If you look closely, you’ll notice several articles (such as this, this, and this) that all argue

for the
legalization of prostitution or report that prostitution may be on its way to becoming legal. Many
of these pieces begin with the more puritanically palatable prospect of “decriminalization,” which
can have many faces, implying athe end to arrests of prostitutes or possibly pimps, and/or
johns. The argument for decriminalization is simple: women often enter the ugly world of
prostitution due to dire financial, mental, or emotional straits, and it is unfair to jail these women
who have already suffered so much. This is relatively uncontroversial. What really gets folks
fired up is whether or not to make the sale of sex fully legal, taking that further step from looking
the other way to getting rid of the rule that you’re breaking.

By way of CBN News, I’ve come across a beautifully pithy summation of the basic argument in
favor of the legalization of prostitution: Judge Carlos Bea of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in
San Francisco asks, "Why should it be illegal to sell something that it's legal to give away?" In
other words, why shouldn’t free and consenting adults be able to change money for services? If
I can give someone money to cut my hair, mow my lawn, fix my car, take care of my children,
why can’t I give someone money to have sex with me? However, what is vital to understand is
the fact that legalized prostitution blasts open the doors to legalized rape.

The argument in favor of legalization is facially intuitive but ignores (or glosses over) the fact
that money operates as a form of coercion. When I give someone money to give me a
massage, say, I am using the existence of capitalism to persuade you to do something that
takes time and effort--because you WON’T do it for free. It basically goes like this: “You need
money to eat, pay your rent, take care of your kids, so I will give you this if you provide this
service to me.” When you say yes, you and I have entered into a contract, and I can presumably
seek legal redress if you violate it. The possibility of legal redress is important here because that
(if we control for awkwardness) is what keeps the masseuse from taking the money and running
without giving me my massage.

Proponents of legalized prostitution want to apply these same principles to sex. “You need
money to eat, pay your rent, take care of your kids, so I will give you this if you provide this
service to me.” They argue that sex is a service/good like any other.

But it’s not.

Sex simply is not like other goods and services. We have special legal protections against
coercing someone into performing sexual acts that do not exist for coercing someone into
trimming hedges. To legalize prostitution means to allow for redress in case the prostitute
decides to take the money and run. To legalize prostitution means to allow the threat of eviction
to compel a woman to keep having sex that she does not desire. If we wish to preserve the
ability for women to say “no” before or during sex and have that “no” respected without
repercussion, we cannot legalize prostitution.

Up until this point, I’ve discussed prostitution as a single, independent woman contracting to
provide sex, but the (potential) picture is far more complicated than that. There is also the issue
that currently exists of women being employed to provide sex. In this case, the woman is in
even less of a position to only have the sex that she desires. Take the example of your typical
strip club. You have women who are hired to dance in a sexually suggestive way for the
pleasure of a male viewer, possibly become naked, possibly provide lap dances. When it’s your
job to do that, you cannot decline to dance sexually or give a lap dance without the threat of
losing your paycheck or at least getting your access to tips reduced. Once again, the threat of
lost wages exists to compel women to agree to providing sexual services even when they might
otherwise say “no.” This is sexual coercion, plain and simple, and legalized prostitution would
only provide an avenue for women to be sexually exploited because of their need for money.

What’s even more disturbing is that the existence of sex for sale is purported to give women
more rights when in reality it gives them fewer. We readily recognize that these types of
arrangements are exploitative when they exist in other industries. The image of the boss who
sexually harrasses his employees is a familiar one. Most leftists (often the strongest proponents
of legalized prostitution) condemn such actions because they understand that the woman is
prevented from denying these advances due to the threat (expressed or potential) of losing her
job. While leftists are eager to call for the end to workplace sexual harassment, they still
amazingly maintain that “sex work,” as they call it, represents freedom or even empowerment
for women. The plight of the secretary who wants to get her boss’s hands off her body is the de
rigeur of every stripper in America.

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The difficulty with trying to say to any leftist that prostitution should not be legalized is that you’ll
be accused of being a paternalistic, sex-negative, woman savior who can’t stand the idea of
women making their own decisions and doing with their bodies what they want. However, those
concerns aren’t on the table here. What I’ve presented is an argument, not against sex, but
against work. Work is a system of compulsion, achieved through the exchange of money and
the scarcity inherent to capitalism, and the problems that adhere to work of any sort are present
in so-called sex work. The difference between non-sex work and sex work is that there aren’t
any special protections against financially coercing someone into performing non-sexual acts. In
short, work is bad, but sex work is abhorrent.

Something that isn’t abhorrent, however, is camming. A cam girl displays her body to viewers
who watch her through her webcam. Most perform in their own homes, and some take requests
and even receive gifts. As long as there is no contract, verbal or otherwise, between the cam girl
and her viewers, this isn’t work. It’s important here that the cam girl can turn off the webcam at
any time and that her viewers who send her gifts recognize that they are just that--gifts--and
come with no guarantee of sexual favors in return. These same principles apply for women who
maintain sexy blogs and Twitter accounts. However, the situation is markedly--and disturbingly--
different for women who receive money and guarantee sex in return.
I encourage you not to be blinded by vapid leftist arguments that prioritize men’s pleasure over
women’s safety and sexual integrity. Prostitution, stripping, acting in porn productions are not
empowering; they’re a form of sexual exploitation that we’ve turned a blind eye to in order to
increase men’s access to sexual gratification. Once we are ready to accept that sex is
something that always requires a woman’s enthusiastic consent to sex itself--and not money--
and can’t be achieved through coercion, then we’ll be leagues closer to true equality.