CARNAL NATION

I never thought about how it is silly to make something that's legal to give away for free illegal if you are charged for it! Thanks for the new insight!

What kind of guarantee can you offer. If I would sell my heart to someone one how can I back up the warranty? LOL.

Body parts are obviously not analogous in any way to auto parts, but I would argue that compensating the families of post-mortem organ donors would probably increase the rate of donation and save the lives of some of the thousands of people who die every year while on the long waiting list for a life-saving transplant -- not to mention reducing deaths and injuries from the illegal, underground sale of kidneys which apparently goes on in some parts of the world. It wouldn't be a free-for-all, just a highly regulated market.

The sale of body parts by living donors is not a reasonable analogue for the sale of sex, either, as removing an organ inevitably inflicts a permanent injury on the donor, whereas having sex generally does not.

> How do you propose we stop the abuse in the sex industry?

Obviously, the first step would be to legalize it; the fact that prostitutes cannot safely go to the police when they are abused because their work is itself illegal does more than any other single factor to facilitate their abuse.

Times change fast my friend.
I think ten years ago I would still agree with this sentiment you express, but the reality is that these days technology has granted many people of all creeds and professions to expand and grow entrepreneurially.
If you don't know how easy it is to sell or buy sex via the internet in an independent manner (meaning free of pimp or other coercion), than you should realize you are a bit behind the times technologically and read a book like Naked on the Internet by Audacia Ray (http://www.sealpress.com/book.php?isbn=9781580052092)
Again, times change fast, and this site helps us all catch up!

I'm wondering what you are basing your views on? Sounds like maybe you believe that street walkers are the norm, although they are thought to represent only about 4-10% of sex workers. By the way, all the street sex workers I've known have had no problem enforcing safer sex preferences, though I won't argue that it's one of the more dangerous types of sex work. I have a friend who really enjoys street work and chooses it over other types of sex work. It's not necessarily the last choice of desperate people.

In my expensive experience in sex work over the last eight years I have found that Modern Hooker represents a much larger segment than you might think. Her experience is definitely closer to mine than what you describe.

~Ruby

If you're talking globally, you're right; if you're talking about the industrialized, information-economy nations in which the vast majority of readers of this comic reside, my understanding is that you're wrong -- the prevalence of internet-based, independent sex workers like "Modern Hooker" has reduced the market for pimp-controlled streetwalkers and underground brothels in the U.S., Canada, western Europe, and Australia/New Zealand to the point where the independents make up the large majority of sex workers in those countries. If you have data to back up your claims to the contrary, present it.

Ceci n'est pas une pute! (If you don't get the joke, see here.

To all those crying wolf "We can't legalize prostitution, because of....", how about we look at the place where they already did exactly that?

Eg. Nevada and Most of Europe.

What do we see there is a lot less crime, a lot less trouble. Once you legalize things, you can employ quality standards and health inspections. And even charge taxes on income.