Legalizing Prostitution

Legalizing Prostitution

In the article “Legalized Prostitution” the author, Mark Liberator, shares his views on legalizing prostitution. He believes because of women’s specialized roles in society, they should be allowed to use sex as a service that can be bartered for goods and money; and by using these specialized roles, the author explains that allowing prostitution in the United States could lower a majority of murder and rape cases, and can decrease the amount of suicides and divorces. By making prostitution legal, Liberator also thinks that it will allow law enforcement to respond faster to more important crimes, help women that use prostitution as a career path, and will prevent teens from being trapped into prostitution. Though Liberator states his case strongly, and has statistics that help prove his point, his logic has holes that could even make cocaine, heroin, and other illegal drugs legal. Liberator states that our primal desires should not be ignored or suppressed, but instead should be managed. If this is the case, then should our first instincts to lie, cheat, steal, and kill should also be managed? No. Managing these things, and not suppressing them, means that we are making it legal to rob stores, lie about it, and kill anyone who disagrees with our reasons as to why we’ve committed the crime. Not only that, but if we make prostitution legal, it is possible that there could be an overflow of prostitutes, that would create larger drug chains, which could ruin our countries credibility as a safe place to live. I feel that legalizing prostitution is the first small step to that future, and that we should avoid making prostitution tolerable in America.

Liberator starts his argument by giving a quick study on cultural differences regarding the subject of sex under marriage. He thinks that America puts too much puts itself under too much pressure to stay faithful to their spouses, and thinks that we should be allowed to be polygynists (marriage to many women) to avoid the guilt of being covertly promiscuous as monogamists (marriage to one woman.) I feel that polygyny is cowardice, and that it exhibits the lack of maturity needed to have a successful marriage. This makes women seem more like items, and less like human-beings. If one were to have many wives, and another person only has one, the one with lesser wives could possibly think lower of himself, and also could get jealous of other men. This could lead to many horrible consequences including adultery, and murder.

The article continues, telling the reader to view sex as a trade and that many countries adopt this belief. Liberator states, “In Singapore, sex for money is open and commonplace. Denmark women can be legal prostitutes so long as it is not their sole means of income. Canada, France and Mexico allow it. Prostitutes must be contained within brothels in the Netherlands, unlike within England and Wales where prostitution is limited to individual providers. Israel, the historical stage for the Bible, allows it, too.” The author tries to add leverage to this argument by saying that the place where of the Bible’s origin allows prostitution. This doesn’t really prove a point because you can use a similar analogy saying that the US is a place of freedom, but then look at our rich history of slavery. He feels that America is slighted in a way because we only allow prostitution in some counties of Nevada.

Liberator then takes a sudden turn in his argument stating the following: “Even though it is quite natural on a biological level for males and females to host desires and have intimate relations with many partners (Hughs, 1990), it would probably be a very unproductive line of reasoning when considering the legalization of prostitution.” This confuses the reader because it seems as if the author disagrees with his argument. He then continues, saying that human race has evolved to the point where we no longer succumb to our primal behaviors, and proof of this is our lifestyles that require us to act less like animals. The author testifies that we deal with sexuality without force, and that there is room for prostitution in civilized societies “since sex can be considered to be a service traded for goods, services, relationships, and money.” If we have grown into such sophisticated beings, then why are we so driven to sex? Sexual contact is one of many primal instincts that we possess as humans, making his argument about how we have developed the ability to avoid our animal-like intuitions appear to be invalid.

Sex is then discussed in the context of marriage. Liberator believes that sex in marriage is a bartered service, and that in a relationship one provides sex for love, and the other, love for sex. Sex as a bartered service in marriage is very reasonable because of a relationships struggles, and