From a purely practical standpoint I would say that it would be better to legalize and regulate prostitution to reduce spread of disease and to protect the people who perform this "work".

From a moral viewpoint, I would have to say no, I don't think it's a good idea.

I guess what I'm saying is....beats me. I'm torn on this one.

"Safer, localized, no diseases etc."

Nothing about legalization puts prostitutes outside the bare, one-on-one situation with the client that makes the situation more dangerous. Also, the porn industry has just had their own problems with disease. A legal industry with supposedly draconian standards. Condoms, I might add, only protect against a few STDs.

Think about it. What determines the production procedure of legal industries. Laws? Nah. They function in any possible way that produces the most profit. Corners are cut, rules are bent, standards are betrayed. In the end a small portion are caught and punished, but only a small portion and even then the damage is already done. We have a constant stream of liability and corporate excess in the US, and most of it is on the grey edge of the law.

Add to that the people that will still just do it illegally. Prostitution businesses will keep records, pay (most likely really, really heavy) taxes, etc. Like alcohol and tobacco, etc., the sex industry will always have a large population of folks who don't wanna bother with regulation. In the end you have an industry that works with the barest possible set of procedures and a large population of folks content to thwart the system as they already have for hundreds of years.

Prostitutes will still be in danger, sex will still be unsafe, money will still be siphoned off by those that don't earn it, and we will have rejected a moral standard that is thousands of years old. Condoning what is essentially non-consentual sex induced by bribery. Not a good prospect, in my opinion.

I'm on a college debate team, and believe me, this comes up a lot. I also know how to take both sides on this issue, but the real winner is supporting it. Here's why:

1. It makes the whole population healthier.
a. First, it would require licensing, which would mean health certification. This doesn't solve the problem of diseases spreading, but it does limit it. To reply to BakerStreet, the porn industry actually has really lax regulation and policy, second, they don't always use condoms, and the scare came about because they didn't, third, the scare was about AIDS, the transmission of which is highly effectively limited by condom use.
b. The whole population benefits in that the fewer people who have these diseases, and the fewer people who have sex with those who have the diseases, the less the diseases spread. Limiting the spread is an important public health goal.
c. When you take this above board you allow easier access to drug and alcohol counselling and rehabilitation services. These are huge problems in the sex worker industry, and besides the personal costs you also have the disease risks - did you know that about half of HIV infections come from shared needles?

2. It makes sex workers safer. Sex workers currently have little legal remedy against rape, sexual abuse, and physical abuse from both customers and pimps. All those things can happen whether or not you are a sex worker, by the way. But as a sex worker you can't go to the police without fear that you will face legal reprocussions. These sex workers are people. They deserve equal protection under the law.

3. It makes sense monetarily.
a. Tax tax tax. This is a luxury service, and as such there's no reason not to tax it heavily. You also get income tax from the sex workers once they are above board.
b. When you remove the blackmarket factor the prices will drop. There can be open competition, not limited by the current system of turfs protected by violence. This same factor is why marijuana costs several hundred dollars a kilo as opposed to the very small cost (think several dollars) of actually growing it.
c. As a customer, why would you ever go to a sex worker who costs more and doesn't have a health certificate? Many sex workers might oppose the new system, but market forces would punish them heavily.

4. The moral issue. If you think that this is a black and white moral issue, there's no hope for you. People have been doing this for thousands of years, and for every sex worker there are hundreds of customers. In a pluralistic society we allow people to hold different moral ideas than we do - it's a basic freedom. When you legalize sex work you solve a few dozen moral problems, and leave the sex work itself alone. Our current system of laws concerning these business practices is obviously ineffective for what one might consider the moral problem of sex work, and if we can't solve that, let's at least limit the spread of diseases, limit rapes and sexual abuse, and limit the survival of a series of busineses practices that we've created with our current laws which marginalize our fellow human beings.

Yeah... what he said!

Great post Daniel. That was all the stuff I found during my research, but was WAY to lazy to try and retype

BakerStreet, I actually do take offense. I take a different position than you do - this doesn't mean that I haven't read and understood your posts. But I don't want it to get personal, so let's drop that completely. I think we can have good, civil debate, and the rest of it doesn't matter to me one lick.

1. The issue is harm reduction, not completely irradicating diseases. Since we know that people will go to prostitutes without any tests at all, why not require the tests and try to help fix the problem, as opposed to doing nothing at all. The nothing at all solution hasn't been working that well so far, so maybe it's time for a change there.

2. I wasn't talking about suing, though I saw that Splateaux was. I'm talking about being able to go to the police. As for the insurance question, I'm sure the market will work it out. And hey, why not unions? Just because it seems sort of silly doesn't mean it isn't a good idea.

3. I have no idea what you are talking about wrt welfare moms. As for a cottage industry, I think that's unlikely. Sex work is big business!

4. The taxes will of course have to be reasonable so as not to create the market we currently have. The health certification process can easily be tied into checking the legitimacy of a sex worker's business operations. When a sex worker has that certificate they will be better able to do business, since customers know that you've had a check-up within a month (or whatever the requirement is). Will this solve all the problems of the sex work industry? Not a chance, you're dead on there. But we can at least make it better.

To sum it all up, legalizing sex work isn't going to make things any worse, and has the potential to make things a lot better in the spheres of public health, equality, and government funding. Let's support bringing people into society where they can get treatment for drug problems, recognition as equal citizens under the law and afforded its protections, and as productive tax paying members of society.

P.S.: I reject that current businesses that cut corners are worse than having no regulation at all. Think 19th century sweatshops with child labor, and then look at the state of businesses in the US today. Things are much better.

I think your blind spot is that you think the law could stop unlicensed prostitution, when they can't stop illegal prostitution now. If they can't keep streetwalkers off the street now, I doubt seriously that store front brothels will make them any better at it.

In terms of disease and safety, you have only opinion. Health-department oversight of prostitution would be as big a joke as health-department oversight in the food service industry. A headache 1% of the time, and you ignore it the rest. Add to that the surge of for-hire sex you would have with legalized prostitution and it adds up to more STDs, not less. You'd just give Joe Q. Public a false sense of security. If 50% more people are having for-hire sex and it is 20% safer, you haven't made much headway.

This is not a 19th century style manufacturing business, and you can't compare it to such. Why do people make illegal alcohol and illegal drugs when they can go into a legitimate drug manufacturing or distilling business? Because it is too big of a headache and it is easier to do it illegally. It happens on the spot, money changes hands, and if the inspector isn't standing there it never happened. Not quite the same as having a factory with a thousand kids working for you, is it?

Currently prostitution is mobile, takes zero initial investment and overhead. Why would a pimp opt to start dealing with rent, health insurance, business insurance, taxes, and the rest when he can just go on doing what he is doing now? How many women would fill out a W-4, announcing it on public record, and making their profits suddenly taxable?

You are overthinking the average pimp/prostitute. Sure, you'd have commercial enterprises, but the average pimp/prostitute would go on doing things just as they are now, and doing it cheaper and quieter outside the law. So you open up corporate America to exploit women, and leave just as many streetwalkers as you had before.

I'm not seeing the benefit.

I think your blind spot is that you think the law could stop unlicensed prostitution

Nope, that was never one of reasons for legalizing it. There is ALWAYS going to be those that go outside the law, and this is true in any business. Your above mentioned illegal alcohol development is a perfect example of this. Yes, it's easier to just skip the legal process and start churning out some fine brew, and there are those that do. The VAST majority do decide to follow the law though. They realize that those that are buying their products believe it's worth it buying from someone who has to follow all the given laws for alcohol production.

In regards to your opinion of its lack of benefit for disease and safety improvement, I believe Daniel stated it well:

a. First, it would require licensing, which would mean health certification. This doesn't solve the problem of diseases spreading, but it does limit it. To reply to BakerStreet, the porn industry actually has really lax regulation and policy, second, they don't always use condoms, and the scare came about because they didn't, third, the scare was about AIDS, the transmission of which is highly effectively limited by condom use.

...and yes, this is speculation about its benefit, but that's all we can do since it's obviously not actually in place yet.

I would spend a little time digging for statistics about how things are going in Amsterdam and such, but that's probably not the kind of site I should be looking for from work

P.S. I was just in Amsterdam about a month ago, and the red light district sure is an interesting place. I would post some pictures, but they are VERY much against people taking pictures of the little glass doors w/ the red lights

and all your downtrodden "hookers with a heart of gold" will be right where they were, spreading disease and perpetuating other criminal behavior in a population MORE desensitized to prostitution

Well, let's say I've decided that I need to go to see a prostitute. I have the choice of going to the brothel up the road that I won't run the chance of getting arrested for, or going to the hooker down the street that would give me a higher chance of catching something, AND I might just get arrested. If you go with what Daniel said earlier about price competition arising, the brothel might actually be cheaper too.

I don't think that would be a hard decision…

So, just because certain hooker couldn’t get, or didn’t want to get hired by the legally run system, doesn’t mean that there will actually be people visiting them as often.

I can tell you one thing I DID observe when I was in Amsterdam. Yes, the red light district had tons of legal prostitutes behind their glass doors advertising their wares, but I DIDN’T see any normal streetwalker just roaming around. You go to any other big city on “that side of town” and you’ll see them pretty quickly.

Your example of illegally brewed alcohol shows this point as well. I know that there are plenty of people that distill their own alcohol, and drink it. Heck, my cousin Doug back in my hometown of Kilgore (a small East Texas town) brews some sort of liquor. How often do people actually buy it though? I know I never do. I visit a class 6 on base, or a local liquor store. Or… I even pick it up while buying the rest of my groceries. I would venture to guess that most people purchase their alcohol the same way. When it was completely illegal though, it was a totally different story I’m sure. If you wanted it, you HAD to go outside the law, and run the risk of getting brain damage buy accidentally buying some rubbing alcohol that someone called moonshine…. And plenty of people did I’m sure.

Well, if it was legal in more than one place, it might not be as expensive. It's the basic way all markets work. The example you're giving of the legal brothels today are the ONLY legal brothels in the country, so they have supply & demand in their favour. If there were enough legal whorehouses around, the price would HAVE to come down. Competition, as Daniel mentioned above, would definitely come into effect.

There are high-end, safe brothels and call services that work in almost full view in every city

These aren't "legal brothels" I would run a good chance of getting arrested if I were to call one of these places, and when the girl shows up go, "Okay, I'd just like blow job please"

An exgirlfriend of mine worked at one when I lived in San Antonio, and the majority of the people who called really were just loney and wanted some company for a date. She was told specifically NOT to provide any sexual services or anything many many many times by her employer. Don't get me wrong, I'm SURE that excort services do provide "full service" sometimes, but they're not exactly legal brothels, or the equivalent of getting a hooker off the street.

We can argue the monetary thing back and forth all day, but I still believe that initially the price would be much higher than street whores, but I think the price would go down and could possibly even be cheaper than the hooker who has to pay her pimp for protection, because I'm sure they're not cheap. Wow, that was WAY to long of a sentense! Have you ever lived in a dry country and bought liquor at a bordering town that was wet? The liquor stores line up, and HAVE to compete with each other... because of this, the price is incredibly cheap.

I don't know if it's fair to compare sweatshops with the services that prostitutes provide though. A sweatshop turns out tons and tons of products that it has to produce for pennies because they have to be sold cheap to the public. It just seems like apples and oranges with the prostitution world...