Perhaps I should clarify: I don't think consensual prostitution should be illegal, simply because I don't believe it is the government's job to enforce morality. But that is a far different thing from believing that we need to change our attitudes towards sex to the point that prostitution becomes just as acceptable as working at Starbucks.

I still don't see how you can say that hypersexualized marketing to kids is a bad thing, while proclaiming that we need to get rid of all our Victorian hangups about sex. If your issue is with the hypocrisy of our culture, then I fully agree.

I don't believe that someone like Ashley Dupre should be demonized, but nor should we overflow with praise about how she is a 'liberated' woman. The proper way to look at a prostitute or 'escort' is as a victim, whether of direct coercion, of her own upbringing and psychology, or depraved capitalist culture in general. Though in this case I don't find her particularly sympathetic. I'm from NJ and the local papers here have interviewed her family members - the picture that emerges is that of a spoiled and materialistic brat who had a comfortable middle-class upbringing but wanted more money to spend at the mall. Typical Jersey trash - dyed hair, tramp stamp on her back, and she was on Girls Gone Wild a year before this whole thing happened.

The talk of her "making her own decisions" and how it's "none of our business" strikes me as inane. The fact that someone is "making their own decisions" doesn't automatically make those decisions praiseworthy. As for whether it is our business, I have already said the government should stay out of it, but we're here talking about it, aren't we? Every society has a whole range of attitudes and beliefs about private behaviors. No one's talking about stoning her in public, but given that her story has been presented to us, we have a right to disapprove.