Prostitution Should Be Legal: Argumentative Essay

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Areas to be discussed with pros and cons: Health, international policies, crime, and economical benefits/cons.

Moderator Questions

If prostitution were to be legalized, what would stop illegal sex trafficking from working under the guise of a licensed brothel?
How much income would the state earn if something like prostitution were to be legalized and taxed?
What are your opinions on women or men being empowered by having the right to choose what they are able to do to their own bodies?
Would decriminalizing prostitution eliminate sex workers from being a social stigma?
Would prostitution under a legalized institution help provide rules and regulations that would help prevent the spread of STDs from solicited sex?
Wouldn’t the criminalization of sex workers only make them more vulnerable to rape and sex trafficking?
How would decriminalizing prostitution improve the quality of life for certain areas if it were to be put under zoning regulations?
With the legalization of prostitution, wouldn’t other crimes such as rape decrease since there would be the availability of sex among professional workers?
With the legalization of prostitution, many critics have worried about things such as an increase in gonorrhea infections and sex trafficking would increase, how come their statistics are not apparent in places like Nevada or New Zealand?
To decrease the amount of prostitution, how has the criminalization of the purchase of sex rather than the selling of sex contributed to this study?

Pro Arguments

Crime

Especially when considering legalizing prostitution within the United States, it is important to look at Nevada (where it is legalized to a degree) when considering a legal model. Women in the permitted brothels pointed out that sex trafficking did not exist within their establishments. Most women working here said it was either to escape harmful pimps or supplement other work.
Prostitutes were found to be more susceptible to violence either from their “pimp” or customer. At least in the UK prostitutes were not allowed to even work with a friend close by because that would be considered a brothel. This premise was largely in support of indoor brothels where prostitutes were able to seek help from their employers or colleagues (Fuchs).
Sex workers were found to be less likely to report a crime while on the job due mostly to the legality of their work, in fact in San Francisco prostitutes were found 82% more likely to be assaulted or 68% more likely to be raped than women of the same age and race (Fuchs).
Legalized or decriminalized prostitution often led to decreased stress built up in the work environment which led to a side effect of decreased drug/alcohol use; thus decreasing illegal drug trade in the environment.
One slightly grim but positive outcome of legalizing monetized sex was some men replacing rape with an easily accessible form through the usage of brothels (Brown).
Along with the short-term benefits of sexual abuse and rape dropping by about 30-40%, Dutch cities showed that long-term effects, such as drug and weapon smuggling, also dropped (Lopez).

Health

Women working illegally in this industry were seen to not have the benefits of any other employee in different jobs. For instance, one of the most important things when looking for a job is also looking at the health benefits. While illegally working, prostitutes did not have easy access to healthcare providers due to their work being illegal. Depending on what country a sexual employee is in, legal workers are able to benefit from something as simple as a basic health care plan (Lopez).
The institutionalization of prostitution has a way of actually keeping sexual workers healthy. A model depicting this would be in this very country, specifically in Nevada. According to Nevada Law section 201.354 (state law, 1), brothels require their employees to submit their HIV and STD testing results in order to work within their establishment; prostitutes or customers were also required to wear condoms at all times. This in turn would help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases to customers.
Along with physical health, it also stands to reason to look at the phycological health deriving from legalized prostitution. While prostitutes are not given the basic working rights of the average worker, this may affect their self-worth as human beings to be able to make their own decisions.
April 2012 New York City cops using condoms found on women as evidence for said women prostituting themselves. This action by law enforcement thus discouraged women from performing sex with condoms which would then lead to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases(Fuchs).
Along with basic human rights in the workplace, it has been shown that anxiety brought on by being seen as a criminal was very common in the workplace. Anxiety often leads to other forms of abuse like drug or alcohol usage.
With the practice of institutionalized monetized sex being regulated, Time has shown that a certain loophole in Rhode Island’s policy allowed indoor prostitution to be practiced from 2003-2009. During this time frame, the gonorrhea rate was reported to take decline(Brown).

Economically Beneficial

As with the debate on marijuana or any illegal recreational, there is the issue that if something like prostitution were to be legalized, it would in turn be able to be taxed
While law enforcement is not spending their time or resources on prostitution, those tax dollars can instead be used on more legitimate crimes like the actual sex trade or trafficking of any kind (Brown).
In New York, about 5000 phone conversations and 6000 emails were intercepted between a prostitute and governor Eliot Spitzer (Fuchs). The same resources in this sting could have been used elsewhere in arguably more pertinent crimes like fighting terrorism or the everlasting war on all forms of trafficking.
Morally wrong things like gambling, alcohol, tobacco, and pornography are legalized and regulated; would not be too much of a far cry for prostitution to be as well where the main difference from pornography is a camera
Sex trade looks to be regions where the industry in Miami is about 230$ million and in DC is $103 million; other states vary as well depending on how populated they are. All of these are easily taxable and bolster their region’s economy.
In Atlanta, the average pimp was earning about 30k a week whereas the industry back in 2007 was worth around $290 million. Legalized brothels could tax and bring in a percentage of that revenue.

International Policies

Many studies from countries, not just the US, citing that decriminalizing sex work increased trafficking in that area. The same studies failed to report that trafficking does not just include sex, but rather labor and human trafficking as well.
According to the Swedish model of punishing prostitution where they prosecute the buyer instead of the seller, this method was pointed out to be flawed because this assumes that the adult male or female is not able to give consent (assumes they are just raped). Prostitution was seen to be consensual between both parties involved (Brown).
New Zealand found that sex workers did not grow in numbers when it was legalized, it just made them more visible. The rate of HIV also did not increase since there was increased protection from the required condom usage (Brown).
Dutch cities in the Netherlands, where prostitution was legalized in certain zones, showed that there was about a 30-40% drop in sexual abuse/rape-related crimes (Lopez).
In Germany, prior to prostitution being legalized 2002, sex trafficking was bunched up with prostitution as well. Conviction steadily decreased since being legalized.
Most international models for decriminalizing or legalizing prostitution realize that it will be here for the foreseeable future. Rather than prosecute people in the business, regulations sought to make the environment safer for men and women alike with required protection, specific zoning rules, and benefits gained from taxing.

Con Arguments

Crime

Legalizing or decriminalizing prostitution has been shown to give criminals a place to traffic humans into the sex trade from other countries (Flows).
Legalized and unregulated prostitution actually led to more abuse, either sexual, physical or drug and alcohol-related (Lane).
Sanctioned brothels led to an increase in minors being brought in from other areas for the sex trade as well (Geist).
More time than often, readily available prostitutes led to increased corruption in either law enforcement or politics seeking more lenient regulations like in the case of Eliot Spitzer in New York (Fuchs).
Pimps that were basically turned into businessmen often offered policemen sex in turn for looking the other way, often to help keep women in the trade.
Sanctioned brothels were actually disguised in a way that entrapped women to work longer unsafe hours (Flows).

International Policies

Nordic, or Swedish Model, sought that the sellers of sex are not seen as criminal, but the buyer of the illicit good was complicit in the crime; this led to the prosecution of the buyer rather than the seller in those regions and the reduction in men seeking sexual gratitude from the monetary exchange (Almeida).
Germany, in 2001, had legalized and almost deregulated prostitution in hopes that workers in the industry would be open to higher pay and social insurance. Later it would be found out that Large brothels would start to appear everywhere and with pimps providing a close to the abusive working environment (Lane).
With the implementation of prostitution being decriminalized or legalized, girls are more often than none shipped to different countries into the prostitution industry as soon as they are of 18 years of age.
Germany and New Zealand again with their more lenient policies also started to run into the problem where girls entering the industry experienced a statistic with an increase of underaged girls around 14 appearing as well (Geist).
Denmark, which is not too far from Sweden and has decriminalized prostitution, has almost 4x as much sex trafficking (Geist).
Countries like New Zealand found that total legalization of prostitution found that demand rose up dramatically with costs going down as well, which led to prostitutes working longer hours (Geist).

Economically Harmful

If we assume that prostitutes are entering the industry willingly, do we assume that they have considered other options before selling their bodies? Something like poverty could mean that prostitution might be an easy way out without considering other options for an arguably healthier lifestyle (Albert).
The introduction of approved brothels has been shown to drastically decrease the property value of not only itself but as well as surrounding businesses (Albert). What is to happen to all those people’s property if they so decide to move shop, suddenly building they are trying to sell is worth substantially less than what they paid for, or consumers not wanting to buy from them anymore simply because they are not located in a safe environment.
As much as the following point has to do with ethics, what is there to say about regulated brothels participating in illicit activity (drug, rape, human trafficking)? As long as these events are not seen in the eye of the public, the establishment will continue to receive things like tax benefits. This, in turn, will negatively impact our morality as a community (Albert).
Taking the Swedish or Nordic model into consideration, costs for prosecution in this field were shown to not increase once the blame was put on the buyer rather than the provider (Almeida).
In Sweden punishment, often through fines, was based on an income basis to make sure that everyone of any income was put with proportionally the same amount of punishment (like $400 for those without jobs and about 50 days of pay for those with). Not put too much of a strain on those committing in the lower income bracket (Almeida).
To help citizens looking to get out of the sex trade, The Swedish government has provided funding programs in which to make the process of coming out a lot easier (Almeida).

Health

One of the more obvious premises for the resulting health of prostitution is the increased spread of HIV/STDs through unprotected sex behind closed doors.
More times than often prolonged prostitution often leads to alcoholism or substance abuse when dealing with the stress of the work environment; i.e. longer working hours, a hazardous environment, or an absence of essential benefits (Rolfs).
Often sex was given in exchange for drugs (cocaine), contributing to the problem of illicit drug use (Rolfs).
Often the argument of consenting adults is used behind closed doors, this same argument applies if and when adults decide if they are going to have unprotected sex (Immordino)
Legalizing prostitution will make it more readily available, thus increasing demand (Immordino)
In Italy, where prostitution is legalized and unregulated, the rate at which people have become infected with HIV has increased by about 0.3% (Immordino).

Work Cited

Albert, Rocio, Fernando Gomez, and Yanna Gutierrez Franco. ‘Regulating prostitution: A comparative law and economics approach.’ Documento de trabajo 30 (2007).
Almeida, Vanderlei. “Outlawing the Purchase of Sex Has Been Key to Sweden’s Success in Reducing Prostitution.” Vancouver Sun, 21 Sept. 2016, vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/outlawing-the-purchase-of-sex-has-been-key-to-Sweden’s-success-in-reducing-prostitution.
Brown, Elizabeth Nolan. “The Benefits of Decriminalizing Prostitution.” Time, Time, 19 July 2014, time.com/3005687/what-the-Swedish-model-gets-wrong-about-prostitution/.
Flows, Capital. “Why Legalizing Prostitution May Not Work.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 17 Oct. 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/10/17/why-legalizing-prostitution-may-not-work/#dfae4c16678d.
Fuchs, Erin. “7 Reasons Why America Should Legalize Prostitution.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 13 Nov. 2013, www.businessinsider.com/why-America-should-legalize-prostitution-2013-11.
Geist, Darren. “5 Reasons to Be Wary of Amnesty’s Prostitution Policy.” Rolling Stone, 25 June 2018, www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/5-reasons-to-be-wary-of-amnesty-prostitution-policy-198762/.
Immordino, G., and F. F. Russo. “Regulating Prostitution: A Health Risk Approach.” Journal of Public Economics, vol. 121, Jan. 2015, pp. 14–31. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.11.001.
Kolodny, Carina. “9 Things You Didn’t Know About American Prostitution.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 8 Nov. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/12/sex-trade-study_n_4951891.html.
Lane, Charles. “Charles Lane: Legalizing Prostitution Doesn’t Make It Safer.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 23 Dec. 2013, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-lane-legalizing-prostitution-doesnt-make-it-safer/2013/12/23/c23886e4-6c02-11e3-b405-7e360f7e9fd2_story.html?utm_term=.6ac0917896b4%2B%2Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca%2Flearn%2Fresources%2F10-reasons-not-legalizing-prostitution-janice-g-raymond-catw-2003.
Lopez, German. “The Best Evidence for Banning Prostitution Is Absolutely Terrible.” Vox, Vox, 18 Aug. 2015, www.vox.com/2015/8/18/9166669/why-legalize-prostitution.
Reuters, Thomson. “Nevada Prostitution and Solicitation Laws – FindLaw.com.” Findlaw, statelaws.findlaw.com/nevada-law/nevada-prostitution-and-solicitation-laws.html.
Rolfs, R. T., et al. “Risk Factors for Syphilis: Cocaine Use and Prostitution.” American Journal Of Public Health, vol. 80, no. 7, July 1990, pp. 853–857. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.gsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mnh&AN=2356911&site=eds-live&scope=site.