I think it could be illegal to buy sex. Most people in the sex trade were abused when they were younger. The prostitute ( male or female ) can be concidered a victim and the one buying sex a perpertrator ( held accountable by law ).

OF COURSE it should be legal!

Seriously....when did it become illegal? WHEN CHURCHES HELD MORE INFLUENCE THAN THEY DO NOW! I've always been mystified about poor Mary Magdalene. Now, the bibble never says she's a prostitute...but she's been rumored to have been one. Why's that? Because the people who wrote the bibble (MEN) also demonstrated great hatred toward strong women. Even poor Mary (mother of Jebus) was only revered because she was a virgin. This is the sort of attitude which causes prejudice against women who own their own bodies and use them as they see fit.

Anyone who's traveled in the world has seen countries where prostitution is legal, protected and regulated.

WHY NOT?

Legalize

Regulate it to increase standards for sex workers and reduce exploitation

Hell yes! safer for everyone AND sex work is WORK!

Keeping prostitution illegal serves no public interest. It's a moralist agenda residual from a puritan founded society. What people do with their bodies is their business.

It's the world's oldest profession...in some cases it's the only asset a woman (or man) has to survive.

I usepros occasionally, it harms no one and makes me happy.

“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”
― Oscar Wilde

Men hate the power women have over them sexually and so attempt to control them. Making prostitution illegal is part of that control.

I think it has been shown with little doubt that if you make something which is frowned upon socially, like prostitution, drugs etc. legal the situation gets a lot better for everyone concerned.

I have known quite a few prostitutes and they all have very different lives. One female I know works very hard at her job and has bought a house and is set to retire at 30. Another is in prison for drug smuggling even though she comes from a very wealthy family. She loved being a prostitute as she had never had a boyfriend before and liked the adventure. Two of my male friends have been prostitutes and one still is. He does it mainly for the money but is quite promiscuous anyway so enjoys it mostly. I went out with a girl who’s ex. boyfriend/girlfriend was a transexual prostitute who loved it. She lived with him for year and still sees him socially now.

I mention this for those who have the idea that prostitution is only the result of hitting rock bottom. There are those stories but there are also many much more happy endings (pun intended).

Prostitution is not illegal in Canada. There are some actions surrounding prostitution that are illegal but not prostitution itself.

Unfortunately until we get the religiously comtrolled lawmakers out of office it is unlikely to be legalized as the norm.

Legalize it and for many of the reasons you stated above. I tihnk it would also reduce the instances of young girls forced into prostitution if it is regulated, men will prefer to use legal services than risk getting arrested or diseases from illegal prostitutes.

You state: "Prostitution prohibition is a result of a paranoid society sexually repressed by irrational religious beliefs." It certainly isn't something with which I'd disagree. Lots more relating to this 'oldest profession' is attributable to irrationality of androcentric religions. We should be more generous with credit for roles they play in the phenomenon of prostitution and moreover, the very structuring and oversight of societies as a whole.

Attempts to prohibit are necessarily secondary. Religions block and harness primary sexual drives via indoctrination at the earliest possible stages. Far reaching, cumulative consequences of thwarting otherwise self-regulating human sexuality development has at best distorted and at worst crippled populations of 'modern societies. Actually, distortions effected are the goal of indoctrination as a means of supporting irrationally based mores built-in to the social framework by theological overseers. We call it being normal...

Those afflicted by the process with crippling damage are considered abnormal, degenerate, perverted or even criminal. Toxins were too much for them to absorb and meatabolize. They couldn't survive and fell short. These non-survivors; ostracized pariahs stand convicted of the very crimes that caused their injuries. Among them one often finds prostitutes.

Prohibition is but a partial result of such ills. It's an attempted secondary block on an 'end run'. Many might ask why end run? I looks rather direct. After all men and sometimes women have to find an 'outlet' don't they? What's wrong with that? We are products of advanced, 'modern society' aren't we?

We correctly recognize naturalness of sexual drives instinctively; by common and professional consensus and simple reasoning. We draw the conclusions, however, from a shared 'secondary platform' upon which rests our entire social and historical frame of reference. We're afforded only a partial view:having left primary, ground level long ago. Note, it probably accounts for why we call it 'primitive'.

From a primitive cultural perspective, appetites and behaviors considered 'givens' or normal on our secondary, irrational, Patrist dominated platform would be CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT.  From up here, only prohibition appears clearly connected to irrationality of religions.  Religion is also the causal source of secondary (substitutional) cravings; for blocked primary drives seeking secondary outlet via artificial means.  

Religion also, unintentionally, creates the market. Absence of market would also mean absence of product. This is but one example of how Patriarchally dominated religions create the very 'evils' they claim to oppose. Religion is the most prodigious manufacturer of human misery on the planet; with a long 6,000 year history of spawning such ills as usurpation of the natural role of women as society's leaders; degrading females to a status ranging from property to socially (religiously) subordinate; 'virgin' worship, child abuse, genital mutilation, cranial deformation, foot binding, dehumanization, war, conquest and genocide.

What we call social probems, legalized or not, are often only what can be seen at the top of a planetary pot that is about to boil over.

Not to mention that women are condemned for being prositutes but the men who use them, not so much.

My question is should it be?

I now live in Australia where prostitution is legal, and I believe should stay that way. Legalizing it solves a lot of problems, let's face it, it exiists, legal or otherwise, and that isn't going to change. It becomes safer for everyone when it is legal.

No, I don't think it should be illegal. Makes no sense. Who's it hurting? When it comes down to consenting adults making informed decisions, it is infringing on my right to use my body as I please, whether it be giver or receiver.

It's not right to treat prositution as something different than what it really is, and I think any moral authority would be able to tell what it actually is, both in reality, and in terms.

Plus, if we made it illegal, we'd be throwing 25% of female culture in the trash. Is banning such a thing the right thing to do?

It should be legal but regulated. I spent a few years in places where it was legal and used the services on occasions.
Safe practices should be priority and the law.

The government has no business interferring with our bodies. Regulation & states rights yes. But an outright ban has no place in a free society. What someone wishes to do with their body without harming others should be regulated for disease & violence prevention, regarding consenting adults with cognative abilities intact.

It’s the definition of insanity, keeping doing the same thing and expecting different results. As long as there’s sexuality there will be prostitution, in one manner or another.

Legalize it, regulate it, tax it...just like they do alcohol

Prostitution should not be legal, but it should be discouraged socially.
Prostitution should not be illegal, because that makes criminals of the prostitutes, but it should be discouraged socially.
People say prostitution is as old as civilization, and will never be eradicated, but that is a false argument. It's as old as civilization precisely because civilization is patriarchal, meaning that women as people are devalued, and sex is comodified. Slavery, child marriage, forced conscription and child abuse are all also as old as civilization, and that doesn't make them moral, or desirable, either.
Prostitution is the attempt to divorce sexual reciprocity from the emotions of love and connectiveness. The same is true of pornography. Yes, it can be done. But that doesn't make it a good idea.
In places where prostitution has been made legal, organized crime has moved in in a big way. In the red light district of Amsterdam, officials are rethinking the policies that have allowed prostitution to flourish there. Sex trafficking has increased, not decreased. Most of the women who work in the brothels are poor women (and girls) of color, who were brought to Amsterdam to service what has become a huge business, and nearly all the elements that go with this situation are undesireable in an advanced culture. The same is true in Germany, where 9 storey buildings house hundreds of impoverished third world prostitutes. Researchers in one study could not find a single German woman who chose to prostitute herself in one of these bordellos.
You can always find women who claim to love prostitution, and some who make a lot of money doing it. That doesn't negate the fact that for the vast majority of women and girls who make their living prostituting themselves, they would do anything else if they possibly could, and their lives are marked by suffering and degradation. Most cannot, and do not, escape the horrible life of sexual slavery.
Men (and women) who claim that prostitution is empowering for the women are deluding themselves. Just look at the evidence: it's not that hard to find. Women who leave prostitution have very sad stories about it. Men who visit prostitutes, and post their reviews, are horribly cruel and mysogynistic to the women they have just paid to fuck.
Upstanding male citizens who view porn and argue that prostitution should be legal, would generally not be thrilled to learn that a beloved daughter or granddaughter has decided to go into the sex trade. Why not, if it's just another job?
Because they know, even if they will not admit it, that "sex work" is degrading and dehumanizing.
In the Nordic model, only the purchasers of sex are prosecuted. This approach tends to shame men who are willing to engage prostitutes, and remarkably, the incidence of prostitution goes way down, when such an approach is implemented.
Isn't that more like the kind of culture we all want? Where prostitution is rare, rather than commonplace? Doesn't that reduce suffering more?

Prostitution itself is not a crime its the lead up ,solicoting for sexual business that is the crime.
this was put in place by so called religious moralists who were afraid of being caug'ht by their wives and others and being judged in the same way that they judged others

As long as it's not a human trafficking situation . not my cup of tea .. but if it gets you through the day and you are ok with it ..