There are circumstances when prostitution can be right. Many prostitutes do more
good than many people in authority and certainly more than the clergy. It is
wrong to pick a woman off the street and then have sex with her for money and
then forget about her. It is certainly wrong to be with a prostitute who feels
she has no choice but to sell her body.
Prostitution should be legalised so that the health of prostitutes can be carefully monitored and to get prostitutes off the streets and out of potentially dangerous situations. In prostitution and in everything, regulation is always an alternative to prohibition.
The Christian Church following the Bible has consistently demanded that the state make criminals of prostitutes. It does not matter to the Church how many women get AIDS or murdered because of the secrecy this results in. All that matters to the Church is persecuting the women who choose to be prostitutes. This is difficult to reconcile with the respect they say we should have for God’s gift of human life.
Prostitutes are persecuted by society and the law and the Church though Christian marriage is a husband being the wife’s gigolo and the wife her husband’s call girl. The Bible teaches that the man is the head of his wife and her master and he must be breadwinner.
People can’t see how terrible traditional marriage is because it is not that obvious that the husband pays the wife for sex. The whole point about prostitutes having sex for money is so that they can live by the money. It is not the sex they really want. The traditional wife has sex with her husband to keep the marriage together so that he will keep providing. A wife who does not get money off her husband but other benefits is still being prostituted by him.
Porn stars are prostitutes for they have money for having sex on film. They might go about a different way from getting the money than a street prostitute would but there is no essential difference. Yet porn stars are not treated as people doing anything illegal or that should be illegal by the state or the Church.
It is strange that the Church does not see a woman having sex for pleasure to be as big of a sin as a woman having sex for money. Surely it would be better to have sex for money because the enjoyment can last longer and the money might even be donated to charity. Is there a double-standard here? Prostitutes are persecuted by society usually by going to jail or being heavily fined. They have sex for money. So do porn-stars and they have no penalties to face for selling sex. A porn star is in all essentials the same as a prostitute.
Society takes the view, "People have the right to decide to engage in prostitution. It does not follow that they have the right to be prostitutes." This confuses a freedom with a right. You have the freedom to decide but that does not mean your choice to be a prostitute has to be respected or tolerated.
Prostitution needs to be regulated for the protection of prostitutes. This is not a perfect answer to the problem. Making it illegal only creates worse problems.
WORKS CONSULTED
A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Catholic Truth Society, Westminster, 1985
A Teenager’s Answer to “Shall I Go to the Prom?” Sherry Burgess, Guardian of
Truth Publications, Kentucky
A Work of the Flesh: Sexualism, Weldon E Warnock, Guardian of Truth
Publications, Kentucky
Believing in God, PJ McGrath, Wolfhound Press, Dublin, 1995
Biblical Dictionary and Concordance of the New American Bible, Confraternity of
Christian Doctrine, Washington DC, 1971
Contraception and Chastity, Elizabeth Anscombe, Catholic Truth Society, London
Contraception, John T Noonan, Jr., A Mentor-Omega Book, New American Library,
New York, 1965
Courtship and the Dangers of Petting, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord,
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1943
Divorce, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1946
God Is Not Great, The Case Against Religion, Christopher Hitchens, Atlantic
Books, London, 2007
Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, Uta Ranke Heinmann, Penguin, London, 1991
Moral Questions, Bishops Conference, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1971
New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Catholic University of America and the
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
Pornography – A Psychiatrist’s Verdict, Melvin Anchell MD, Liguori Publications,
Missouri
Preparing for a Mixed Marriage, Irish Episcopal Conference, Veritas, Dublin,
1984
Rediscovering Gay History, John Boswell, Gay Christian Movement, UK, 1982
Rome has Spoken, A Guide to Forgotten Papal Statements and How They Have Changed
Through the Centuries, Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben (Editors), Crossroad
Publishing, New York, 1998
Scattered Vows, Exodus From the Priesthood, David Rice, Blackstaff Press,
Belfast, 1990
Sex & Marriage A Catholic Perspective, John M Hamrogue C SS R, Liguori,
Illinois, 1987
Shall We Dance? Dick Blackford, Guardian of Truth Publications, Kentucky
Son of Joseph, The Parentage of Jesus, Geoffrey Parrinder, T&T Clark, Edinburgh,
1992
The Emancipation of a Freethinker, Herbert Ellsworth Cory, The Bruce Publishing
Company, Milwaukee, 1947
“The Lord Hateth Putting Away!” and Reflections on Marriage and Divorce The
Committee of the Christadelphian, Birmingham, 1985
The Pope and Contraception, Brenda Maddox, Counterblasts 18, Chatto & Windus,
London 1991
Vicars of Christ, Peter de Rosa, Corgi, London, 1993
The WWW
How to Fight the Religious Right, Brian Elroy McKinley
http://elroy.net/ehr/fighttheright.html
BIBLE VERSION USED
The Amplified Bible