Prostitution has been called the world’s oldest profession. While basically everyone and there grandmother knows that prostitution exists, nobody wants to believe prostitution in their own backyard.

People feel very strongly about the subject. So here is my list of the top 10 best reasons why prostitution should be legalized.

Jennifer Hafer, an economics researcher, analyzed the U.S. prostitution market and found that affluent, educating women are entering the prostitution market:

Contrary to assumptions that women enter the prostitution market only because they are desperate – that they need money to pay bills or buy drugs – the study indicates that many women, especially educated, affluent women, are making a rational decision to enter certain segments of the prostitution market. However, the research confirmed that women do not explicitly choose to enter the streetwalking segment of the prostitution market.

The Catholic Church is using sex ed guidelines created by COYOTE to develop their new sexual abuse awareness program for children, called Talking About Touch. They didn't use her name, but called Margo St. James a 'wiccan priestess.'

So, I was on Lamebook (mostly hilarious site; some things that are posted just suck) and I saw this comment someone made and I loved it:

"I don't understand why prostitution is illegal. Selling is legal, fucking is legal. So, why isn't it legal to sell fucking? Why should it be illegal to sell something that's perfectly legal to give away? I can't follow the logic on that. Of all the things you can do to a person, giving them an orgasm is hardly the worst. In the army they give you a medal for spraying napalm on people; in civilian life you go to jail for giving them orgasms. Am I missing something?"

The NY Times article about SeekingArrangements.com, a website that hooks up Sugar Babies with Sugar Mommies and Sugar Daddies, showed up just after I posted my essay “The Business of Sex.” I knew I was going to like the author, Ruth Padawer with the heading: “Heterosexual relationships have long involved economic transactions.” No kidding! She could have added "Homosexual relationships" to the mix.

It brought to mind my original 1972 feminist manifesto titled “Liberating Masturbation” that I turned into Ms. Magazine when I was asked to write an article. The opening sentence stated: “Among the many issues involved in the liberation of women, the two major fronts in my own personal liberation have been economics and sexuality. Ultimately they are not separable – not as long as the female genitals have economic value instead of sexual value for women.” Over the next twenty years, I reworded and rehashed that concept endlessly. It was like I'd been given a Zen koan as I tried to fathom, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" My rational mind knew that personally speaking; I had to earn my own money in order to be sexually independent. Whenever I was financially dependent on a lover or my husband, I was unable to speak the whole truth about my sexual desires or share my sexual thoughts.

Sometimes you just want to pay to have the job done by a pro who knows what he's doing and then he goes away until you call him for the next time.  No hounding, obsessive phone calls, love notes.  Just a good fuck when you're in the mood:

It's not just men who pay prostitutes to sleep with them. For some women, paying for sex is more convenient than cruising bars and clubs trying to find men. "They don't want to be found out. They want to do something private - it's their own world, a part of their life that they want to be secret."

Nicole runs a high-class escort agency in the West Midlands, whose clients include women as well as men. Her male escorts host "in-calls" for female clients at a large country cottage, three quarters of a mile away from the nearest town. The exterior gives no clue as to what goes on inside and instead looks more like a French chalet.

Craigslist, the listings site you pretend to search for furniture and jobs while trying to figure out which of the "casual encounters" posts might actually be for real, has struck an agreement with the attorneys general of 40 states.

The deal requires that anyone who posts an "erotic services" ad provide a phone number and pay a fee using a valid credit card, information that could be provided to law enforcement if the site is subpoenaed.

I wonder how this will affect their traffic numbers?

A grandmother walking to the hospital because she was having an asthma attack was arrested by Brooklyn cops for alleged prostitution. Part of their proof was that she was carrying a condom...guess young women being afraid to carry condoms because everyone will think they're a slut is founded in fact.

Contrary to Officer Sean Spencer's claim in a sworn complaint, she had never before been arrested for prostitution - or anything else, according to her lawyer Richard Cardinale.