Decriminalizing Prostitution Essay Example for Free

Decriminalizing Prostitution Essay The oldest profession in the world, also known as, prostitution is one of the most controversial debates that many people have. Should it be legal, should it be illegal, are the women just selling their bodies because they have low self-esteem? Well, let’s discuss the pros and cons to decriminalizing prostitution. Where brothels are present and their outcome of business. Let’s focus on the positive side of decriminalizing prostitution, as mentioned one of the pros would be that it can be an economic means to a person in need of financial assistance. Just like every other job prostitution is a way of making a living, you have supply and demand, just as a cable man will come to your house and fix your T. V. a prostitute will give that companion to the person needing it. A second pro would be that it can minimize human trafficking, usually when something is illegal or inaccessible we want it more, making any means necessary to achieve it, this is true for human traffickers that sell humans for various reasons, mainly sex. If we can already make humans readily available for intimate reasons than we can naturally see trafficking coming to a halt. Another pro I can see with decriminalizing prostitution is reduction in violence within the prostitute community. Many prostitutes are raped, abused, and murdered. If we were to help protect these workers then maybe they would be less afraid to seek help from the police and the police would better protect them. Because prostitution is illegal many prostitutes that are raped or otherwise abused aren’t going to the police for fear that they will be arrested. The final pro is if we decriminalize prostitution then both the Johns and the prostitutes would have to get monthly checks for AIDS/HIV and all other STD’s. Enforcing this might ensure that we are putting an end to spreading diseases across the nation. We have discussed some pros now let’s discuss some cons, I can’t see many cons with decriminalizing prostitution but one of them would be the moral aspect of it. I can see how many crimes against these women would become a problem within society. Prostitution is seen as wrong and immoral, so I am not sure if a sex work professional would ever be seen as a the same as a teacher, CEO, or banker. The last con I can see is that the drug industry would sky rocket, as more and more prostitutes are trading sexual favors for drugs, I can see that drugs would now be spread more vastly across the plains. Just as corrupt as any company could be, prostitution and drugs are commonly known to be a hand in hand occurrence. This could become a problem in the future for police officials to get a hold of if taken out of control and not monitored correctly. In the United States there is only one state where prostitution is legal, which is Nevada. There are only 17 counties in Nevada that allow brothels in their counties, any county that exceeds 400,000 residents are not allowed to have a brothel. While it is a high paying profession and due to the recession it has seen its bad days, prostitution in Nevada is still a very popular and highly sought out job because of its high pay day. The working girls in a brothel have to be tested once a week for STD’s such as gonorrhea and chlamydia, and once a month for AIDS and HIV. They must also use a condom for ALL transactions and report their tax earnings to the county, so basically the county is their pimp. At the end of the day whether it is moral or not, it is the choice of the men and women who are choosing to sell themselves for money. We should not judge those who chose that profession as a means of making ends meet. Many people do what they have to do to provide for themselves and their families. There are prostitutes who do it solely for the money, some to upkeep their drug habits and some because they just plainly like sex.