Pimps Down, Ho's Up

Prostitution should be legalized. It goes on anyway, and it always will. There's clearly a demand, and there are clearly people willing to provide the service. Because it remains illegal, the world of prostitution is awash with danger: rampant disease, underage girls being forced to sell their bodies, violence, murder, theft, rape...

If prostitution were legalized, it could be regulated. Mandatory testing could be instituted to ensure high standards of hygiene. The criminal element currently intrinsic in prostitution could be eliminated, or greatly reduced, at the least. It could be taxed heavily, like cigarettes or alcohol (or weed, if that were legal, which it should be, for a lot of the same reasons), and those taxes could be allocated to positive endeavors like affordable health care, better education, or paying back our future slave masters in China, to whom our country is massively indebted... Or how about this: since a lot of the women who end up getting involved in prostitution, unfortunately, have histories of physical and sexual abuse, we can use the legalized-prostitution taxes to fund specialized programs aimed at helping girls/women who are victims of such abuses cope with their traumas in healthy, constructive manners. That way, women who pursue prostitution as a career path from that point forth, are much more likely to be doing so because they actually want to. Everyone wins.

(Special thanks to Triple-A for inspiring the "Prostitution Solution.")