Should Prostitution Be Legalized?

[angus]

I think so.

This is one of those strange issues.  Strange bedfellows:  radical feminazis, fire-and-brimstone traditionalists, soccer moms, social workers whose livelihoods depend on the taboo, and the like.  Just enough against it to form a minoritarian hegemony.  And there's also the Beavis'n'Butthead aspect about it, not unlike legalized weed. 

But if the majority were allowed to come out of the closet, then you could swing it in some states.    (Nevada, for example, allows some legal and highly-regulated forms in about half of its counties.)  I suspect that Iowans would go for it straight up, if asked, and Californians and other Westerners would as well, if you could call it "medical necessity" since that's the way they seem to operate.  (Back door legalization and all that.  Think:  Oaksterdam University.) 

Certainly the advantages of open pay-for sex outweighs its disadvantages.  Not that there aren't any.  And you'd have to probably spend tax dollars to deal with the fallout, but my hunch is that any public spending to deal with that is smaller than the amount we're currently wasting on enforcement, public defenders, counseling, and the like.