Legal Prostitution

There was an article in today's paper about prostitution. As many of you know, Nevada offers legalized prostitution. By making prostitution legal, it can be regulated, from a financial standpoint, and a medical one. In this state, as long as you are not in Washoe or Clark counties, you can find a brothel, where prostitutes work legally. Some cities have rules about brothels and prostitution having to be outside city limits as well, but brothels are there, and accessible. I can't vouch for southern Nevada, but in northern Nevada the brothels, are off the interstate, back away from the highway, and not in neighborhoods and near schools. They have (surprisingly) tasteful bill board ads pointing to their location, and are more uncommon and less noticeable than the XXX rated adult book stores in downtown Reno that are sometimes bright pink, have huge X's all over, and the like.

Don't get me wrong. I am not really picking on the adult book stores here. They really don't bother me over much either. It would embarrass me throughly to go into one, but I have nothing against them. They are there, and there is a market for them. I have had to answer questions about adult bookstores and about brothels when Captain Dramatic became curious as we drove past, and the lights could be seen from the car, but I have never been to any city where there wasn't at least one thing of a sexual nature that brought questions from a child.

I have also never been in a city where prostitution didn't exist, legally or illegally. It is naive of us to think that laws will stop the oldest occupation in the world. Sure, selling sex for money is not exactly the most moral occupation, but that is something that the sellers need to work out with their own conscience and God on their own. It certainly isn't my place to judge.

Since it is going to occur no matter what it's legal status is (and it has for centuries regardless of its legal status), then why shouldn't it be legal, taxed, monitored, and regulated just as everything else is? With its legality, the girls have health insurance, and aren't getting the crap beat out of them by pimps and johns, the brothels pay taxes, they have business licenses, just like any other business drug tests can be mandatory, and no one is walking the streets in the dark, trying to avoid a dangerous situation.

I am sure you are wondering what it was about the article I read that brought on this mild rant by now. It was something that our aggravating, delusional, resident retard of a state senator had to say in regards to legal prostitution:

"CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Some wobbled in six-inch, platform stilettos. Others padded around in glittery, gold ballerina flats. But whatever they were wearing, the prostitutes walking the hallways of the Nevada State Legislature were stepping out in defiance.

Nevada is the last place in the U.S. working girls can openly say they offer sex for a living — and they turned out confident that they’ll preserve their enterprise.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid called out the oldest profession in a speech to state legislators Tuesday, telling them the state with the nation’s highest unemployment rate was shooting itself in the economic foot by permitting legal prostitution.

But others say Nevada’s regulation and health restrictions on the trade offer a model for the future."

I am not sure how Senator Reid thinks that any thriving business in this state, that is employing people, and paying fees to the state is an economic shot in the state's foot. Of all the reasons and arguments for not having legalized prostitution, this is the stupidest and most unfounded reason any person could come up with. Especially since making it illegal would do nothing but cut state revenues from licensing and business permits and fees. Not only that, but illegal prostitutes work "under the table" and aren't paying federal income tax? As the article mentioned this state has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, and he wants to put another industry out of business? Where is the sense in that?

I have come to expect this kind of stupidity and lack of common sense from him, but that doesn't make me any less accepting or tolerant of it.