Prostitution being legal has a big grey area... Like will they be able to try to find customers anywhere now? What about public display of indecency? Can they look for customers where children will be? I think the worst might be teenage boys who might consider it for experience or cutting to the chase. Particularly the ones who think they have no hope in getting a girlfriend.
Guess regulation works, but the moment you announce its legal, you'll have riots from people against it. (unless i'm overestimately the amount of people against it)
You have to understand that prostitution has been legal before. It's also legal in Nevada (there is some upper-limit on population, so it's illegal in Las Vegas, but legal in some other cities), and yet there are no riots or commotion. And prostitution there is considerably better
because it is regulated. I'm going to avoid any moral issues because it often falls down to whether you hold certain libertarian beliefs. Instead, let's agree to the following: prostitution will happen, whether it's legal or not.
Once we've agreed to that, it seems the best course of action is to regulate it. Regulation increases revenue for the state and increases safety for both the consumers and suppliers of prostitution.
There are some great analogies to be made regarding the legality of drugs, but I won't touch on them just now. An important point to realize is that the only people who benefit from prostitution being illegal are, essentially, the pimps. If prostitution is legal and someone refuses to pay a prostitute after having sex, the prostitute doesn't
need to call a pimp who threatens both the safety of the prostitute and the safety of the customer. The prostitute can just call the police! But, when you make this service illegal, you can't resort to legal channels to acquire justice.
Sol Diviner, the actual legal distinction is that, in pornography, the actors are being paid to perform with other actors. With prostitution, the customer is paying the prostitute for sex. The distinction is stupid, in my opinion, but that is the way the law sees it.
In my opinion, a much better common-sense justification for the legality of prostitution (especially since there are some who would seek to make pornography illegal) is to note the following: a person can give away sex for free, and there are no legal ramifications for it. But once that person charges for it, it suddenly is illegal. So, I ask, what sense does it make to not allow someone to sell what they can legally give away for free?
Edit: I also urge people to avoid demonizing the profession. You can have personal qualms with prostitution, but it's important to keep them personal. Not everyone shares these views. I personally have a hard time thinking less of a man over sixty years old who, having lost his wife, "resorts" to prostitution to acquire some intimacy.