trying to legalize prostitution, I don't know whether, in China, a municipal government has the right to do that. I believe this is reading too much into the policy. Tolerating something is not the same as advocating it. Unfortunately many people blur the line, either deliberately or out of habit.

There are many things in our society that should not exist. Jaywalking and spitting in public come into mind. Many cities have rules that slap these offenders with a financial penalty. But they are enforced haphazardly at best. Why? It is simply not possible to enforce every misdemeanor of this kind. Just imagine how many cops we would need to deploy to catch every jaywalker or spitter.

Moral purists are constantly striving for a perfect world, but the world we live in is far from perfect. If we formulate our rules and regulations based on their lofty ideals rather than reality, we'll hurtle down to hell on a road paved with good intentions.

Critics may have taken the moral high ground, but it is the Chongqing authorities who are acting out of a sense of responsibility.

(China Daily September 16, 2006)