# Should Prostitution Be Legal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 16, 2012, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067 "2012-05-16T06:42:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/141 "2012-05-20T18:32:05Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > I’d rather have to give a handjob than participate in an MMA match against my will or be press ganged. But battery and false imprisonment charges cover those. We don’t need to create a special class of crime for forcing people into MMA matches. I know you’ve already acknowledged you’d prefer assault legislation to cover all crimes against the person. Do you think that’s the ideal society should strive for? The destigmatisation of sex? By the way, I agree that preserving chastity and Christian morality shouldn’t be the point of legislation and I personally think sex could be destigmatised further, but I recognise that for at least some individuals it will maintain a semi-mystical status - “the sanctity of sex”. In other areas, I’m willing to cede that demystification is a useful tool in fighting ignorance, but I’m not certain sex should be reduced to the prosaic. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/142 "2012-05-20T18:37:43Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Any punishment that is derived from legislative valuing of chastity or Christian morality doesn’t belong in the law.We should not specifically say that _women_ should have a right to control of their people, we should say that _persons_ should (while still recognizing that women are more likely to be victimized in that way). Then you would agree that rape shouldn’t be a separate crime. A knife or a bullet is certainly a more harmful penetration to the sanctity of my body than a rapist’s penis. Especially when I was about to allow the “rapist” to penetrate me a moment before, but the money wasn’t right. What other reason for a crime of rape than morality (again, a crime separate and far more harsh than battery)? ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/143 "2012-05-20T18:41:30Z")
> [@polar\_bear](#): > > Really? I don’t get this. Except for the same bits being used, I would think rape is nothing like consensual sex. Does having have had sex with people you wanted to, really make rape and ‘easier’ thing to endure? I don’t think the amount of consensual partners you have had, has much relation to how a person deals with being rendered helpless and forced to submit to the sexual fancies of a (probably violent) stranger. That’s why I said the damages would still be quite high and the punishment should still be severe. I agreed that raping someone who wants to reserve sex only with its partner would be more severe in its damages. This should not be taken as indicative that I think raping a prostitute is light matter. > [@gamerunknown](#): > > But battery and false imprisonment charges cover those. We don’t need to create a special class of crime for forcing people into MMA matches. I know you’ve already acknowledged you’d prefer assault legislation to cover all crimes against the person. Do you think that’s the ideal society should strive for? The destigmatisation of sex? I am not interested in making decisions based on daydreams of ideal societies, this is definitely where you and I differ. I do want the destigmatisation of sex, not because it conforms to an ideal but because I assess it would improve outcomes over what we now have. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/144 "2012-05-20T18:41:31Z")
> [@polar\_bear](#): > > Your last point would indicate that rape is treated as a lesser crime when the victim is a ‘slut’ than when she married her high school sweet hart. Is this the case in the US? Are damages/prison terms determined by the sexual past of the victim? Any other crime is treated this way. Some are even codified into law. In Florida, a battery against a person over age 65 is punished more severely than a battery against someone younger. I think were it not for the politicization of the issue, we could all agree that a prostitute would feel less damage from a rape than would a nun. We can’t say that in polite society, though, so we pretend its all the same. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/145 "2012-05-20T18:49:56Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Then you would agree that rape shouldn’t be a separate crime. A knife or a bullet is certainly a more harmful penetration to the sanctity of my body than a rapist’s penis. Especially when I was about to allow the “rapist” to penetrate me a moment before, but the money wasn’t right. What other reason for a crime of rape than morality (again, a crime separate and far more harsh than battery)? As I’ve said, yes. It should be subsumed within assault. I do not really like thinking in terms of sanctity. How about denial of autonomy and harm? It’s true that if anyone who doesn’t consider sex special is raped (and even a virgin could think that sex is nothing special), then they cannot say “it was special to me”. This does not prevent sexual offenses from being potentially severe. To take a non sexual example, a boxer can still be traumatized after being assaulted. A prostitute could also be traumatized by a rape. Note that I did not deny that morality should be part of the law, only Christian (and more broadly, religious) morality. I don’t mind the turn of the discussion but I wonder if the OP is happy with it. OP, would you like to redirect us or are you fine with this change of focus? ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/146 "2012-05-20T19:53:45Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > I assess it would improve outcomes over what we now have. In which case, it can be assessed for plausibility in the context of the society we’re in. Sex will not be de stigmatised in our lifetimes due to the vast preponderance of individuals in the society we’re in espousing belief in a doctrine where sex is considered of significance to a deity. ---
**Author:** ![PandaBear77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@PandaBear77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PandaBear77)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/147 "2012-05-20T20:45:38Z")
To answer the OP’s question, yes, as distasteful as I find it personally, it should be legal, with a few stipulations: 1. Licensing that is tied to STD testing. No license, no whorin’ - or no whorin’ legally, anyway. 2. Tax the shit out of it and actually oh, do something useful with the money. (Yes, I know, I’m dreaming.) 3. Divorce laws should be changed such that if a wife catches her husband with a hooker, she can be granted a divorce faster than the law would normally allow, AND the court takes into consideration why the divorce is actually happening and divides the assets accordingly as well as taken into consideration when deciding things like alimony (but not child custody). In my state it takes at LEAST 2 years to get fully divorced – if I caught my man in a brothel, I’d want out of the marriage ASAP. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/148 "2012-05-20T23:37:00Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I’m still confused by the two sides of the argument about the rape question. I have understood that rape is punished FAR in excess of battery or aggravated battery because of the special place we have for the rights of a woman and her chastity. > > Now, if a woman is on record as simply offering her body for money, any idea of a special protection for sex goes out the window, and posters in this thread readily admit that selling sex is not morally different from selling hamburgers. > > But in the same scheme, why should we keep the heightened protections for rape when the transaction falls apart? If sex is not special and a woman has regularly consented to vaginal penetration for money by strangers, why when one particular stranger’s transaction falls apart should the prostitute be protected by a law designed to protect the Virgin Mary? > > I don’t see how it can be both ways. Either prostitution should be illegal (or at least considered legal but with a stigma attached) and rape laws enforced or prostitution should be treated like selling anything else with a violation of the terms of that contract treated like everything else. > > If I don’t pay my water bill, I don’t get 25 to life in prison.. …a typical, rhetorical screed against prostitution that has no basis in reality. Do you think that rape laws changed in countries where prostitution is legal? Is consent defined any differently? Did the rape laws get rewritten when porn movies started being filmed? How about in marriage? The “sex is not special” trope you’ve invented does not change how the law treats rape. If you want to see how this works in action feel free to look at the laws of countries like New Zealand or Australia and then come back and tell us why they are so unworkable. Show us some examples of people who are spending twenty five years in jail because they didn’t pay their prostitute. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/149 "2012-05-21T06:58:29Z")
> [@PandaBear77](#): > > 1. Licensing that is tied to STD testing. No license, no whorin’ - or no whorin’ legally, anyway. I’m glad you included that qualifier at the end there, since licensing and testing requirements don’t stop people engaging in prostitution but just tend to give rise to a second, illegal sector. There’s also no evidence that they actually curtail the spread of HIV or other STIs, although they do have enormous costs which could be put to better use in _effective_ prevention measures. UNAIDS, the WHO and just about every other major health organisation working in this area oppose these requirements. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/150 "2012-05-21T08:07:15Z")
> [@Banquet Bear](#): > > The “sex is not special” trope you’ve invented does not change how the law treats rape. Which illustrates our schizoid approach to the matter. Sex is not special unless one is subjected to it, in which case that’s horrendous. Of course, if one is subjected to it because of economic conditions, that’s fine. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/151 "2012-05-21T19:22:11Z")
> [@PandaBear77](#): > > 1. Divorce laws should be changed such that if a wife catches her husband with a hooker, she can be granted a divorce faster than the law would normally allow, AND the court takes into consideration why the divorce is actually happening and divides the assets accordingly as well as taken into consideration when deciding things like alimony (but not child custody). In my state it takes at LEAST 2 years to get fully divorced – if I caught my man in a brothel, I’d want out of the marriage ASAP. Why is this different than an affair of the heart with a non-prostitute? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/152 "2012-05-21T19:42:16Z")
Or an affair of the sweaty-slippery-thrusting kind with a non-prostitute? ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/153 "2012-05-21T19:54:53Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > Which illustrates our schizoid approach to the matter. Sex is not special unless one is subjected to it, in which case that’s horrendous. Of course, if one is subjected to it because of economic conditions, that’s fine. You have a very, very non-mainstream idea of what constitutes coercion. As a matter of fact, your definition of coercion is so broad as to lose all useful meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/154 "2012-05-21T19:57:46Z")
Regarding the idea of rape only being different from assault/battery due to the specialness of sexuality aspect, I would disagree. Firstly, rape includes a number of potential harms that a typical assault does not–primary among them, the threat of pregnancy and STD transmission. Secondly, we can recognize that rape is in a special class of crime (due to the psychological differences between sexual assault and non-sexual assault–differences that are not present in, for example, consensual sex and consensual assault (boxing, mma)) without “putting it on a pedestal”. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/155 "2012-05-21T20:13:18Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Regarding the idea of rape only being different from assault/battery due to the specialness of sexuality aspect, I would disagree. > > Firstly, rape includes a number of potential harms that a typical assault does not–primary among them, the threat of pregnancy and STD transmission. > > Secondly, we can recognize that rape is in a special class of crime (due to the psychological differences between sexual assault and non-sexual assault–differences that are not present in, for example, consensual sex and consensual assault (boxing, mma)) without “putting it on a pedestal”. I agree that one can quite reasonably consider sex offensces separate for the reasons you give without putting sex on a pedestal. Even if it were assault, rape could still be considered more serious than most assaults precisely because of the the potential and actual harms you list. If rape leads to greater psychological harm than most assaults, than it should be punished as such, whether or not it’s in the same legal category. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/156 "2012-05-21T20:56:29Z")
The psychological harm is a red herring because it is tied into the special plea for sex. One could just as well argue against prostitution because of the psychological harm having sex for pay causes. Failure to disclose STDs is [already a crime](http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-12-30/news/30574694_1_hiv-infects-tv-station), so that’s a non-factor. Rapes are punished as harshly in instances where the victim cannot get pregnant (post-menopausal women or any non-vaginal sex) or where contraception is used. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/157 "2012-05-21T21:14:50Z")
> [@polar\_bear](#): > > Why anyone would want to use the services of a prostitute that rather not have you as a client is beyond me. Some people would pay extra for that. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/158 "2012-05-21T22:18:33Z")
for what it’s worth > **[Legal or not, sex industry powers on](https://www.smh.com.au/national/legal-or-not-sex-industry-powers-on-20101005-1669t.html)** > > WHETHER prostitution is legal or not has ''little or no impact on the size of the industry'' but it does affect the health of sex workers, Australian research shows. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/159 "2012-05-21T23:17:16Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > The psychological harm is a red herring because it is tied into the special plea for sex. One could just as well argue against prostitution because of the psychological harm having sex for pay causes. Show me the research that demonstrates psychological harm for consensual prostitution, then. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067/160 "2012-05-22T06:21:43Z")
You made the claim first, psychological harm for rape. Then I’ll see if I can find something similar for prostitution. Of course, there will be a confounding variable: prostitutes are those for whom sex is already demystified, which may not be the case with rape victims. A society with no objections to prostitution is one where sex is demystified for the majority. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-prostitution-be-legal/622067.md?page=9)