I think indoor prostitution should be decriminalized, not legalized as there is a HUGE difference.

http://www.alternet.org/books/148327/how_19th_century_prostitutes_were_the_freest,_wealthiest,_most_educated_women_of_their_time

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/on-the-records-a-well-preserved-roadmap-to-perdition/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Act

Once you do a bit of reading what you find out is that back in the 19th century, marriage WAS SLAVERY. Women were not allowed to leave home till they married and marriage was a BUSINESS. Women were not allowed to go in public alone, nor work or vote and if they inherited property it became their husbands and the husband was FREE to beat and rape his wife.
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Part 2
In 1910 we created the MANN ACT (the white slavery act) that was suppose to be to stop Human Trafficking, yet the real reason was to stop white women from fraternizing with black men. The Mann Act also gave CONGRESS its power and formed the FBI.
Our federal law states that each state has the right NOT make its own prostitution laws and in order to be charged with the Mann act one would have to exploit another person into prostitution and cross state lines. This was the way the Fed's are suppose to intervene.
Yet in 2010 the FBI spend a 800,000 grant in just 3 days supposedly to do a 3 day nationwide child prostitution sting. After arresting 884 people, we had 69 TEEN RUNAWAYS, along with their 99 pimps boyfriends and also caught up in the mix were over 700 adults looking to meet with another consenting adult in private. During this sting, more middle aged people were arrested than THE TEENS THEY WANTED TO RESCUE.
Now we have Bill hr 5575 gong to congress which is to ask for hundreds of millions for services for these TEEN victims and the bill clearly states that any women over the age of 20 would NOT be eligible for services, and most of the money would be spend training FBI and vice to STALK MIDDLE AGED ESCORTS ONLINE.
Now every city already has a whole juvenile court, a dept of child services, foster homes, boot camps and reform schools, but the women OVER 20 years of age have NO SERVICES. These people are trying to convince us that these RUNAWAY TEENS ARE VICTIMS and they are really UNGOVERNABLE TEENS that ran off with their boyfriends that exploited them. Are we not suppose to hold these teens accountable for their own behavior, why return them them with no real intervention to just run off again, and why is the parents not being held accountable for the COST OF RESCUING THEIR UNGOVERNABLE TEEN. Why not lock these teens up to protect them from themselves?

Part 3
Original prostitution laws were created "to stop a women from showing her wares in public" The media likes to portray all prostitutes as curb crawling drug addicts and yet most are really middle aged single parents desperately trying to escape POVERTY.
Last year we spend 250 million to arrest 80,000 people for prostitution, that 250 million could have housed 80,000 women and children long term.
Yet anyone wanting to legalize prostitution wants the women to help pay off the deficit, nobody is even considering creating long term services for women who do want to exit the industry. Or they want these women to be forced to work in brothels where they would have to give half their earnings to the brothel owner, pay rent and then pay taxes and not be able to refuse any clients.
We are no dumb women, we know how to screen clients, advertise and choice our rates for our time. We not not need to be regulated anymore than any other business does, so why would we place regulations on this industry that is not placed on any other business. Why do we make it our business?
In Rhode Island, in 1976 a federal laws suit was filed in RI by a women named Mona St.James who later formed the organization COYOTE . The complaint was what right did they state have in the sexual conduct of consenting adults, and also they were only arresting the women and not the men. The case was dismissed by a compromise and indoor prostitution became legal in RI in 1979.
For 30 years there was never one case of human trafficking, women could work for massage spas or from their homes. There was never one public nuisance complaint in over 30 years (too bad we can't say that about nightclubs).

Part 4
The police never bothered to go into any spa, and check for ID to make sure the girls were of legal age and in the country legally. Yet they did run front page news articles about how sad it was that one could buy sex a block from city hall. These businesses were licensed and paid taxes and they even donated money to the state police and other local charities and the women spend their money in the other local businesses.
In 2009 the Craigslist killer, killed a girl in Boston and then went to RI and robbed a escort and he was CAUGHT because the escort dialed 911 as she had PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW.
Then in Nov 2009 they criminalize indoor prostitution (putting all the women in the state in harms way) as they claimed they could not investigate human trafficking without criminalizing us.
Ironically the police go in to strip clubs all the time and do ID checks and ask the girls if they are OK but for some reason they insisted this would not work in RI.

There is a small mistake in Ms. Pringe's excellent summation. The 1999 Swedish law she mentions is the 1998 Act Prohibiting the *Purchase* of Sexual Services.

Peter, I sense you have an agenda here but I am not sure what it is.

"Hmm. This is apparently from the sex-is-intrinsically-abusive school of thought."

Where on earth did you get that? Sex is a beautiful part of life, and if it's abusive, then there's a problem. In this instance, the problem is prostitution. Women demeaning themselves for money and men, in many instances, cheating on their partners - I would absolutely consider that "intrinsically abusive".

This is not an academic discussion, it involves people, emotions and lives. It is impossible to look at prostitution from that angle and not see it for the blight on society that it is. This is not about rights or choices, it is about lives ruined. I sincerely doubt you could find one person who has not been negatively impacted by their experiences of prostitution (whether the prostitute or the client). Certainly you will not find one whose life has been enhanced because of it.

So, people, step out from behind whatever theory/philosophy/mantra/etc that tells you what to think and look at the people involved and the lives ruined.

Sorry - that turned into a bit of a rant, but I get so angry by the misery and grief that comes from all of this. I cannot sit by and hear people try to justify it.