The Benefits of Making Prostitution Legal

Sex work includes prostitution, pornography workers, and stripping. These jobs can be very controversial. They may be the way of life for a person and a means of sustaining the life they live. This can be by using the money to put food in their stomachs as well as their family or to provide for their children or even to find some type of education so that they can better their life. Sex work has many benefits as well as downfalls to it. The question comes down to should sex work be more acceptable? Or is it in a sex workers best interest that the government, as well as society as a whole, have a say to ultimately, in the end, be able to determine if sex work is morally wrong or if it should be socially acceptable?

According to Should prostitution be legal? it speaks on the morality of prostitution. It states “Perhaps you think sex work is an immoral lifestyle. However, it is arguably no less moral than a lifestyle of random 'hooking up,' or the stereotypical lifestyle of the professional athlete or rock star who brags about how many women he has had sex with…”. Seeing the morality of it this way we can come then try to see sex work as a way in which a person is to make a living, or tend to their families or even try to get funds to go to college. Another benefit to sex work according to Sex Industry benefits society is that it allows a person to become more comfortable with them self. It states “Further, some report that working in the sex industry helped them become more comfortable with and develop a greater liking for their bodies. This improved self-esteem led them to take better care of themselves and feel more confident. And they continued doing so after leaving the sex industry and moving on to other work.” This is something that everyone should have and being able to obtain this through sex work is actually a great thing.

Although sex work may pose some benefits it also has a dangerous aspect to it. According to The Impact of Sex Work on Women’s Personal Romantic Relationships and the Mental Separation of Their Work and Personal Lives: A Mixed-Methods Study “Most women (78%) reported that, overall, sex work affected their personal romantic relationships in predominantly negative ways, mainly relating to issues stemming from lying, trust, guilt and jealousy. Many women used mental separation as a coping mechanism to manage the tensions between sex work and their personal relationships.” This is a negative impact because it makes a person feel negatively. Along with the fact that sex work hindering the relationships that they have with others it can become a lot more personal and can increase the likeliness of them experiencing sexual violence. According to 17 Facts About Sexual Violence and Sex Work “ Globally, sex workers have a 45 to 75% chance of experiencing sexual violence at some point in their careers and a 32 to 55% chance of experiencing sexual violence in a given year.” With the possibility of relationship problems and sexual violence there is also an issue with the possibility of obtaining a sexually transmitted diseases. Being that people who work as prostitutes they may not always take the means necessary to keep them safe from HIV or aids.

I feel as though sex work is a very complicated subject that needs to be evaluated from all sides. In the view that a person is doing this type of work for the betterment of themselves or to provide for their family and to get an education, I feel it should be allowed and that no one should have a say in what they are doing, ultimately because it is a decision that they have made. At the end of the day it is their body and they are making the conscious decision to do it. Yet when I look at the downside to this and the possibility of spreading diseases I feel there should be more acceptance into sex work so that it can be regulated. If a prostitute did not have to hide they would probably be more open to finding protection, due to the fact that when they were to go to the store and buy it, looking the way they do, or dressed in such a way another person could tell they worked in sex work. According to Prostitution: The pros and cons of Decriminalization it states “Rights groups argue that criminalising prostitution means that sex workers are less likely to contact the police to report abuse. The laws in the UK also takes sex workers' right to work together. If sex workers are allowed to work together in one building, they will be safer, says IUSW.” When it comes to taking a side on this topic, I would be on the pro side. There are just so many arguments that could be made to support it.