Interesting prostitution article from The Economist

Here is the original article link:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3151258&CFID=37389860&CFTOKEN=c72fd5-ea17c32e-92ed-430f-9b66-5dd1f6478e13

Attitudes to commercial sex are hardening. But tougher laws are wrong in both principle and practice.

TWO adults enter a room, agree a price, and have sex. Has either committed a crime? Common sense suggests not: sex is not illegal in itself, and the fact that money has changed hands does not turn a private act into a social menace. If both parties consent, it is hard to see how either is a victim. But prostitution has rarely been treated as just another transaction, or even as a run-of-the-mill crime: the oldest profession is also the oldest pretext for outraged moralising and unrealistic lawmaking devised by man.

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Here is a response:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3195699

SIR – As someone who has worked as a “high-class” prostitute in London, I would like to commend your intelligent leader on prostitution (“Sex is their business”, September 4th). However, it seems to me that ultimately it is in prostitutes' interest to make our private business public. Our marginalisation—even by the majority of feminists who persist in seeing sex workers as victims of abuse or false consciousness—has perpetuated our stigmatisation. This, in turn, has made it difficult for prostitutes to contribute to the debate without risking alienation from family, etc. I believe it is imperative for women such as myself (who entered the sex industry voluntarily; whose lives were improved by the economic power it provided; who found the reality of the work challenged most of the clichés) to come forward and contribute to future studies. Only by articulating our experiences, and gaining visibility for our (not so grubby) bodies, can we hope to alter public perceptions and influence policy.
Dr Marie-Anne Mancio
Paris

SIR – If you can find one person on the staff of The Economist who says it is fine for their daughter to become a prostitute, or one person in a healthy marriage who says it is okay for their spouse to have sex with a prostitute, then I will consider your argument that it should be legalised. If you cannot produce such a person, then you must reconsider whether your argument misses a bigger picture. Perhaps no one in the room is harmed. What is likely to be harmed is family.
Dave West
Greenwich, Connecticut

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This is what the good doctor might look like (google search):
http://www.artquest.org.uk/archive/2003/sass.html