My first inclination would be to say NO we should not legalize prostitution. We should teach our children to respect their bodies,develope good self esteem, good ethics, get an education and go out into the world and contribute to society. Never do anything that they would be embarrassed to have to explain to a spouse, parent or child. Then on the other hand, maybe we should legalize prostitution, require tons of paper work, publish the names of both parties in the paper and limit the amount that they can charge and require that 50% be paid in taxes there by making it too unattractive ! It doesn’t seem acceptable that we pay nurses and teachers so little for what they do and prostitutes and strippers make thousands.

Yes it should be legalized. If it was possible to legislate or shame it out of existence it would no longer exist as the world’s oldest profession. I find it almost absurdly contradictory that the political conservatives, a large many of whom are also part of the religious right, claim to want smaller government and less government involvement in people’s lives, yet they’re most often the ones who want to legislate morality and thereby tell people how to live their lives.

Yes It should be legalized.

No it should not be legalized. Do you really believe you could effectively regulate something like that. We try to regulate alcohol and see where that has gotten us. Unbelievable numbers of under age drinkers, alcoholics and drunk drivers. The cost of regulating prostitution would be enormous (and I would bet) a huge failure. Why not spend that money on job training and self respect classes for the prostitutes and classes in social skills, classes in respecting others and maybe even a couple of classes in moral behavior for the pimps and johns. Also, when cracking down on prostitution arrest and punish both (and equally) the prostiutute, pimp AND the john.

The government should not be in the business of legislating morality. Consenting adult should be allowed to love, marry and f*** whoever - and however - they want.

I would like to be serious with you for a moment. I see that many of the women are concerned about the health issue and STDs. Oral sex transmits most STDs. Some of the STDs can give a person throat cancer, others are for life and others can later prevent a woman from getting pregnant. This is very serious because approximately 50% of young girls 12-19 had oral sex. New study shows that 25% of girl teenagers 14-18 have a STD. This is approaching epidemic proportions with young teenage girls. Here is the problem. About 98% of oral sex is done without protection and teenagers do not know that oral sex transmits serious STDs. This is not anyone’s fault it is everyone’s fault. The message has never been told in a loud, clear and caring tone that oral sex transmits serious sexual diseases, and those diseases can lead to cancer and a woman not being able to have a baby. Yes it is time to scare the children. There has been only 1 article over the last ten years in a major newspaper that talked about oral sex and STD dangers in the same article. Only 1 columnist in the last ten years wrote about the dangers and I thank Kathleen Parker for her help. Ladies the time is now for you to insist that the message of the dangers of oral sex transmitting STDs be out in the open and told to teenagers both girls and boys. The number of teenagers having unprotected oral sex keeps rising and the silence about its dangers is frightening. I suggest you check for yourselves at this CDC web site www.cdcnpin.org/scripts/std/std.asp and in the search box put oral sex read the articles. I’m am urging all the women sponsoring this web site and those writing on the site to get this message out to teenagers. You have the power, the connections and a large group of women to help. I have been trying for 10 years, but nobody chooses to heed to my pleas. You would all be doing a great service for both young girsl and boys who do not know what they are doing is not a game and is very dangerous. Thank you.

I find it a little funny that when speaking of legalizing prostitution that most are referring to it as if there were only the idea of females being prostitutes to fill men’s physical needs in what some hypothesize would be a safer and more discreet manner. Do you think men would have such charitable feelings if their wives and girlfriends were to visit male prostitutes so that their own physical ‘needs’ (actually desires) were met? I also find it funny that the arguments for legalizing something considered by the majority to be immoral behaviour, hence the current illegality, run pretty parallel to a lot of the arguments for legalizing marijuana. A good debater can build a good platform for argument in favour of anything. I think it just breaks down to simple, personal moral beliefs and values, and hope that when you partner up with someone for what most of us assume will be a lifetime partnership that they hold similar enough ideas that someone doesn’t end up hurt…regardless if it’s legal or not according to society.

Most people assume that it is all about sex. Many of these men get plenty of sex at home. It’s not always about sex, it’s about doing something sneaky, dangerous, illegal or “titillating”, or even monstrously cruel to another human being…it just feels more “exciting”. So, it is a lot more about character than about sex. I think any woman whose husband has surreptitiously visited a prostitute should be automatically eligible for a divorce with a settlement which includes all the property, money, and custody of children. Hurt these men seriously in that bump in their right pocket (aka their wallet) and they might think twice before so carelessly relieving that bump in their fly.

Lorraine, good question. I actually have known a couple of strippers - one was just evicted a few doors down from me. And in every case, these were young women who had been abused - physically, emotionally, sexually - and had low self-esteem. It would seem that a woman who is brave (?) enough to stand in front of a crowd and get naked, or rent her body out, would need a great self-image. But I’ve found the opposite to be true. This speaks to the argument most people put up regarding prostitution: “As long as there are men who are willing to pay for it, there will be women willing to sell it.” To that I respond, “As long as there are women willing to rent their bodies for sex, there will be men willing to pay that rent.”

Who’d want to be a hooker if they had to pay taxes on all that money? After all, it’s the money the girls are after not the experience, why would they want to share with the government, especially when so much of the government are their customers? Give them the money back? Would they have to charge sales tax? Think of all the men who’d reconsider going to a prostitute if they had to put it on their expense report. Oh, yeah, let’s make it a write-off. Try explaining that at tax time to the little woman at home who’s been taking care of your sorry butt while you’ve been lying to yourself that that 22 year old beauty would want you even if you hadn’t coughed up the thousand bucks an hour. Imagine all the ego-maniacal, lascivious, swine who would get caught so much easier if legal records could be found with their names on it. Yeah, legalize it.

Of course not. We have to have some morals, laws and responsibilities in our life. Why do people who do wrong things always want to make it legal?

Yes legalize it. Let the prostitutes have control of their own bodies and let the buyer beware.

Hello to all who read this comment. I have a question and a comment. To all who said that it should be legal. If you have a daughter, or if you will, just imagine having one. Would you want your daughter to even roll the idea around in her head, “I might want to be a prostitute when I grow up!?!” Think about it. I started out as a young child around the age of 8 looking through my the shed where my father had all of his tools, and from one end to the other there was photo after photo of beautiful, elegant women. In Playboy, Hustler and other magazines that hung from staples. As I would run my hands across them, I can remember thinking ( just like it was yesterday) I want to look like that and I want to be like that one day. Little did I, or my dad know that years later I would become a dancer. Months later I was offered $1000.00 for one hour. With rent past due with a husband too sorry to work and 2 girls that I wanted to give so much more. What do you think I did? Especially when I called my husband up and asked and he said “get there license number and call me back with it and you can!” That was all I needed to hear to make me feel all the more degrading and carrying low self-esteem that, YES I DID IT! ( and I am very attractive, but just never feel good enough about myself to this day.) And then it became a natural as I left the bar where I worked. I had about 7 regular customers that I left with for prostitution.) I heard a preacher recently tell this story about a man , This man asked this woman would she sleep with him for half a million dollars, and her answer was YES!!! Well then he proceeded to ask, “Would you sleep with me for a $1000.00?” She said, “What kind of woman do you think I am?” He said , “Well I’ve go that figure out, now all I have to figure out is a price!” I was in AWE at that thought all day when I heard it. I quit the prostitution a few months after I started it due to almost getting killed. That was in 1993 and later quit the dancing. (thats a story in itself) But my two daughters is very precious to me. While the oldest knew later in life what I had done and never told her younger sister. The youngest @18 found out this last year when she came across my liquor license. Her heart was broke and since has drank and quit going to church and completely turned from her way of life. Now I could say, well that might have happened anyway, but if you were in my shoes you might ask: Is this my fault for lowering my standards and at a young age. And will my past effect my daughters future whenever she tells herself, “Well, my mom did it and now she’s alright” God knows I hope she dont find out the rest of the story… Because Unless you a a heartless, money seeking, uncaring woman that has a motive of revenge about something from the past. . with men . If you become a prostitute, expect alot of baggage in many shapes and sizes. Depression, low self esteem, lower standards, alcoholism, drugs, physical abuse (and you may even be the one giving it when the anger from watching men that has sex and can go home to their wives and acts as though they are saints, boil inside of you to the point you trust no man because of the side you see from them that is so unreal. You never know when to believe any man.) There is no doubt that this has played a part of why when now that I am single after 4 marriages that I trust NO MAN when it comes to telling me they want only me. I’ve yet to believe even one since then. It gives you a terrible view of men. What if your daughter wanted to be a prostitute when she growed up? Anyone change their mind NOW? Probably not, but I gave my opinion from a professional point of view. It don’t get any better than that. NO< , I would not want my daughters to have the option out there to be a prostitute!!!!!!!!!!!! SCREW the goverrment part of it, what about the effects on the mind!!! It would make the young ladies of tomorrow that live in a lower class community a “Rich for the moment, Mess for the Future!!!”