The Oldest Crime (Legalizied prostitution has nothing to do with Conservative Politics)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | January 9, 2006 | COLETTE DE TROY and MARY MCPHAIL

[presidio9]

Pay site. Email me for the rest of this article.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Don't need to, I read enough.

[manglor]

I thought murder was the oldest crime when Cain bashed Abel's head open with a rock?

Unless Adam and Eve were pimping their sons out and we never knew about it.

[pabianice]

World-wide profits from prostitution exceed $12 billion annually. Of course, the women generally see very little of this money.

Is that after taxes?

[Cat loving Texan]

It shoule be legalized and regulated. Vice squads should be dealing with real crime.

[presidio9]

Wait: You can READ?

[Salgak]

But enough about politicians. . . .

[presidio9]

Prostitution is a real crime.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Yeah, in fact the other day I read where Ozzie Osborne said the use of pot led his son Jack to be a user of harder more addictive drugs.

[agere_contra]

It should NOT be legalised. Once prostitution becomes an accepted societal norm - once you accept sex-for-pay as a legal transaction in society - then the relationship between men and women becomes distorted.

Five years after legalisation women wouldn't be able to walk the streets without being propositioned. "Hey, I paid her" would become a standard defence in rape. And (attractive) women on welfare would be legally forced into prostitution: pimped by the Goverment, so to speak. This is on the verge of happening in Germany, for instance.

[Billthedrill]

But where will Germany find those thousands of women?

Uh...monster.com?

If you're going to treat prostitution as a simple commercial enterprise (it isn't, but they're trying to) then the answer is an ordinary matter of market economics - the pay goes up. If you're a socialistic economy that also tries to treat access to sex as a human right you're going to have to subsidize or the supply dwindles. This isn't difficult.

Some things governments do reasonably well, but running whorehouses probably isn't one of them. Just my $0.02.

[presidio9]

Next thing I know you're going to be telling me that societies who embrace nutty libertarian ideas like legalized prostitution have only themselves to blame when the look around at the cesspool they have created.

[Enchante]

Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" was happy to glorify prostitution with an absurdly rosy false image of what it's like..... hey, it made her Hollyweird career so never let it be said that NO prostitutes make big money......

[fhlh]

indeed... after all... isn't this a capitalist society and a so-called free country?

[Junior]

Of course, the women generally see very little of this money. The sex traders, whether legal "sex entrepreneurs" or illegal pimps, are the biggest beneficiaries.

Maybe the girls should unionize. Unfortunately then seniority rules would kick in...

[Junior]

Damn! So where do you keep your flagellum?

[dmz]

I think the old saw goes that prostitution is the oldest profession, not the oldest crime.

[dmz]

who's the victim?

[cjshapi]

Old saggy, baggy and droopy seniority rulers!