Legalized Prostitution: Laws to Help Women

 

                                           

            I recently saw a question asked in an online forum concerning “The World’s Oldest Profession”. It asked, simply, “Can you think of anything else that is legal when [given] free yet illegal when paid for?” The selling of one’s services in a free market society such as ours constitutes a significant portion of the foundation of our economy. If we divided our economy into two categories, the buying and selling of goods and the buying and selling of services, in theory, services support half of our economy. The sale of one’s body whether considered a commodity, a service or a combination of both is what is being referred to in the question above. It is legal for a man and a woman (or various other combinations) to have sexual intercourse if neither pays the other. It is illegal for anyone to have sexual intercourse if they pay for it, however.

            I can very easily take the easy way out and end (and win) this argument here by stating that either, as in case one: If you remunerate a prostitute with a silver necklace rather than cash it may be said that you are not paying him or her but merely gifting them and your sexual union is therefore legal, just as in case two where: If I give a woman a silver necklace instead of between 500 and 2500 Pesos, or not remunerate her all together I can be sure that I am not doing anything illegal. I like case two because it is much juicier when you consider that giving any sort of gift, or heaven forbid, money, to your significant other, whether they be a boyfriend or a girlfriend means that you are treating your love like a whore—and if you give them actual cash at any time you have just made your sexual union an illegal act for both of you; whereas if you give them nothing at all, yes, you have committed no crime, however your partner just gave you sex and has nothing to show for it. But I will take the harder path and argue the position with facts and not rhetoric alone.

            The arguments for the legalization of prostitution are simple, straightforward, logical and clearly intended to provide benefit to all prostitutes that adhere to the law if their chosen profession is legalized. The most compelling argument for legalization is that since they no longer have to practice their trade furtively they can openly organize and form groups, a prostitutes union if they wish. This will guarantee them all the benefits members of other trade unions enjoy. Legalization will allow them to demand such things as medical insurance, other benefits and compensation packages such as severance pay, if not self employed, and even thirteenth month pay. This also means that they will be guaranteed the civil rights of any other type of worker whose work is legal and officers of the law will then be duty-bound to protect their rights. Legalization also benefits the government and the rest of the citizenry. Prostitute’s income can now be taxed, filling the government coffers and, in theory, benefitting the common man. Another tremendous benefit for prostitutes and the citizenry alike would be government monitored health and venereal disease checks. Ideally, any man or woman who uses the services of prostitutes and not just the male or female prostitutes themselves should carry a form of clean health card, ensuring that sexually transmitted diseases will not spread as while prostitution is illegal.

            Rather than just stating the arguments for legalization, I will also state all the arguments I have found against it. This gives a voice to the opposition and makes for a less biased essay as well as an opportunity for me to destroy each of their arguments right in front of you. The following arguments are from the organization Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International (CATW):

1. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution is a gift to pimps, traffickers and the sex industry.

Call it a gift if you want but it would be the same type of gift that is now available to any businessman or entrepreneur. We live in a capitalist economy where gifts of various kinds such as tax breaks and, presently, in the case of the United States, bailout funds from the federal government. This is not an argument. All it means is that pimps will become a type of entrepreneur. My original title for this essay was Legalized Prostitution: An Antioxidant for Totalitarianism and indeed a society according to writers such as, but not limited to Orwell and Zamyatin where any form of sex, whether it be free or prostitutive is illegal, is one of the signs of decay into a Totalitarian society. A free market economy means just that, a free market economy where no good or service that does not harm individuals and society should be legal. If certain prostitution dens become large enough to issue initial public offerings it would be well within the tradition of capitalism to trade shares of prostitution houses on the stock market.

2. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry promotes sex trafficking.

We cannot say for sure whether sex trafficking will increase due to legalization but even if it does, it will be legalized trafficking monitored and controlled by individual governments and international law, possibly by the United Nations. With legalization the evil sounding “sex trafficking” will become nothing worse than what is now called “immigration”.

3. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not control the sex industry. It expands it.

My responses to this skewed argument are two related questions: If this does indeed happen, wouldn’t it be a good thing? After all, is it not the object of a business to grow, and if publicly traded, provide its shareholders with dividends and higher stock prices?

4. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution increases clandestine, hidden, illegal and street prostitution.

There have been many good arguments that seem to support this point. However, it is not the legalization of the industry that will increase illegal activity, it is human nature. The main argument is that those who do not want to be regulated by the law will continue illegal activity. Let us compare this to the sale of another good, let us say, tsinelas. Now, there are legal vendors of legally manufactured  tsinelas and there are illegal vendors who sell illegally made products or sell legal products but do not have a vendor’s license so are actually breaking the law. What does the law do about this? The police leave the legal vendors alone and they go after the illegal vendors, and sometimes those who are involved in the illegal manufacture itself. Thus if hard-headed citizens who do not want to follow the law insist on continuing illegal activity then let the people who handle other criminals handle them as well—the police.

5. Legalization of prostitution and decriminalization of the sex Industry increases child prostitution.

This is absolutely not true. It is precisely because prostitution is forced to be a clandestine activity by remaining illegal that there is no monitoring and control of underage prostitution. If the law properly monitors any kind of legal activity then that activity remains legal, without the vending of underage tsinelas.

6. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not protect the women in prostitution.

If the law does not protect the rights of citizens that follow the law, that is not the fault of legalization but the fault of law enforcement.

7. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution increases the demand for prostitution. It boosts the motivation of men to buy women for sex in a much wider and more permissible range of socially acceptable settings.

The laws of supply and demand function in much the same way whether the goods or services are legal or not. As for the second part of this argument, the source is taking a very sexist stance in assuming that only women will provide sexual services and that only men will purchase such services.

8. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not promote women's health.

(Please see page two. It has a complete rebuttal to this statement.)

9. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not enhance women's choice.

A woman’s (or a man’s) choice is their choice whether doing something legal or illegal. If a man or woman is kidnapped and forced to provide sexual favors this is not because prostitution is legalized it is because the law enforcement groups that are supposed to control kidnapping and illegal human trafficking are not doing their jobs properly.

10. Women in systems of Prostitution do not want the sex industry legalized or decriminalized.

Any woman who wishes to continue to perform illegal activity should be jailed—just as any other criminal. It is as simple as that. If women do not want to participate in legalized prostitution, no one can legally force them to do so. If the responsibility then falls to men to provide sexual services for both men and women then so be it. If neither sex is willing to do it then there will be no prostitution and thus no need to argue for its legalization. I would like to thank the CATW for providing me with ten awful arguments for keeping prostitution an illegal, clandestine and hidden activity. By refuting their statements I hope to help society as a whole, all sexes in it, by giving government the power to protect people who chose to prostitute themselves, as should be their democratic right, as well as empowering government to prevent the capture, traffic and sale of bodies and minds that do not wish for this type of employment.