Legalizing prostitution in the U.S. has been a long-standing debate … and one that is picking up steam as of late (Legal + Prostitution = 187,000 Google hits).
According to American Thinker, the Pretty Woman myth is dangerous and glamorizes a lifestyle no one should be emulating:
Street prostitutes often service as many as ten to fifteen men a night; little wonder that they age rapidly and get tired out and used up. Often they end up drug-addicted, bruised, and battered, often at the hands of their pimps, who take most of their earnings and get rich. Prostitutes call their work “paid rape” and note the friends who “didn’t make it out alive.” Nearly half of the women in prostitution attempt suicide.
Although prostitution is legal in many countries, statistical data shows that there is more than meets the eye to this pro-legalization argument. In famously relaxed Amsterdam, for example, 80% of the, uh, work force report working against their will, and 60% of Germany’s prostitutes aren’t there by choice either. I cannot imagine being coerced into selling my body for money, but evidently an underground gang-like network exists in many of these countries where refusing is not an option. Ouch. And Australia’s two-year-old legal prostitution system has resulted in a 91% increase in HIV-positive women. Double ouch.
Freelance writer Wendy Gittleson recently countered with ten reasons why prostitution should be legalized in America. Her main point focuses on the health of the prostitutes through regular health screening, although I am pissed thrown off by her terminology:
It’s good for the health of her customers (johns): Legalized prostitution would allow the state to require that all prostitutes take regular health exams, helping to ensure that she or he is not carrying a sexually transmitted disease.
I mean, the first (and theoretically best reason) for legalizing the so-called oldest profession is for the health of men? Uh, WTF?
Herein lies the bone that I have to pick. We are a society where, if a guy sleeps with a lot of girls, he’s a stud … but if the reverse is true, the woman is considered a slut. In both fictional portrayals and the media, men seem to get off (so to speak) with an apology and a simpering smile. After reading this, I almost want to applaud Ashley Dupre for coming out on top of the debacle with Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer!
And on a totally related note …
Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz (what the hell is going on over there at Harvard, by the way?) publicly referred to prostitution as a “victimless crime” and spoke out in defense of Spitzer, his former student.
Dershowitz told MSNBC shortly after DuSpitzGate:
I feel that this is an America-only story that we have to put in perspective. You know, big deal, married man goes to prostitute! In Europe, this wouldn’t even make the back pages of the newspaper. It’s a uniquely American story. We’re a uniquely, you know, pandering society and hypocritical society, when it comes to sex.
Do you think prostitution will ever be legal in America? Should it? Would regulation make it more palatable, or is it just another way for women to be dragged down?
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