For all the vitriol aimed at prostitutes, they would not be employed if no men sought their services.

Restricting where and how they can work is mainly a response to Australia's incredibly prudish nature, and is counter productive, as it forces them to work outside the law.

Shadow minister,
Prostitutes tempt others to seek their services.

Similarly, junk food merchants tempt others to buy junk food, and quite often succeed.

It is interesting how feminists so often support prostitutes, who basically have no morality and actually regard men as nothing more than walking wallets.

Doesn't say much for feminism.

Or maybe it does, because it shows the complete hypocrisy of feminism.

Prostitution is a profession that very few choose if faced with other options. If this criminalized, all that happens is that it goes underground, with all the attendant health and safety risks.

Vilifying them and treating them as sub humans only makes things worse.

Shadow minister,
"very few choose if faced with other options"

Oh rubbish. The vast majority of prostitutes could get a proper job, earn money and pay tax like the rest of us. Instead, they choose prostitution.

Do you want to know about cities where prostitution is rank; well I’ve lived in some of them.

You can’t walk down the street to buy a loaf of bread without someone approaching you wanting to sell their body or sell you drugs.

There can be 50 year old women on the streets trying to sell their body. They have been on the streets for decades.

Behind a red light district, there is often a white light district, and you make sure you don’t get lost and end up in the white light district.

If you open the door of your unit or apartment, you have to be careful you don’t step on a syringe.

If someone went to a park for their children to play, they would have to check out the whole area to make sure there were no syringes, drugs or used condoms lying about.

That is the world of prostitution and all that it attracts.

But you don’t here too many prostitutes complaining about it.

vanna I'd not want to live in a street full or nightclub's, pub's, mechanical workshops (my street has one of them which is great) or any of range of other businesses. On the other hand people working from home with a small number of clients and doing so discretely I've got no problem with.

The article was not about red light districts (other than a preference for something more discrete).

I've never been so devoid of physical human contact for long enough that the idea of using a prostitute has had real appeal to me.

People use their services for a variety of reason's, some I can sympathize with and other which I find deplorable (just as there are a variety of reasons for people taking on the occupation).

Other than the religiously inspired objections to sex outside of marriage most of the objections to prostitution seem to be correlation rather than causation.

Perhaps a mix, I can imagine that for some people the business would drive them to substance abuse but I suspect that where prostitution and substance abuse travel together it's the substance abuse leading to the career choice not the other way around.

R0bert

Robert,
Many, if not most prostitutes take drugs. Some may start off not taking drugs, but eventually take drugs to endure or carry on with the prostitution.

Others may be drug addicts and use prostitution to get money for their habit.

Their pimps can also take drugs, and many prostitutes can be at greater risk from their pimps than anyone else.

Madams in brothels can also be a danger to a prostitute, although the madam normally gets someone else to bash her.

It is certainly not the harmless or glamorous business some try and make it out to be.