Do you support or oppose the legalization of prostitution?

[Santander]

I know quite a bit about legalized prostitution in Hong Kong and Singapore from my time living in the region. Prostitution is much more prevalent in that part of the world than in the West. There are certainly advantages to legalization, but a major problem is that even countries with legal prostitution still have illegal prostitution industries that are actually bigger than the legal industries. For example, only permanent residents of HK and Singapore can be legal prostitutes in their respective countries, but they are expensive and come in limited... "varieties", so both countries have massive semi-underground industries of prostitutes from mainland China, Korea, Vietnam, Russia, Thailand, and other countries. The vast majority of these girls are 18+, but they still do not fall within the bounds of the regulated prostitution industry because they are legally foreign students or tourists. You will never be able to overcome this problem without granting work permits for foreign prostitutes, which is just a terrible idea.

With this in mind, I oppose legalization of prostitution, partly on moral grounds, but mostly for pragmatic reasons. I very much support reducing criminal penalties for prostitution, though.

[Santander]

With this in mind, I oppose legalization of prostitution, partly on moral grounds, but mostly for pragmatic reasons. I very much support reducing criminal penalties for prostitution, though.

Is it really fair to compare the prostitution industry of eastern Asia to the United States? They aren't quite the same.

The US and East Asia are different in many ways, but legalized prostitution, whether in Europe, Asia or Nevada, only cleans up the middle and high-end of the industry. The low-end of the industry, where the human trafficking, drugs, etc. is prevalent, relies on large numbers of prostitutes imported from other countries, mostly Central America and Asia in the case of the US. It is even more difficult for a country like the US to solve these problems through legalization, because you will always have wicked criminals who lure young women into the country through lies and intimidation. The same could be said about poor American women and street prostitution.

Legalization will only legitimize people like Charlie Sheen and Eliot Spitzer while leaving untouched the most vile criminal activity associated with prostitution. In every country where it exists, legal prostitution ends up just being way for society to feel good about itself for its purported pragmatism.

[Santander]

So basically prostitution isn't legal in HK.  I mean if you constrain it so much that there aren't any legal prostitutes that basically means it is illegal.  It's like the Mississippi abortion law.  If the law is so restrictive it shuts down the last abortion clinic in the state then abortion for all intents and purposes is banned.

It is legal, but pimping is illegal and prostitutes must be permanent residents. If prostitution was legalized in the US, I'm sure at least the latter would be adopted as a restriction, because a) it would be considered work, and b) to avoid encouraging human trafficking. Unfortunately, any liberalization of prostitution laws ultimately leads to more illegal prostitution and possibly human trafficking.