Sexual prostitution should not be legalized. The legalization of prostitution receives support from people with many different agendas. It is argued, for example, that the reduction of the spread of AIDS and other diseases will follow from legalization. It is also argued that government has no right to interfere in consensual sexual acts between adults, which, regardless of the exchange of money, prostitution is. Other voices have been raised citing the potential reduction in the exploitation of prostitutes that would come from legalization, including the elimination of the unfair apportioning of blame for the criminal act. This view holds that prostitutes are victims of a system of exploitation that would be curtailed by legalized contractual sexual acts. Each of these positions recognizes the essential, core reasons why prostitution is problematic. And, having seen the difficulties, each attempts to forestall the objections of those who favor continued illegality for prostitution. But, in each case, it can be shown that the core problem is not solved by legalizing prostitution.
Prostitutes include both males and females who hire themselves out, or are hired out, for sexual acts with customers. Though prostitution is sometimes viewed, and defined, as a crime committed exclusively by women, this is an anachronism. And, though many people would expand the definition of prostitute to include anyone who makes her/himself available in pornographic films, phone-sex, magazines, strip clubs, and other non-contact venues, these forums are often legal and are not part of this debate.
Prostitution is as common as it ever was in the United States, with estimates of the number of prostitutes in 1990 going as high as 500,000. It was also estimated that 1 in 6 American men had employed a prostitute in the preceding 5 years ("Street," 1991, p. A28). Prostitution is illegal everywhere in the U.S., except for a few counties in Neva...