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The defense might try a “theft of services” argument. But the prosecution will still go with rape. The prosecution will go with a theory that the four men talked about this before hand and that one of them called with the initial offer. Upon her arrival he enticed her to stay with the prospect of earning more money. Then the call was made to let the others know she arrived and they proceeded to rape her. The prosecution will argue that the men involved never had the intent to pay her and that it was a gang rape planned from the start.

I don’t disagree with anything you wrote. Of course the prosecution would go with rape. They would be stupid not to. The reason for my question is, basically, that cases like this illuminate the type of moral confusion that results from reducing the act of sex to, in the case of prostitution, a service, or in the larger case of our sexually “liberated” society, no big deal. Sex, whether consensual or not, is either a big deal or it’s not. Those who have decided that prostitution is a fine career that should be legalized, and who have decided that meaningless sex is possible, cannot at the same time consider rape to be all that bad. Probably outside the context of this discussion, but that’s where I was headed.