Prostitution... It's All About the Timing

Prostitution should be legalized. Why? Because in most situations, it's already legal... it's just overlooked. (I'll leave others to debate the moral consequences and the subjugation of women issue, which are perfectly valid points. Personally, I think prostitution is a tad creepy for the same reason I find selling one's organs creepy: it's just horrible to think that this is the only way some people think they can make a living.) For my purposes, though, I think a good argument for legalization can be made just for the sake of consistency in the law. Let's be honest about what makes a prostitute a prostitute: it's when you hand over the dough.

If you pick up a hooker on the street, take her back to a hotel, bang her, and give her a few benjamins, she is a prostitute. If you pick her up in a strip club while she's working, take her out to dinner, buy her jewelry, bang her, and marry her, she is Anna Nicole Smith. (Note that just because you're married doesn't mean you're not still a hooker.)

Gay men are no different. If you're a hot, young 20-something and your boyfriend is much older, wealthier, and saggy, spare me the crap about liking older men because they're "mature." Watch the elder's stock options evaporate and see how long Junior sticks around. Junior, you're a prostitute.

So the next time you see the brightly painted women or "women" on Halsted in Chicago or Jarvis in Toronto or wherever hos may be found, before you cast a stone, remember this: just because your "payment" comes in the form of a BMW or a Tiffany's diamond band or even five free drinks at the bar, if you wouldn't have hooked up with the guy without that extra sumthin sumthin, you're doing it for the money. In short, you're a ho.