I think prostitution should become a legitimized profession, making it illegal has never worked and does nothing more than to oppress and corrupt all those involved with it.
I personally wouldn't employ a woman to help me satisfy my sexual needs, because I want more than just that from a woman.
But I have no issue with a person working in the adult industry as long as they are there because they wish to be there, that they enjoy the work that they are doing and that they are not wasting their hard earned money on drugs and alcohol.
For a lot of us, sex and intimacy are denied to us, so paying for it, is the only way for a lot of us, to have those needs met.

Who knows if I've already commented, but as a previous part time judge in Scottsdale, Arizona, a city where I can beat you within an inch of your life and get probation but it's a mandatory 15 days in jail for prostitution (and you can carry a gun on your hip), such a ludicrous dichotomy shows the need for at least some recognition of the "oldest profession" if not legalizing this action between two consenting adults. For every man and woman cheating on their spouses, the is a woman and a man helping them. The "conservatives" against prostitution legalized two of the three vices from the old west: Guns and alcohol, but not prostitution. I wonder how many deaths are directly attributable to guns and alcohol vs. prostitution?

Should prostitution be illegal? Thats a hard question are you talking about a pimp. Where he pimps out women or men for . And thus taking most of the made? Or a woman or man that just has for a few extra dollars or food but is not owned by a pimp? If its just a woman or man doing it themselves it should be ok so long has they are checked out every week or so.

But for those against it you can't regulate morals. So why not look at why a person does it? And fix the problem. Off the top of my head I would be willing to bet its due to issues.

I voted other b/c I don't think the government has a right to stick their nose into a relationship between two people, be they a woman and her john, an inter-racial married couple, a hetro-couple, gay couple, etc. IMHO saying the government should legalize it is implying they have a right to dictate it in the first place.

I don't think it's a good practice, but it's safer if it's legal. I vote make it legal

It's the world's oldest profession...in some cases it's the only asset a woman (or man) has to survive.

I usepros occasionally, it harms no one and makes me happy.

Unfortunately until we get the religiously comtrolled lawmakers out of office it is unlikely to be legalized as the norm.

You state: "Prostitution prohibition is a result of a paranoid society sexually repressed by irrational religious beliefs." It certainly isn't something with which I'd disagree. Lots more relating to this 'oldest profession' is attributable to irrationality of androcentric religions. We should be more generous with credit for roles they play in the phenomenon of prostitution and moreover, the very structuring and oversight of societies as a whole.

Attempts to prohibit are necessarily secondary. Religions block and harness primary sexual drives via indoctrination at the earliest possible stages. Far reaching, cumulative consequences of thwarting otherwise self-regulating human sexuality development has at best distorted and at worst crippled populations of 'modern societies. Actually, distortions effected are the goal of indoctrination as a means of supporting irrationally based mores built-in to the social framework by theological overseers. We call it being normal...

Those afflicted by the process with crippling damage are considered abnormal, degenerate, perverted or even criminal. Toxins were too much for them to absorb and meatabolize. They couldn't survive and fell short. These non-survivors; ostracized pariahs stand convicted of the very crimes that caused their injuries. Among them one often finds prostitutes.

Prohibition is but a partial result of such ills. It's an attempted secondary block on an 'end run'. Many might ask why end run? I looks rather direct. After all men and sometimes women have to find an 'outlet' don't they? What's wrong with that? We are products of advanced, 'modern society' aren't we?

We correctly recognize naturalness of sexual drives instinctively; by common and professional consensus and simple reasoning. We draw the conclusions, however, from a shared 'secondary platform' upon which rests our entire social and historical frame of reference. We're afforded only a partial view:having left primary, ground level long ago. Note, it probably accounts for why we call it 'primitive'.

From a primitive cultural perspective, appetites and behaviors considered 'givens' or normal on our secondary, irrational, Patrist dominated platform would be CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT.  From up here, only prohibition appears clearly connected to irrationality of religions.  Religion is also the causal source of secondary (substitutional) cravings; for blocked primary drives seeking secondary outlet via artificial means.  

Religion also, unintentionally, creates the market. Absence of market would also mean absence of product. This is but one example of how Patriarchally dominated religions create the very 'evils' they claim to oppose. Religion is the most prodigious manufacturer of human misery on the planet; with a long 6,000 year history of spawning such ills as usurpation of the natural role of women as society's leaders; degrading females to a status ranging from property to socially (religiously) subordinate; 'virgin' worship, child abuse, genital mutilation, cranial deformation, foot binding, dehumanization, war, conquest and genocide.

What we call social probems, legalized or not, are often only what can be seen at the top of a planetary pot that is about to boil over.

My question is should it be?

It's not right to treat prositution as something different than what it really is, and I think any moral authority would be able to tell what it actually is, both in reality, and in terms.

Plus, if we made it illegal, we'd be throwing 25% of female culture in the trash. Is banning such a thing the right thing to do?

no

the people shall have what they wish