It’s a private matter, and if you meet somebody (of either sex) on the street or anyplace else (especially saunas for men only) and you decide to go someplace to have sex, you do. That’s it. And if one of these consenting adults pays the other consenting adult, that is of no interest to the law, the police, the government, etc. In this sense, all prostitution is legal, no sweat. But don’t mess with minors because you might spend some years in jail.

BigJoe

Many of the peripheral ethical issues of prostitution are resolved by legalization and oversight of the industry. The same can be said of many things, like marijuana. There is nothing unethical about imbibing in marijuana, but buying it from the black market…? That promotes all sorts of unethical circumstances. I have a friend who is a priest and he has worked with prostitutes and other members of the “downtrodden,” in Nevada and all over the world. His peers were none too pleased when during a speech at a national convention he refused to talk about the sins and folly of legalized prostitution. He explained that having worked with legal and illegal prostitutes, there was no way he could pretend that making it illegal in NV would do anything but harm.

I believe in legal prostitution. I don’t see anything wrong with it, and I see how it can benefit society. I’ve spoken with many prostitutes; some of who do not want to deal with the inconveniences of legalization (yes, NV has plenty of illegal prostitutes too), and none of their experiences ever made me change my opinion. In fact, they’ve only reinforced it.

There have been attempts to make a distinction between the two today, but I’ve never found any such attempts compelling. Heck, most dictionaries even tend to use the two words in each others’ definitions.

Ethics and morals are one in the same to me. Seems to me once someone tried to explain the difference here, but all the hair splitting was completely lost on me.

It’s completely illegal in most states to pay someone to have sex with you. UNLESS you set up a camera, tape it and sell copies. Then its perfectly legal.

Another one of America’s oh-so logical laws, makes as much sense as the ones banning pot or gays in the military.

Actually, I do think there are moral considerations about prostitution. There’s a difference between an independent contractor freely choosing to work at the Shady Lady and a prostitute who has been tricked into the profession and somehow coerced into remaining in it. There are also other issues with regards safety and exploitation. So while there may be nothing inherently immoral with having sex for money, there are a number of important peripheral concerns. Of course, legalizing prostitution and ensuring that licensed brothels maintain good standards while going after those individuals who do exploit and otherwise harm their prostitutes is a good way to address those peripheral issues.

I think part of the issue, though, is that most of us have a hard time imagining getting paid to have sex, or why anyone would want to have sex. We tend to see it as a matter of cheapening ourselves and our sexual experiences, and it’s hard to see any other perspective.