How should laws regulate prostitution?

Option: Legalize prostitution in some circumstances.

Pro: Prostitution satisfies the needs of both parties to the act-the needs of both the prostitute and the client. In fact, prostitution may afford the best lifestyle available for certain people. And the outcome of the relationship between the parties is understood at the outset. Human relationships are not always, nor need they be, based on love. Human needs are many, and often they are interrelated, but some needs, like the need for sex, can stand alone: sexual activity is no less satisfying because the sexual need is the only need being satisfied.

Prostitution, when it is not marred by bad business practices (say, the taking of money without the provision of the promised sexual service) typically involves straightforward, totally honest interactions: both parties to the deal know what they have to give to get what they want: sex in exchange for money, goods, or the exercise of favors. Moreover, prostitution only makes explicit what is implicit in many other forms of relationship, particularly dating and marriage.

Very common to each of the latter, although not present in all arrangements, is a concern for the prospect of profiting financially from the romantic or sexual involvement. In fact many people make financial standing a condition of personal involvement; some will not ask for or accept dates from those whom they consider economically unworthy. Often these human interactions suffer because one party has ulterior motives of which the other party is only dimly or not at all aware. The deception which is sometimes practiced during courtship is not a feature of the relationship between prostitute and client, and yet significant needs are satisfied.

Pro: Government control of prostitution would make it safer for the public: prostitutes would be required to have regular examinations by medical professionals to ensure that carriers of sexually transmitted diseases would not provide sexual services to a vulnerable population.

Reply: Governments cannot effectively regulate prostitution: governments are powerless to prevent all sales of sexual services.

Con: The legalization of prostitution would result in an increase in sexual activity in any society. The efforts of governments to prevent the transmission of disease could not keep up with the actions of citizens determined to enjoy legalized sexual pleasures.

Con: Governments could not prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in a population where anonymous sexual activity prevails.

Pro: Prostitution helps to protect the institution of marriage by providing for one or more partners in a marriage the opportunity for sexual satisfaction unavailable at home.

Con: Prostitution destroys marriages. Often, when one spouse learns that the other has employed a prostitute, there is irreparable damage to the marriage.

Con: Prostitution reduces or destroys the dignity of human life. Prostitutes lose social standing and self-respect. Prostitution garners those who practice it the disdain of the rest of society.

Reply: Public relations campaigns could win the profession more respect. And certain efforts could secure good packages of benefits, including retirement plans, for prostitutes. With economic success, prostitutes would achieve a higher status.
A contract between a union and an employer is one means by which the working lives of those who provide various sexual services for hire can be ameliorated. If workers in the sex trade cannot immediately gain the respect of a wider portion of society, they can nevertheless negotiate for better treatment and improved working conditions.

Con: Prostitutes are routinely exploited by a variety of people. There are several groups who gain from the exploitation of prostitutes: corrupt police officers, who extort information from prostitutes and sometimes use them for sex, pimps, who expect the highest return for the least investment, and johns, who want to ensure the secrecy of their actions by retaining the power to discredit the prostitutes.

Con: Prostitution is the use of another human being, and we ought not to allow the use of human beings.

Pro: We 'use' human beings very often and in almost every situation. We 'use' doctors to make us well, we 'use' plumbers to fix our leaking pipes, we 'use' lawyers to support and protect us in our legal dealings. Anyone who is hired to do a job is being used in some way. Where the employer and the employee agree on a price for the product or service, and the employee delivers what he/she promised, and the employer pays the price that he/she promised to pay, there is no injustice in the arrangement.

Reply: Unlike other kinds of employment, prostitution involves the use of the most intimate parts of a person's body: it makes of the most personal aspect of a human being, the sharing of which is indicative of the greatest care and respect, a mere commodity.

Con: Prostitution results from (and results in) the economic coercion of the prostitute. Even if an individual complies with another's wish for sex, the compliance may be the result of coercion: the decision by some to participate in sexual activity may result from pressures exerted on them by others. In some cases, compliance may be just an agreement not to resist being raped. If a person accepts sex, that is, willingly participates in sexual activity, he/she may nevertheless have concluded that sex is the most acceptable of many unacceptable options.
Since the pay for sex is often greater than the pay for menial labor, the former is often an attractive option. Many are coerced into working in the sex industry (e. g., prostitution, pornography) by social and economic pressures. In these cases, they are victims of economic oppression.

Reply: Many people willingly enter the sex business. While some enter the sex business because they have no other alternative, those who pay them are not to blame because they will pay more for sex than for other services: sex is valued more than unskilled, nonsexual work. No one is forced into providing sexual services for hire just because buyers will pay more for sex than anything else.
Were prostitution really only the subjugation of one class by another, then those who are subjugated would not have what power they do have to establish the price for their services. To be sure, prostitutes do not have unlimited power to set their prices; they are influenced by market forces, by supply and demand. But they can charge what the market will bear.

Con: Prostitution limits the options of those who practice it, affording them nothing when their marketability is exhausted.

Reply: Some prostitutes can be extremely well-paid during their working years and then retire to a very comfortable life afterward. If prostitutes can so arrange their lives to do well financially, then prostitutes will not be limited any more than other retirees. Prostitutes are not necessarily less intelligent or less able than anyone else to plan for the future and manage money. Many people work at dead-end jobs. And the longer they work in these jobs, the less desirable they become in other fields. Many jobs do nothing for the workers when they can no longer work. Highly paid football players typically have short careers. They have to manage their finances accordingly; they need to plan for the time when their usefulness in the sport is exhausted. The same holds true for anyone in a career with a short span.
Those who take up prostitution should be aware of its dangers and drawbacks. If prostitutes are well-informed, then they can enjoy the benefits of their labor and suffer no surprises or regrets later on in their lives.

Con: Prostitution has certain evils associated with it, for example, (1) theft (as when a prostitute or a pimp robs a john), (2) blackmail (as when a prostitute threatens to inform the john's spouse or the public about the actions of the john), (3) drug addiction (as when drug addicts turn to prostitution to obtain the cash needed to buy drugs), (4) the spread of venereal disease, (5) the procreation of illegitimate children, and (6) the enslavement of the prostitute by the pimp (6) physical and emotional dangers to prostitute and client.

Reply 1: None of those evils mentioned has anything to do with the essence of prostitution. Anyone who is paying for a service operated outside the law is in a very vulnerable position. The criminals associated with prostitution are often willing to take full advantage of their vulnerable clients. While prostitution occurs outside the law, the victims of the crimes now associated with prostitution are less likely to seek remedies, not only because they bear a stigma for having engaged in something society regards with disdain, but also and especially because they have committed a crime, which makes them less likely to win any help from law enforcement authorities or the courts.
Were prostitution legalized, were it practiced at regular, publicly known addresses, in houses, for example, as opposed to cars or hotel rooms, several of the kinds of evils listed could be prevented. Then the prostitutes would be likely to conduct their businesses to suit their clients, because the clients would have the ability to hold the prostitutes accountable. Dissatisfied customers could have legal remedies for their complaints.

Reply 2: The prostitutes themselves, as well as the public health agencies, can prevent the spread of venereal disease. Moreover, there are effective methods for detecting and treating many venereal diseases.

Reply 3: Effective methods of contraception are available to those women who want to avoid getting pregnant.

Con: If laws allowed prostitution, the government would be giving moral approval to prostitution. Many citizens who are now deterred from engaging in it would no longer be deterred. More citizens would become prostitutes.

Option: Prosecute only prostitutes, not their clients.

Pro: Those who benefit financially from prostitution, that is, the prostitutes themselves, are more responsible for the ills associated with the practice than are the clients, whose desires are usually uncomplicated and whose actions are rarely anti-social.

Con: In many cases penalties apply to prostitutes but not to their clients. But the act of prostitution cannot occur without both a prostitute and a client: they share equally in the responsibility for the ills that prostitution creates.

Option: License prostitutes.

Pro: The licensing of prostitutes would enable local governments to minimize the spread of disease.

Pro: Licensing prostitutes would provide additional tax revenues for State and local governments.

Con: Prostitutes should not be required to go on public records, for those records might be used against them. Those who gain access to the records might use them to prevent prostitutes from getting housing in certain areas or employment in 'respectable' jobs.

Option: Allow solicitation on the street for sexual services.

Pro: If laws should permit prostitution, then those involved in it should have the right to advertise their services. For restrictions on advertising and marketing-especially by word of mouth, for this is the most basic form of communication and one that does not require an economic expenditure-are in effect restrictions on business itself.

Con: Even relatively liberal governments would want to prohibit solicitation on the street for sexual services. Most citizens do not want to be disturbed as they travel in public places. Most people have no desire to be approached by prostitutes with sexual offers. Streetwalking can involve aggressive advertising which limits the ability of citizens-even those who would support prostitution-to enjoy traveling on foot without interference.

Streetwalkers often aggravate passers-by. Even those who want to buy sexual services prefer merely an easy access to them over the intrusive marketing by whores or pimps. And most citizens want to be assured that others-friends, relatives, lovers, spouses, and especially, children-are not approached by the sellers of sexual services. Even without solicitation on the street, the trade in sexual services can flourish in places where it does not have a direct impact upon the people who do not want to engage in it.

Con: Prostitutes who make the availability of their services known on the street will corrupt young people. Parents and society at large will have no control over the circumstances of sex education.

Con: If streetwalking is permitted, then whores and pimps alike may have excessive power in their relationship with potential customers. The providers of sexual services can easily dominate the interaction with johns. Whores and pimps are, after all, in business for making money. They can very easily run scams to the disadvantage of those who seek sex. A customer usually has little control over the outcome of an arrangement with a streetwalker and rarely has a guarantee of value rendered for money paid.