Of course they could, just as the US, Sweden, Norway and Iceland do (though in the latter three countries only the client is criminalised). They just didn’t see any need to. Prostitution, at least of the adult and non-coercive kind, is seen in most western countries as a private matter, which only becomes the law’s business where a public nuisance is involved. So public solicitation and brothel-keeping are often outlawed, but independent indoor work is fully legal. The US and the Nordic countries I mentioned are the outliers in this regard.
(Bolding mine)
Total hijack here, but I just had to say… In the last 10 years or so I’ve seen a lot of instances of people mistakenly using the word “loose” when they actually mean “lose”. This post is the very first time I’ve seen someone do the opposite–use “lose” when they were actually thinking of “loose”.
Switching it up is pretty fresh, dude!*
*Or then again, perhaps it was just a typo 
You owe aioniosfilos $20 dude. That’s what’s known in the profession as a “Topsy Turvy”. Hope you enjoyed yourself.
As I understand it (not firsthand!) cash is paid not so much for the sex part so much as the going-away-afterward part.
A. I’ve never heard of that term.
B. A ‘Topsy Turvy’ only costs $20? :dubious:
Cite, please. 
Bwa-ha-ha-ha!
A friend of mine used that exact same definition, concerning the exchange of money for sex with a prostitute.
He put it a little differently though, he said the difference between giving your wife/SO money and giving a prostitute money was, you pay the prostitute to “Go, the-fuck, away!”, after having sex. 
Much depends on jurisdiction and the exact wording of relevant laws, but in general, the law is comfortable looking behind dubious “fig leaf” attempts to create a pseudo legal structure to distance the sex from the money. I’m in Australia, where we do not criminalise prostitution per se, just attendant behaviour like living off the earnings, etc, but the pimps have just as much incentive to structure the transaction to attempt to pretend that there is no connection between the money and the sex, or between them and the arrangement between the customer and the girl.
I have seen many elaborate attempts like this to get around rules. Can’t think of an example where it has worked in the long run (although there can be short term wins before the authorities tighten up their evidence.) The stumbling points are many, but a typical problem is that where it is clear that sex is occurring repeatedly and indiscriminately pursuant to these fig leaf arrangements, then the inference that the sex and the money are in truth linked is clear and the structuring is patently a sham. Thinking that there is a tricksy magic formula that makes the law go away is closely akin to the magic words theory that drives sovereign citizen nutters.
IANAL but I think if you were selling something that was outrageously higher than market value to a willing buyer and linked to “free” service conditional on the sale, the state could demonstrate that the money was nominally paid for a surrogate good or service solely to attempt to evade the law. If it were acceptable, such logic could work for a number of crimes, such as murder for hire (“if you buy a gun from me for $20,000, I’ll demo how to use it for free”), so I’m thinking there must be legal reason that it does not.
Even in legitimate promotions, such as “Buy three tires and get the fourth for free,” you can’t say, “Just give me the fourth tire.” The entire transaction is viewed as a whole. I think the law would see the transaction as “sex plus a condom for $200.”
See the problem I have with this, is if escorting is not a tricksy magic formula that makes the law go away, why the hell is it so damn prevalent (at least in the US, and I assume in Australia too). If I were on a jury and an escort or her John were on trial and they were claiming over and over that he was just paying for her time, and the sex that happened had nothing to do with the payment for the escorting, I don’t see how I could convict them of any crimes. If I pay someone to come over to my house to fix my plumbing and we end up having sex, have I committed a crime? He wouldn’t have come over if I hadn’t agreed to pay him for a service, but the sex was not expected and happened spontaneously after the payment for the other (legitimate) service. It seems like the legal defense escorting services take MUST be working, or they wouldn’t be in every damn paper and whatnot across the country, or on various different websites.
Or… law enforcement simply can’t be bothered with them because they have limited budgets and crimes with complaining victims that take precedence…
So escorting is in the same legal area as jay-walking then, is what you’re saying? Technically illegal but unless someone is being REALLY FLAGRANTLY disruptive about it, LEO just don’t give a shit?
It’s a supposition, not an assertion, but you did just describe my supposition.
If law enforcement genuinely cared about the escort situation, they might not be able to stop it, but they could keep it out of the papers.
I could be totally wrong about this, but I assume that most prosecutions occur as a result of sting operations, where one or the other party is actually a cop and the magic words have been said to make it clear that the payment was for sex and not just for time. Also, a lot of people won’t bother contesting the charges, they’ll plead guilty right away just to avoid the publicity that a trial would bring.