[MRM]

When I was a prosecutor one of the student practice clinics specialized in defending prostitution cases. They had a phenomenal record of success. The professor who headed the program told me that the secret to their success was that they struck from the jury anyone who lived near the neighborhoods affected by prostitution. He said that to anyone who was not directly affected, prostitution is a complete non-issue but to anyone who lives close enough to it to be impacted it is their number one quality of life complaint.

I think that pretty much explains the attitudes toward prostitution. People who aren't close enough to see it don't think it's much of a problem and don't really understand why it's illegal. People who have seen behind the curtain consider it a scourge on humanity.

There are a lot of good reasons. I can go over a short list of some of the big reasons. Prostitution is rarely an arms-length transaction between consenting adults. There is almost always an element of compulsion on the prostitute's part. Healthy women do not repeatedly exchange sex for money with strangers. Almost all prostitutes were abused as children and almost all are either chemically dependent, mentally ill, or both. At some point all prostitution is controlled by some organized criminal gang, right down to the corner street walkers. Prostitution spreads disease and johns will pay extra to not use protection. By the nature of their transaction, whether legal or not, both prostitutes and johns are vulnerable to violence by the other. The secondary effects on neighborhoods are well known and prostitution leads to other crimes and property degradation. That doesn't even get into the whole human trafficking issue.

But as a practical matter, you can't run a massage parlor, outcall business, brothel, or even a streetwalker gang without human trafficking. You just don't have the numbers necessary to keep the business operating. That means that you have to kidnap, buy or drug and coerce enough people to staff your business and keep them from going somewhere else or escaping. Even the most benign looking bath house or massage parlor is staffed by prostitutes who were trafficked. That's how they get they and that's why they stay.

If prostitution was in practice an arms-length transaction between fully consenting adults with equal power, it would have more arguments in its favor. But it isn't.