Here is an fairly pedestrian opinion piece regarding legalization of prostitution. It is filled with arguments we have all heard before and includes a strange collection of non sequiturs. Worth a look, but not very well thought out or compelling. Read the entire editorial at The Daily Collegian…

Legalizing the oldest profession
Shruti Sehgal, Collegian Columnist

As an American expatriate, I have lived in six countries and visited countless more. Yet, the prospects of rape, physical violence or any threat from a man never fazed me until I moved back to the United States for college. Trying to understand this circumstance, it dawned on me that I’ve also never lived in a country where prostitution is illegal. To most American college students, the relationship between these two revelations is unclear. I hope to change that.

Besides two counties in Nevada, prostitution is criminalized in the United States. Most Americans support this prohibition citing the sex trade as a dangerous and demeaning practice for women. Feminists in particular jump to a defensive that prostitution allows men to objectify women and abuse their bodies, and such allowances should be avoided. Other stances are based on assumptions that prostitution increases violent crimes, spreads sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS, and can tear families apart by leading men astray.

These concerns are understandable. But if they were empirically supported reasons, why is prostitution legal in developed and developing countries in every continent? Moreover, why does the United States possess more alleged prostitution-related social catastrophes such as violent crime, disease, and divorced families, than the countries that let prostitutes walk their street corners?

Part of the answer to these enquiries lies in one simple fact. It’s the oldest profession in existence today and it will still exist tomorrow. Regardless of what the national law dictates, women in the United States do and will sell their bodies for money. Police records provide evidence – more than 80,000 prostitution-related arrests are filed annually. Somehow the sex trade still thrives with up to 100,000 American women illegally prostituting themselves each year. The attempt to uproot women from the sex trade seems to be an admirable but futile effort.

Many developed countries, including Canada, England and France have accepted this grim reality. But rather than engaging in a perpetual cat and mouse game, these nations regulate prostitution to curb negative externalities. Compelling governmental statistics on crime rate, HIV/AIDS deaths and divorce suggest that these nations are justified in doing so.