Prostitution

I realize that this particular issue will strike a chord with people. It's a hot button issue, but I was a reading an article for my LGBT Lit class that got me started thinking about this.

The passage in particular that got me thinking about it was from Gayle Rubin's essay, "Thinking Sex." The specific paragraph was about consent laws and went further to say:

"Adults who deviate too much from conventional standards of sexual conduct are often denied contact with the young, even their own… Countless lesbians gay men, prostitutes, swingers, sex workers and 'promiscuous' women have been declared unfit parents under such provisions."

Earlier on, Rubin had made the point comparing the exclusion from the capitalist structure that sexual issues receive with the quality of medical practice were it to experience the same levels of removed legality and acceptance. Essentially it seems that a minor point she is making here is that were prostitution (to use but the most readily available example) legalized and socially accepted, the quality would go up.

Anyways, it led me to wonder just hypothetically, why not legalize prostitution? It's not socially accepted because our culture teaches us it's wrong, but other than that, what's stopping it?

It's dirty/unsafe you say? If we legalize it, then there would theoretically be various monitoring organizations in place to ensure... a quality experience, probably under the jurisdiction of the FDA or some other such bureaucracy.

It's goes against the bible. And remind me again what's so special about the Bible that puts it above other religious texts? Why not the Vedas or the Quran or the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

You can tax legalized institutions, unlike underground operations, providing valuable revenue to fund pointless wars (and to be fair, wars that do have a point).

I understand that this isn't something that's going to happen, and I can't say I advocate it or would participate in, but I also understand that the inherent hypocrisies behind this as an issue make the illegality of it a matter of absurdity. Other than undermining the already shaky foundations of morality, the pros seem to outweigh the cons. If people choose this who is it hurting?

And as far as "unfit parents" if they're providing for their children and not exposing them to undue physical or mental harm, aren't they doing their job as a parent? These are just some questions to ponder.