NYTimes: Buying Sex Should Not Be Legal

I'm sympathetic to arguments in favor of decriminalization, but your argument doesn't make sense.

What happened to her was terrible, but her argument is ridiculous. Everything she hates is already illegal, and nobody plans on decriminalizing human trafficing and/or underage prostitution any time soon.

No one is suggesting that underage prostitution will be decriminalized, however there is a strong argument to be made that by decriminalizing prostitution you'll be making it harder to prosecute the "bad" forms. There's also an understandable fear that by decriminalizing prostitution, you'll see an increase in demand(Germany) which will lead to an increase in supply and an increase in illicit(cheaper) prostitution.

The whole point of legalizing this is to make it easier for customers to know that what they're buying is safe, and for the government to be able to regulate the sellers to make sure everything is above-board

You'll also see an increase in demand for non regulated forms of prostitution, both because some people actually want that and because regulated prostitution will be more expensive.

People are never ever going to stop buying sex. They've been doing it since before the invention of currency, and they'll likely continue to do so until the end of time. Forcing it to all happen in back alleys only increases the danger. It's the same argument made for legalizing abortion or drugs, but for some reason people freak out when it's applied to sex work.

How does this not apply to underage prostitution? There's always been a demand, it's been happening since the dawn of man. If it isn't effective to criminalize one form of prostitution, why is it effective to criminalize another?

/r/TwoXChromosomes Thread Parent Link - nyti.ms