Exactly. If legalized, there wouldn’t be any hookers on street corners, no pimps or other unsavory characters. We would again have the fancy “cat houses” of the old west or of modern Nevada.

But gosh, when it comes to sex, the URQ just go dingy..

Prostitution is pretty much legal in edmontonton, but it has to be conducted in private, (massage parlours, escort agaencies etc.) and it’s pretty much stopped the trade out in the open.

However, those same places aren’t going to hire the fugly hookers with, stretch marks and track marks you see in the inner city who need to make quick money for whatever reason. There are still men out there who need to get their rocks off but won’t/can’t pay the massage parlour/ecsort rates. If there’s a demand, someone is going to fill it and that’s where the cheap streetwalker types come in. Most of whom are victims of drug addiction and/or violence and feel they have no other options.

Sorry Mike, but the idea that all prostitution can be religated to fancy brothels isn’t even a reality in places like Nevada and Amsterdam. They still have streetwalkers.

The act of prostitution isn’t illegal. Communicating it in public is. The reason for that is to hopefully stop johns from soliciting innocent women or girls or hookers from bothering people who aren’t interested. Having lived in rougher areas of major cities and being harrasses by hookers on my way to work or seeing horny old johns trying to pick up young girls walking home from school, I’m glad it’s still on the books.

Yeah, nastyboy, I have to agree: there are issues that need to be dealt with that legalization won’t take care of. I’m fine with decriminalization and think some pairing of decriminalization and legalization is the only way to keep sex workers safe, but I have a few concerns.

The first time I was solicited by random strangers in cars was when I was 13, and holding off those approaches aren’t good for the head-space — so I’m not thrilled with the idea of open season on soliciting women and girls in public for sexual trade, if only because I’ve a list of experiences I’d prefer not to have had. I don’t tend to BE solicited, but I imagine that also could be a different sort of yuh.

Although of course, laws against communication for sexual purposes didn’t really discourage the hassling. So would it make a difference? Dunno.

Maybe if you got the over 18 adults consenting (at a fair price!) folks off the radar, there’d be more ability to go after the exploitation/ trafficking/ children/ drug-addiction/ elements - police hours not wasted on the consensual stuff. And if there were places to go with solicitation licenses - specialty bars, cat houses, escorts, massage parlors - then hassling people on the street could be taken more seriously, and 13 year olds with cameras in their cell phones could get the “Hey baby If you’ll … I’ll …” off their backs.