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Prostitution
Consenting adults choosing of their own free will to exchange sex for
money is not a problem. The problem is the solicitation of the service.
Deciding how to solve this problem is somewhat more complicated than one
would at first suspect.
Many people argue that since prostitution is the world's oldest profession
it should be legalized, or at least decriminalized. What these people fail to
take into consideration is that although prostitution has always been with
us, and will always be with us, it has rarely had to operate within the
parameters of the law. Legalizing or decriminalizing it would create a wide
array of new problems that society has not yet faced.
For instance, how would it be regulated? Obviously, we can't have prostitutes going door to door. But neither should they be allowed to approach people in public areas where children are present, such as malls, parks, or even sidewalks. We could let them build brothels, but where?
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Perhaps the only viable solution is escort services. However, sending a
young woman (or man) to a stranger's home in the middle of the night isn't
very safe, especially considering what's involved. But even when this has
been resolved, the question of advertising must be dealt with.
Naturally, the government is going to want its share, which means the
prostitutes would be met with a slate of new dilemmas. In all likelihood,
they would be required to purchase a license every year or so and keep
detailed records for tax purposes. They would also have to list "prostitute"
as their occupation on tax returns. All of which would become matters of
public record that would overshadow the remainder of their lives as well as
the lives of their clients. Prostitution would become the female equivalent of
draft dodging for any woman with political ambition.
Then there are the social ramifications. Given the legal opportunity to
fulfill their every sexual fantasy for a relatively small price, men would no
longer want to get married. The only reason they would even date is if the
women paid for it.
Eventually, women would start wondering why they should spend a
hundred thousand dollars on an education and work forty or more hours a
week, fifty weeks a year just to scrape by when they see teenage hookers
buying expensive cars and living in their own mansions.
Pretty soon we would become a nation of hookers and Johns, where no
one falls in love anymore, or gets married, or has a family. Society, perhaps
even humanity itself, would collapse.
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