The only reason that Dr Cannold can write such an article is because our community no longer has any shared attitude to what constitutes a human person. Since John Locke et al all moral authority has been removed from community consensus and vested in the individual. Each man has become his own orthodoxy. This means that we have turned our back on thousands of years of meditation on what is good for a human being. It is no longer possible to make a sober judgement about the good or evil of prostitution or anything else. However, it is obvious that prostitution is injurious to the seller both physically and emotionally and that its practice cuts the woman off from a normal life as wife and mother. That it is also injurious to the male buyer is obvious since it exists as a quick fix to sexual feelings that should be worked out within a truly intimate and long term relationship. It leaves the male with an immature understanding of sex as release or as pleasure and undercuts its facility to bond couples together and to be the basis of the formation of family.

By legislating that prostitution is work like any other work we as a community endorse the spiritual destruction of those who participate in it. This is the logical outcome of the liberal way of thinking and the resultant nonsensical use of human rights to indicate a moral path. This is minimalist ethics at its worst.

Peter Sellick

Why does Leslie Cannold need to define herself as a "feminist academic."
It's a bit juvenile really, as "academic" would suffice.
Academic could then be added to the further list of her credentials:
"researcher, writer, commentator and medical ethicist."

Thank you Dr Leslie Cannold for an excellent article that affirms that the ability of adults with adult reasoning to make their own choices.

What I do not understand is why some people seek to restrict the bodily rights of others when they wouldn't want the same to be done to them.

It sounds as though "Sells" has some kind of religious agendum in his/her opinion of morality and has been conditioned to believing a strict code of ethics espoused over the years by Victorian attitudes. There are plenty of cultures in the past and present that regard things as unacceptable here in the West, from the taking of more than one wife by the Mormons to sexual practices endorsed by many islanders before the advent of missionaries distorted teachings. Yet they had very strict social laws. I thoroughly agree that any activity that impinges on anyone else in some kind of deleterious way, should be discouraged, but a victimless "crime" such as consensual sex in private is a freedom we all should approve. What bothers me is the rampant hypocrisy that afflicts so many in power and influence. Any in-depth research will tell you that a very large number of our so called "pillars of society" engage in paid sexual favours, yet would deny any such thing because it reflects on their theological virtue. If this was not the case there would not be the billion dollar economy the sex industry creates. Let's support regulation rather than trying to stamp it out. It is a just another service industry. Gambling and alcohol do far more damage to society

Snake writes

'There are plenty of cultures in the past and present that regard things as unacceptable here in the West, from the taking of more than one wife by the Mormons to sexual practices endorsed by many islanders before the advent of missionaries distorted teachings.

And of course many of these practices included what we now call paedophillia. It sounds as if Snake has no basis for his/endorsement of the 'everything goes' morals or immorals

Nothing like a good dollop of sex-talk to bring out the God Squad, is there.

Sells, I'm amazed that you don't see the situation the same way that Jesus did. Although I suspect his take on the matter would be a little too unsophisticated for a theological scholar of your calibre and stature.

As I understand it, Jesus didn't actually have many concerns about prostitution per se. It was the nature of the individual that concerned him far more.

"Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.<< (Matt:21 32-33. Apologies for using the boring old KJV, but I've always thought the others to be a little trite in comparison)

It kinda puts your own view into some kind of perspective though, does it not?

>>It is no longer possible to make a sober judgement about the good or evil of prostitution or anything else<<

Have a think about the way you use the word "judgement" in this sentence, Sells, and the manner in which Jesus used his.

Meanwhile, runner takes a slightly more adventurous stance, rolling out that old canard that if your belief system allows you to pick your teeth, it must by definition also allow you to commit bestiality. This is just the old Boaz_David theorem, especially formulated for those too lazy to think logically for themselves.

Applicable in all circumstances, it ensures that you can't approve of any behaviour that B_D and cohorts disapprove of, because that automatically makes you a pervert.

Comforting for the God Squad. Makes them feel worthy.

But entirely fictional.