The article frequently mentions female sex workers, and I agree that's where the next struggle should be. Feminists should lead the movement to legalize prostitution, and then to organize and unionize sex workers.
It's no coincidence that serial killers like to victimize prostitutes. Under the current arrangement in the US, sex workers, like illegal immigrants, are easy prey, for they must remain unnoticed.
Further, the working conditions are often appalling, and a breeding ground for physical abuse, drug usage, and even outright slavery.

The core feminists that remain the ones quoted in the press and given air time on the media outlets are the ones still supporting freedom from western Judeo-Christan religion, or, at the very least, freedom from it when those whose politics they despite are championing its cause. That's why the feminist leadership seemed more vocal about the atrocities of the Taliban against women pre-9/11 than after the terrorist attack, because suddenly their cause was being led by George W. Bush.

The most temperate of this group might be willing to champion women's rights within the framework of western religious beliefs, so long as John F. Kerry is the pope of their political world as of January 20th of next year. Other than that, Bush's denial of lesbian nuptual rights will remain their political focal point and the world's biggest outrage against women for the forseeable future.

Michael:

You've developed a strange passion for normalizing human pathologies.

Normalizing the world's oldest profession.

By your standards, OJ, that means prositution should be at the pantheon of human conduct. After all, your fathers since time immemorial have engaged in it.

Cain murdered Abel--wanna make murder legal?

Actually, there's no need to answer--that's the logical outcome of your amorality anyway.

If it were possible to stop prostitution, then we could discuss whether or not to do so. Clearly, however, it cannot be ended.
Even Arabia, and Afghanistan under the Taliban, has or had prostitutes, although Muslims need to be even more hypocritical than Christians to frequent such.

Given that that's the case, then I'm for prostitutes working in clean and safe surroundings, disease and drug free, and without coercion.

I'm for making the next Auschwitz more sanitary since we can't stop genocide and maybe piping in muzak..

Mr. Judd;

The comparison of prostitution to murder is completely bogus. In the former there are no unwilling participants, which makes for a vast difference morally, practically and legally.

Of course, I'm sure I'll get back "but women are forced to be prostitutes". That's irrelevant for two reasons. The minor one is that far from all prostitutes are forced in to it. More importantly, it's the forcing and not the prostitution that's the problem. Forcing women to work in garment sweat shops is wrong as well, but that doesn't mean outlawing sewing will solve the problem.

I will credit Mr. Judd for being consistent for wanting to outlaw fornication as well as prostitution. It seems extremely odd to me to favor permitting one but not the other - how can you really tell the difference?

AOG:

That's the libertarian position. There are no libertarian nations. We're a Judeo-Christian nation and consent is no defense to evil behavior. Prostitutes have no right to engage in a trade that demeans themselves, their customers ,and the culture.

As the article mentions, the Feminist movement has largely won what it had set out to achieve 40 years ago. There isn't much need for a Feminist movement now, but as with all self-serving movements and organizations, new reasons for existence must be manufactured where they do not exist.

Michael, the bigger problem with the sex trade is in the developing world, especially Asia, where rural families sell their daughters into sexual slavery. I don't think that legigimizing prostitution is a good way to address this problem.

I also think it is a myth that legalizing prostitution will eliminate the abuses. Most of the trade is driven by a desire for under-age boys and girls. Noone will legalize that trade, and that will continue regardless of whether prostitution among consenting adults is legalized.
OJ is right, it is a pathology. We can't base our legal policies on whether or not we can eradicate the behavior in question, because we wil never eliminate any of the pathologies and evils that plague us. Civilization is not utopia, it is an endless struggle to hold these tides at bay.

Michael:

"I'm for prostitutes working in clean and safe surroundings, disease and drug free, and without coercion."

Every man's fantasy.

Think their husbands and kids will be proud of their career choice?

Back to OJ's main point - I know women who think Bush is the worst thing in the world and scream everyday about women making 80 cents to a man's dollar but can't acknowledge the improvement in women's lifes in Afhganistan and Iraq as part of Bush's actions.

All;

I was primarily objecting to Mr. Judd's analogy. If you want to claim that prostitution is a pathology, or violates the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our civilization, that's a defensible position. But it's not at all the same as the reasons for forbidding murder.

AOG:

...to a libertarian. You base wrongness on lack of consent.

The rest of us are saying that it is always evil to treat another as an object.

Then capitalism is evil.

Jeff:

Yes it is, unless, as Adam Smith required, it is mitigated by Christian morality.