The sale of sex is not inherently impermissible

The argument

When prostitution is a transaction between two consenting adults, this argument holds, there is no reason it should be treated separately from any other contract or service. The default in a liberal legal order is that adults may agree to exchange work for money, so the burden falls on those who would carve out an exception — and the exception, on this reading, has never been justified on its own terms. The usual justification appeals to the interests of the people selling. But there is an assumption that women who are in sex work always want to escape it, when this is not the case: many sex workers prefer prostitution over the alternatives, which often offer much less money and flexibility without necessarily being less exploitative. The comparison is the point. If the available alternatives are themselves exploitative and pay less, then removing this option does not rescue anyone; it moves them somewhere worse while claiming to act on their behalf. What remains, proponents argue, is a moral intuition rather than a harm. The idea that sex should not be for sale is tied to traditional ideas about when sex is and is not permissible — ideas about premarital sex, for instance — and about the purity of women. Framed that way, the prohibition is enforcing a particular sexual morality rather than protecting anyone from injury. The remaining objection is that prostitution is not like other jobs, since no qualifications are needed and it is not considered aspirational. The same could be said of many other professions considered menial, such as cleaning, fruit picking or waste disposal, none of which are outlawed on that basis. A profession being considered unskilled or undesirable does not mean it should be illegal — which is why the sale of sex is not inherently impermissible, and why decriminalisation follows.

Context

- The Body is separate from the Self. - Sex is not in itself a sacred act.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Prostitution actually reflects old morals - ones in which women are owned by men. It is not moralistic to be against the oppression of women, and prostitution plays directly into systems of inequality. The sale of sex directly opposes the changes that feminists are attempting to make elsewhere by making sexuality of women a product offered ‘for sale’.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The sale of sex fundamentally differs from other industries, as it rests on the inequality of women.