Prostitution should be legal.

Alright! Good arguments! Here are my refutations. Your first argument is this: "The average age of entry into prostitution is 13 years (M.H. Silbert and A.M. Pines, 1982, "Victimization of street prostitutes, Victimology: An International Journal, 7: 122-133) or 14 years (D.Kelly Weisberg, 1985, Children of the Night: A Study of Adolescent Prostitution, Lexington, Mass, Toronto). Most of these 13 or 14 year old girls were recruited or coerced into prostitution. Others were "traditional wives" without job skills who escaped from or were abandoned by abusive husbands and went into prostitution to support themselves and their children. (Denise Gamache and Evelina Giobbe, Prostitution: Oppression Disguised as Liberation, National Coalition against Domestic Violence, 1990)" [1] 1. Take this source as my first reason prostitution should not be legalized. I am fully aware that you believe sexual intercourse with an underage person should not be allowed. If we use some deductive reasoning, how many teenagers smoke before they are the age of 18 (the legal age to smoke). What about alcohol? If prostitution is legalized, it is highly likely that underage females from very low income areas will try to capitalize on an opportunity to make some money. It is very possible that they would lie about their age and begin a career in prostitution. My refutation to that is even if prostitution remains illegal, this same kind of underage of prostitution would occur. Your points heavily imply that underage girls would lie about there age to begin a career in prostitution, however, therefore slightly increasing the number of people being introduced to the trade of prostitution. Whether or not your point is valid or not, that still should NOT affect just some random, normal people who want to conduct a safe business transaction. I.e. The x and y example I gave in round 1. Your reason is basically painting everyone with the same brush. Isn't it better to legalize it and regulate it to eliminate the problem of underage prostitution? Oh, one more thing: "Others were "traditional wives" without job skills who escaped from or were abandoned by abusive husbands and went into prostitution to support themselves and their children." Well, if they didn't have any other skills, and they needed to support their family, isn't it a good thing that they went into prostitution? "Personally, it should be a fundamental right to have sex with whoever you want, whenever you want, and whichever way you want as long as both parties agree to the proceedings." -People already have the right to do this. No issue needs to be addressed there. Well, actually, no. X couldn't go up to y, offer him money for sex, and then have consensual sex, because of this draconian, invasive law. In this example of prostitution I give, all the criteria I listed above is met, and they are still not allowed to do it. Therefore, it is an issue that needs to be addressed. SIDE NOTE: They are not hurting anyone. X wants sex, y wants money, they make a deal that helps both of them! Maybe y likes having sex? Who knows! "Some arguments against the legalization of prostitution are semi-valid, usually to the theme of health risks and such" -Health risks are a small part of the issues associated with prostitution. I prefer to look into the dramatic increase in physical abuse and sexual assaults that would create a much larger burden on law enforcement agencies across the United States. I will jump into those statistics in later arguments. Further, we will also talk about the high rate of victims of child molestation jumping into prostitution. We will also talk about how many drug addicts (meth, crack, heroin), quickly lose money and revert to prostitution as a means to finance another criminal offense. Ready to address this when it comes up. "Other arguments attempt to define prostitution as a moral issue by saying it's demeaning and should therefore be illegal" -Prostitution is very demeaning to women and is also immoral. However, I will address other issues associated with Prostitution. Some prostitutes might actually enjoy sex and do not necessarily view it as immoral. What is so wrong about mutually beneficial transaction that does not hurt anyone else? What's so demeaning about that? And besides, when prostitutes entered the biz, they accepted the premise that it would be "demeaning" (Which it isn't.) "You should not enforce subjective morality onto others" -Are you suggesting we legalize all criminal behavior? My arguments will focus on the prostitutes as victims. When you encourage prostitution, a large percentage of females that will start prostitution will start at a very young age as my source identified earlier. How many people start smoking in their thirties? No, I'm not suggesting we should legalize all criminal behavior. When someone, without the other persons consent, harms them in a significant way, that's illegal. However, prostitution has consent on both sides and no significant harm, therefore relying on a subjective moral value judgement in order to make it illegal. For example, if I started a religion that said drinking tea should be punished by getting stoned to death, that obviously would not become law since that's a subjective moral value judgement, and not one that everyone needs to take. 1. Legalizing something is not encouraging it. 2. Prostitution and smoking are two very different things. I doubt prostitution would be "the next big thing" for kids if it got legalized. All it would show is that two people can engage in consensual sex for money without fear of going to jail. All right, once more, good arguments from you. Good luck with your response.