If you offer to let someone punch for you a $5, and then 4 people show up and beat the crap out of you, they can't get off the hook for assault and battery because one punch at $5 was already agreed upon.
While it is true that the prostitute has degraded sex into a commercial transaction, the law still does not regard it as a mere commercial transaction. Sex without explicit and particular consent is still sexual violation, each and every time.
Another analogy: say she had offered to sell one of her children for $200, and men showed up and kidnapped 4 of her children. She was gravely wrong to offer the sale, but still abducting children is not mere theft of property in the eyes of the law: it's kidnapping.
Well stated.
“If you offer to let someone punch for you a $5, and then 4 people show up and beat the crap out of you, they can’t get off the hook for assault and battery because one punch at $5 was already agreed upon.”
Lousy analogy as you don’t let people beat the crap out of you for a living.
The key question here is would she have likely consented to the act or acts had the “price” been to her liking. I think we all know the answer to that question.
Well, how about if she and her john agreed to $100, and he only paid $50? Can she sue him? She's gotten herself into a situation too goofy for anyone else to competently referee. After all, if the law gets involved, what principle is it defending? The sanctity of contracts? There is no enforceable contract here, because prostitution is (in America) illegal. How about protection against illicit sexual congress itself? She's in the business, and solicits violations against legally sanctioned boundaries so routinely, it's not feasible for the state to police each one.
Briefly, she's toying with the idea of law, and given the shortness of life and the fact that more reasonable people have matters that merit the courts' attention, I don't see the state as obligated to join her game. If someone shot her, that would be another matter. But in this case, she should just be arrested for prostitution, period. I don't even see the "theft" argument.
The woman legitimately has remedies in this situation, but they are those within herself, such as reforming her life.
Kudos, Mrs. Don-o, for an eloquent and well-reasoned post.