why was it criminalized at all eleven years ago?

Looks like they had an unworkable ban that they had to roll back.

It is NOT a "victory" for "sex workers everywhere". A victory for sex workers everywhere will be the day when the 87% of prostitutes who desperately want to stop selling themselves to strange men can LEAVE the so-called "profession". That day will be a victory.

Judy, until you've sold your own body cavities in a dark alley to an ugly violent man, don't tell others what is a victory for prostitutes.

The only victory for the great majority is an opportunity to get out.

Normalization of prostitution in a society does not achieve this. Please stop plugging for it. It might seem enlightened but its really not.

Excellent news. The sex business in Taiwan will now enter into a new era of modernized business processes without fearing reprisal from the government, moralists, conservative women, slut-haters, and churches which will empower the most important people in the business- the worker.

Some people actually don't mind having sex for money. The Blue Noses try to smear everyone with a victim brush but the truth is way broader than that.

marriage.

There isn't much of a difference in reality.

The major difference between the two is that, after marriage, only the relationship sucks.

BTW-Who can actually post PROOF of prostitution being the "oldest profession"?

Such a law makes imminent sense. Legalize it and make them pay taxes like any other enterprise. Prostitutes now pay more to pimps and protection money to corrupt police than they would be paying in taxes and social security. That would also make it easier to control the trade and eliminate child and forced prostitution.

Would also fill many a tax hole. (pun intended!)

The only problem with your thesis, XJS AND ME, is that it makes the erroneous assumption that married people actually have sex.

...and screw their husbands without getting naked. XJS AND ME is right, when you get married, you're marrying a woman who has plans for you--and your money. After a 20+ year marriage to a woman who gradually packed on the pounds and turned down the sex spigot 'till my thirst drove me elswhere, then divorced me and got half of everything (having never held anything but a hobby job in her whole lazy life), she's now got a fat bankroll and the free time to travel. I'm left with the house (and a new mortgage, thankyew, bitch), a kid yet to finish college, and a small business that struggles to make enough money to pay for that college and keep me in the house and putting generic mac 'n cheese on the table.

If I can someday afford a vacation, Taiwan will make my short list of destinations.

The real reason that prostitution isn't legal in more of the U.S. is because women are so dead set against it--'cause they'd have to get honest jobs as hookers, instead of screwing men by marrying 'em.

Bitter? Damnbetcha, bitches.

BTW-Who can actually post PROOF of prostitution being the "oldest profession"?

I can. Female apes trade sex for food with the alpha males. Since our ancestors were apes, it turns out that prostitution is older than money, even older than the human race. In fact, the oldest profession so the cliché is true.

I haven't visited a prostitute ever. Making sex with a whore seems disgusting to me. But I don't think that other people don't have this right, if they want.

With the old-fashioned worldview, it was easy to condemn prostitution ("It is against God, against good customs, against moral rules. Sex is something sacred").

Now it is impossible. Since there are no moral rules, and anyone is entitled to do whatever he/she wants, prostitution is an agreement between two adult individuals. Trying to depict prostitutes as a victims à la Charles Dickens is hillarious. They can have another job wherever they want. They have chosen prostitution freely. A book written by a woman about foreign prostitutes in Europe concluded that most prostitutes are so because they want, so the forced traffick is a minority.

That the other job is less paid than prostitution. Well, I would earn more money if I was a drug dealer. You can't have it all.