Legalize Prostitution

My understanding of crime is that there should be a perpetrator and a victim. In the case of prostitution, there is no victim. Many sex workers seem quite content in their chosen trade and are determined to keep at it. Some are paying for college with their sex work. Others support their families. What happens when the sex worker reaches retirement age? They are neither covered by Social Security nor paying into it. This should change. We should welcome sex workers into the system and treat them in a mature fashion rather than as social outcasts.

Decades have passed since the Sexual Revolution, and the laws still condemn sex workers and their clients. Society needs to get over it. Prostitution has existed since recorded history, and there is no evidence that it causes any harm to society, save those harms that the legal situation brings about. Because prostitution is illegal, sex workers are often subjected to violence from customers and their pimps on the street. Both sex workers and their clients are exposed to the threat of blackmail. These harms can be reduced if society gathers up enough moral courage to legalize it once and for all.

Prostitution can be taxed and transformed into an asset for the state, rather than an unnecessary diversion for law enforcement. Sex workers can find redress for grievances in the court system and in the media. Those who exploit and abuse sex workers will be exposed, as should be the case. Right now, the abusers are being protected by the legal environment. Sex workers are afraid to complain because they could be arrested. The industry hides in the shadows, where many abuses are concealed.

Instead of entrapping sex workers, police departments should be focused upon real crimes. Going after sex workers is one of the easiest ways to increase the number of arrests, a statistic used to judge the effectiveness of police departments. On paper, it looks like the police chief is doing a great job. But take a closer look. Does arresting a sex worker help anyone at all? The customers do not want him or her arrested. In reality, no one receives any benefit. The actual outcome is a needless harm inflicted upon the sex worker and an inconvenience upon the customers.

Why are working people the law's favorite target? Because they are easy to harm. They can seldom hire a fancy lawyer, don't have connections to people in power, and if you hurt them, who's going to know--or care? If you are rich, you are left untouched in your golden palace. The police will take every measure to protect you. If they must trouble you in any way, you will be addressed in the tones of utmost civility, respect and fear. If you are poor, then you are more likely to get arrested for one thing or the other. The police will beat the hell out of you, maybe because of something you said or maybe for no reason at all. There is no health insurance for you. You cannot afford to attend university. The state would actually prefer you to die and get out of the way of the rich people. What are you doing breathing their air? This is the actual conservative Republican viewpoint denuded of all its disguises.

For the record, I've never visited a prostitute, not because I think there is anything wrong with it, but because I didn't want to pay for sex. The very fact that I feel the need to set the record straight on this point says something. People with a tolerant viewpoint are uncomfortable talking about prostitution. They fear being judged either as a frequenter of prostitutes or a prostitute themselves. This is why a majority of the public remains silent upon this and many other issues. Who talks with impunity about prostitution? The hypocrites who condemn prostitution, who want to see more people arrested for it. These hypocrites pretend to be morally pure saints condemning the vices of other people.

Generation after generation, supposed vices continue to be treated like crimes, and otherwise law-abiding people sent to jail. We need to expose all of the fake crimes and remove the bad laws from the books. The net effect of these fake crimes is to sow division, confusion and misery among working people. Respect for the law is diminished. How can the laws be respected when they are wrong in so many ways? Instead of focusing upon real problems, law enforcement spins its wheels pursuing imaginary crimes, and the media spins its wheels reporting upon them. Who benefits? The rich business criminals, who like the idea of the media's attention being consumed upon irrelevant non-issues like sex.