Sex is illegal when there's money involved; both buyer and seller are criminals.  

Then, where's the victim?  Is there anyone else involved in the the sex-for-money transaction other than the buyers and the sellers?  Are criminals in this case also victims?

The anti-legal prostitution crowd will claim it is the wife of the hobbyist who is a victem (I think providers proably save more marriages than they break up, however.)

Also they claim the provider is a victem as they are coerced into the field, blah, blah.

(still not a Bible thumper)

I'd agree when the provider is indeed coerced (which happens much to often in some sub-sections of the business).

But for the other, let the spouses sort that out.  They shouldn't need gov't "help".  And by the same logic it should certainly be OK for a single guy to see a willing single provider and do whatever they wish to do.  But obviously that's not the case because the whole argument about who are the victims is a smoke screen.  It has nothing to do with "victims", it has to do with moral zealots who want to impose their morals on everyone else.  No different in that regard than the Islamic zealots.

She has enough cash to spend the rest of her life living lavishly without lifting a finger or supporting the kids.

I should be such a victem.

It's like rape, assault, or attempted murder.
The one the public thinks of as the 'victim' is legally just a witness.
The indictment will not read   "Jane Doe vs John Smith", unless it is a Civil case.
The indictment WILL read:  "State vs dfwjim123", if it is a criminal case.

This was originally the distinction between a Felony (a crime against the king) and a misdemeanor (a crime against another person).

The victim literally is the State.

Legalisticly that may be the definition, but that does not answer the question actually asked.  How was the state or anyone else injured when a single person voluntarily has sex for money with another single person, both of age.

I can pass a law that says a fruit is a vegetable or a black man is not a man, but it's still biologically a fruit or a man; passing a law saying the "State" is a victim doesn't make it true, only legal.

All the crimes you mentioned have actual victims: rape victims, murder victims, assault victims ... then the behavior must be harmful to public.

If "traded sex" is harmful to public.  Then how so?

If the man has a family his wife and kids just like if he had an affair. If the man is single, no one can claim to be the victim. If the lady is seen clients and is married, and her husband doesn't approve, you could make the case her husband and kids is the victim, just like an affair. If the lady is forced to provide or is underage she is the victim, just like any case of rape as that is what it is. But sense adultery is legal and P4P does not victimize anyone that adultery does, nor does it victimize anyone more that adultery does, except if cases where someone is forced into participating, or they are underage, prostitution should be legal, in my opinion. Just like any other sex act.

prostitution therefore is not a crime.

drug crimes are crimes of potential.

dui crimes are crimes of potential.

throughout history crimes of potential have been used to discriminate against and in some cases, exterminate a group of people of a certain demographic.

i understand that drunk drivers kill people.
i also understand that sober drivers kill people.
and i understand that some drunk drivers never have or cause an accident ever.

but because it has been proven that drunk drivers are more likely to kill people, then driving drunk is now a crime.   just like it was determined in nazi germany that jews were more likely to commit crime than non-jews so therefore all jews had to be punished because they were perceived as having a higher potential to commit a crime.  

the problem is when determining the "cause" of a crime, there is never just one factor to be considered and we just dont have the capabillity of determining the exact formula of factors that cause any one specific type of crime so punishing people who have are *percieved* to have a higher "potential" to commit crime violates those people's constitutional rights.   in my opinion.  

because what if the perception is later proven to be wrong ?
like it was with the jews ?

all members of our society have constitutional rights.
our legal system was built to protect those rights from being infringed upon by other members of society.
those infringements were then classified into crimes and the infringers as criminals.

the reason our legal system is overburdened with cases is because:

law enforcement has shifted from its orignial objective which was to protect members of society, to an objective which focuses more on punishing members of society.   the consequences of this shift, has brought the determination that being a member of a certain demographic which is *percieved* as having a higher potential to commit a crime is actually a crime in and of itself.

enter: the victimless crime

when our legal system was established, there was no such thing as a victimless crime.
its a crime which was born from the now mutated legal system which we created when we allowed the objective of law enforcement to shift toward punishment instead of protection.

we now have more prisoners serving time for victimless crimes than we do crimes that actually have victims.. ....the result of which is less time,  less space, less overal resources available to protect society from the criminals who actually commit a crime.

"BUT don't go thinking you can just have all the fun you want cuz we just might show up and bust up your lil party too one day, yuk yuk yuk" says deputy dingdong who is more worried about what crimes you have the potential to commit from consuming mind altering substances than he is worried about the mind born with malintent who has already committed a crime and left the body parts behind.

real life example:
recent raid on escorts.com offices used over 100 law enforcement agents to serve a search warrant on an office of about 130 employees....    the agents refused to allow anyone to inspect the warrant and wouldnt answer as to what items were authorized for search by the warrant, but the existence of a piece of paper was used to carry out boxes and boxes of nobody knows what but we can speculate that most likely, they contained porno dvds since that was the main product that those offices distributed.

unfortunately, earlier this year, 11 skeletons were found in albuquerque, nm and this same body of law enforcement, namely the FBI, much to the outrage of the murdered victims families, has stated that they dont have the resources to put into investigating this crime because the serial killer has *probably* already left the area however, my opinioin is that since the boobies had already decomposed off of these victims, the swine family interest in finding the perpetrator of these victims decomposed right along with them cuz boobies look soooo much better in the porno dvds where they still actually have some meat on them.  

note to women: if you're planning on being murdered, start drinking whiskey NOW to slow down the decomposition of your body if you want to increase the chances of your killer actually being caught before he kills a dozen or (eh-who's keeping count) other people because we have now learned that serving up bones at the trough is not the way to start a succesful swine stampede.

ok
........ i guess i'm being a bit too generous with my crazy juice.
spit it out or viva la revolution.

... that most of the anti-prostitution laws in this country were enacted in the wake of concerted efforts by organized women's groups such as the WCTU (Women's Christian Temperance Union).

Married women, in general, can be seen as having a compelling interest in the legal prohibition of prostitution for three reasons:

> Husbands exposed to prostitutes have higher odds of contracting STDs that would be conveyed to their wives than husbands who remained monogamous or celibate.
> Prostitutes cost money that would otherwise be available to the wife in some form or fashion.
> Legal prostitution threatens the legal monopoly married women have on their husband's sex supply; along with all the power that such a legal monopoly conveys.

So the first victim of prostitution is the marital partner, if such exists, of the male participant.

Of course, MrFisher brings up a valid counterpoint. There are wives who retain their husbands at all only through virtue of their husbands' capacity to get sex elsewhere. I would strongly suspect that many married women have unknowingly gained benefit from prostitution in this fashion.

The second victim of prostitution is the system of standard employment. Any woman who is occupied outside of the standard employment system reduces the supply of potential employees and thus increases the required wages to retain employees.

We all know, I am certain, a number of providers who are extremely bright and whose efforts would be an asset to any company that employed them. But by undertaking prostitution, they have deprived business of their virtues.

Personally, I would argue that business has no right to anyone's efforts anyway and so cannot claim harm; but in aggregate the effect of a million women turning to the black market for employment is a detriment to employers.

A third victim is government. Yeah, yeah -- I'm sure every provider faithfully keeps account of every penny earned and dutifully pays self-employment taxes on top of regular taxes. But here in the real world, I am unaware of anyone who runs an all-cash business whether it is a hot dog stand or a waiter who earns good tips who reports every penny of income.

The IRS hates self-employment because it leaves people far too much freedom to fudge the numbers in numerous unprovable ways; and it especially hates self-employment in all-cash businesses that leave precious little record.

If we figure a million women engaged in prostitution and use LG's survey to guess average income of $120k; that is $120Billion that is inaccessible to FICA, Medicare taxes, unemployment insurance, workman's comp, income tax and more.

Furthermore, such self-employed people are very resistant to methods of soft totalitarianism that control dissent through economic threat.

FInally, a great many people consider those who work in prostitution as victims in and of themselves.

While I am quite certain that some engaged in such work are indubitably empowered rather than victimized; quite a few are trafficked, deliberately addicted to drugs and then sent out, indentured, etc.

There is some argument, reasonable or not, that legalizing prostitution would make such abuses more difficult to prosecute.

Personally, I favor the decriminalization of prostitution under the same logic as the decriminalization of abortion -- a privacy right entailing a woman's right to control her own body. Nevertheless, do not think this could be accomplished without a great hue and cry.

And do not for a moment blame this on right-wing Christians exclusively. Some of the most draconian of enforcement of anti-prostitution laws is in the most blue of blue states.

damn you smart men are such a turn on...