"allows clients to gratify themselves at the expense of hurting vulnerable women, and normalises greedy pimps into "business managers".

Huh?

The whole point of decriminalising is to give prostitutes rights so they can get rid of the pimps and provide society with a very important antidote to corporate window dressing that now surrounds something very basic and very unglamorous in nature.

Grow up Baby! You put women on pedestals! That is a fool's errnd.

Well I see the wowsers are out in force today. You really have to wonder why they bother: it's known as the oldest profession for a reason. The horse has well and truly bolted on this one.

Most people like sex. Some have more Victorian sensibilities and think that sex and nudity are shameful, disgusting and sinful but they are a minority - albeit a noisy one. I don't see how money changing hands turns a good thing into a bad thing.

Cheers,

Tony

"Greedy Pimps" is a feminist myth and the subject of too many B grade hollywood dramas.
Is it not the case that in most brothels the management and procurers of sex workers are women? The normal set up is that some entity, most often a syndicate of men are the financiers and profiteers from sexual services but the day to day conditions under which the prostitutes work and the means by which they are recruited are overseen by other women, the "Madams" and their staff.
I lived on Gray St in St Kilda for some years and was something of a lowlife myself and the figure of the "Ponce" was ever present on the streets, the junkie sponger or the idler who lived in part off the earnings of a prostitute girlfriend but I never came across a "Pimp", The working girls I knew would work as runners for drug dealers, sell themselves and pull scams and rob people but I never heard of people standing over them forcing them do these things.

Disagreeing about decriminalising prostitution makes me a wowser or perhaps a moralising victorian hater of sex and nudity? I think not.

Just look at the research in Matthew's article.

Many prostitutes do not want to be in the business but see no way out.
A great majority of prostitutes have been sexually abused as kids and many turn to drugs to depersonalise from what they think they have to do.
There is a thriving industry in trafficked women here in Australia.
Legalising prostitution will never discourage this. Illegal brothels turn up even more where it has been decriminalised.

Decriminalising validates the "profession". Is this just another job you can encourage your kids to think about as a worthy healthy career option?

oh dear the ACL is out in force, it's no wonder the pews are empty. Never mind prositution, can you guys focus on getting your peers to stop touching the kids.

*Many prostitutes do not want to be in the business but see no way out.*

Many people do boring and mundane jobs every day, all their lives,
for a few bucks an hour, but see no way out. Now go and tell a
high class hooker who is charging businessmen 500$ an hour for
her time, that she is being exploited and should quit. Perhaps
she should have a choice, no matter what the Catholic Church thinks.

In Sweden what is has come down to is that a few rabid feminists
just can't bear the thought of men out there, enjoying themselves,
so they have hijacked the political agenda.