I have the right to perform a sexual service in exchange for money.
And so do you.
You can regulate rights, just like we can have reasonable limits on freedom of speech (libel/slander). But at the end of the day you can not absolutely restrict my right to engage in sexual behaviors with a consenting partner for whatever reason we could possibly imagine. You can regulate it for my safety, you can limit it just like you can tell me I can't work for less than X dollars an hour.
But you can't tell me I can't do it, period.
When people say they want to ban prostitution, remember this simple fact. They are saying they know better than you what you ought to do with your body and they want the force of law behind them.
= new reply since forum marked as read
If you know which websites to search. 
Making marriage a law was when all the trouble started.
Cut out the middle man.
Have you ever read about the transatlantic slave trade? There are no hard numbers, and that trade was legal, much of it documented. You expect hard numbers for human trafficking? What scenario in your mind makes that possible? You think immigration officers diligently track each and every slave as the enter a country, filling out paperwork? Or that slave traders provide invoices of how many human beings they smuggle inside a cargo vessel?
This is the abstract. That means a summary of the central findings of the research.
According to economic theory, there are two opposing effects of unknown magnitude. The
scale effect of legalized prostitution leads to an expansion of the prostitution market,
increasing human trafficking, while the substitution effect reduces demand for trafficked
women as legal prostitutes are favored over trafficked ones. Our empirical analysis for a
cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution
effect. On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human
trafficking inflows.
10 percent more human beings sold into bondage. Why should that matter? It's not like they are men of means, human beings who actually count.
Let's be honest here. The point is a clear refusal to care about whether more people are sold into slavery. The more important issue is that men of money have access to purchasing sex whenever they want. Pretending this is about anything other than male entitlement is absurd. Capitalist exploitation is a virtue. Survival of the fittest. Caring out human rights is so passé. It's all about power and privilege. That's what must be fought for under all circumstances.
Point made. I now understand why there is so much exploitation and inequality around the world. Those who benefit from it will justify that exploitation at all costs. Railing about "corporatists" is a smokescreen for the fact they feel entitled to benefit from the rampant exploitation of others. They will pretend those people don't exist because really they just don't matter. That is the why we have rampant inequality. That is why capitalism is able to exploit, use, and spit out human beings. Capital finds its collaborators among the privileged who show willful disregard for the human rights of others.
Response to BainsBane (Reply #58)
The big red light district in Frankfurt is in the most central area next to the main train station and Kaiserstraße. There are residential buildings in neighboring streets, but these are mixed with other businesses (e.g. publishing houses, also office buildings housing embassies, consulates, airline offices and so forth) and not exactly low-cost anymore. Kaiserstraße:
if you walk back from there 100 m and turn to the left, you'll be here (lights on the balconies indicate brothel):
Another, very smaill red light district is near the main shopping area "Zeil".
Walk 50 m from there, turn to the right, then to the left and you'll be here (next to the brothels are some shops, fast food restaurants, residences in upper floors):
There is another red zone far from the inner city with no residential housing anywhere near it.
The "scare garbage" about providing a profit motive to third-party exploiters, defining new classes of criminal, increasing police power, filling prisons and pushing activity into "the dark" (where it is more dangerous and criminals can exploit it better) is not bunk. It is what happened already long ago with criminalization. So I suppose there's no need to fear things that at this point can't be happening in the future, since they're already so well established. Criminalization as it has been practiced has not addressed, but has mainly added to, the problems inherent in prostitution.
Even if I thought the solution you propose was reasonable, how is the solution tenable? I can offer sex for money, but I'm not responsible legally if someone takes me up on it, only my buyer is criminal? After they pay me, can I turn them in myself and testify at their trials? You say "solicitation" would be illegal (i.e., asking for it) but in common usage the word refers not just to asking for but also to offering something, with good reason. The existence of the offer is one of the essential conditions for creating the market.
Perhaps your proposal outlaws advertising, or obvious streetwalking, but there are always forms of marketing. So please clarify: Are you saying a prostitute can legally set up somewhere, making an offer and trying to persuade people to accept it (again, the common definition of "solicitation" , but anyone who then takes the offer is breaking the law? Can someone do this as a legal business? (For the sake of argument let's define this as a worker-owned cooperative with only equal worker-owners among the personnel.) They can run their own legal brothel and invite clients in, but then the clients are lawbreakers? Sounds like you could set up a brothel at the front door, leading to a police precinct at the back, and build a prison next door.
So please clarify how this proposal is supposed to work in practice.
I mean, "workers" as opposed to "johns." We both are against people being forced to sell their sex to make a living, or being forced to do so in slave-like arrangements. Please stop with the attempt to morally discredit people for seeing different ways of doing this, or implying that the only ones who see this differently can only be johns concerned solely with their "right" to pay for sex.
You seem to basically be just saying that under your proposal, almost nothing will change. The fear and brutality will remain, the businesses will remain in place, but at least the women won't be prosecuted, and some of the customers will be hunted (since in practice the pimps will have cover). What does this provide other than a relative relief for some of the women and the public moral satisfaction of occasional raids punishing some johns? It seems to me an awfully limited way of addressing the problem, a capitulation. Better can be imagined, and has been practiced in places with regulated decriminalization (and better economic rights for women generally).
So again, you seem to be implying an answer but I'm not clear about your answer to these questions. No need to take a long time, just some clarity if this is the gist. Repeating:
I can offer sex for money, but I'm not responsible legally if someone takes me up on it, only my buyer is criminal? After they pay me, can I turn them in myself and testify at their trials?
Can a prostitute legally set up somewhere, making an offer and trying to persuade people to accept it (again, the common definition of "solicitation" , but anyone who then takes the offer is breaking the law? Can someone do this as a legal business? (For the sake of argument let's define this as a worker-owned cooperative with only equal worker-owners among the personnel.) They can run their own legal brothel and invite clients in, but then the clients are lawbreakers? (Sounds like you could set up a brothel at the front door, leading to a police precinct at the back, and build a prison next door.)
So please clarify how this proposal is supposed to work in practice.
In your scheme, what kind of now-free worker legally and freely sells illegal goods, for which the patsy is then arrested because you've judged him morally debased compared to the worker?
Response to redqueen (Reply #11)
as per usual. Nailed this one.
No charge. 
Thank you very much for your thoughtful, intelligent post.
As for your second point, if you want to dishonestly mischaracterize my words, go right ahead.
a "libertarian poop-head" and all kinds of awful, hateful things. Because nothing shows a low character and hate-filled soul than nasty words about how "people should be able to make up their own minds about stuff"
Are you sure you're not just covering up for your inner need to oppress people? You know, with this wacky talk about how they should be able to make their own decisions?
Sort of like how when people say maybe we shouldn't fill our prisons with pot smokers, they're really demanding the right to chop people up and eat them in the middle of times square.
freeeeedumb!!! 
The absolutely magnificent, astoundingly impressive ability you have to consistently, without fail, create entire arguments out of whole cloth that the person you're responding to has never said or made, and then proceed to argue against them, instead of that person's actual, ah, statements. "So what you mean is".. "so what you're saying is" "you're saying this", etc. etc.
"putting words in someone else's mouth" and "straw man arguments" don't even do justice to the pure artistry of your work.
Someone says they think consenting adults should be able to make their own decisions about their own bodies- "as a supporter of slavery and child abuse, how do you..." etc etc.
So there's totally no need for me, actual me, to be involved in the process, here, at all. Which is fine, no prob.
Just keep goin', and every other post start with "Warren Says;".. and roll with it.
Knock yourself out- because after all, you're the only one in the ring.
"wider discussion" that is synonymous with what you said. 
"Putting words in your mouth." I did not put a single word in your mouth. Your misreading of my post ironically gets to the heart of the issue. Why should this be about anything but you?
Response to BainsBane (Reply #105)
said we're a christian nation and prostitution a sin.
Well done sir/madam and congrats.
You won't believe how long I've been waiting to say that!
Nice to see you on the bored once again, Ruby.
