Title: Why is prostitution illegal? - The Straight Dope
Headings: Why is prostitution illegal?
Why is prostitution illegal?
Content: This line of thinking has succeeded to the point where much sociological and AIDS literature has replaced the pejorative prostitute with the more PC sex worker. Other feminists, it should be said, consider prostitution a form of “female sexual slavery,” to cite the title of one well-known book. One way or another women are coerced into prostitution, the argument goes — sometimes physically, often psychologically, and if nothing else out of economic necessity. But that seems to victimize prostitutes more than the reality warrants. Suffice it to say studies of prostitution have generally found that women who become prostitutes do so voluntarily, often to support a drug habit. It’s not clear to what extent the lot of prostitutes in the U.S. differs from that of their counterparts in countries that have a supposedly more enlightened attitude. Germany reportedly has taken the regulatory approach, in which prostitutes register with the police, obtain licenses to work in specified houses or areas, submit to VD checks, and so on. Britain has followed a third course, somewhat confusingly known as abolition. What was abolished was not prostitution but prostitution laws, after a fashion. Prostitution as such is legal in the UK.