Why will you not address my points regarding the hazards of many manual labor jobs?

tina: "I agree with the others who think Glenn's gone way, way overboard with defending one of his weaker arguments to date. It's beginning to look strange. I can understand why some people are starting to think there's something personal behind it. However, I think wounded vanity might suffice as a motivation."

I think Glenn has gone a few steps too far, but I don't want to fight him much more on it. I generally like the guy and 99% of the timeconsider him one of the ethical anchors in Salon's coverage. I don't really care to question Glenn's personal behaviors and only did so when he started getting personal with me. Considering that I used to be a libertarian, I have little trouble understanding where he's coming from.

If all this involved was two consenting adults I would agree with you but it doesn't. Spitzer is married.

What is the arrangement which Mr. and Mrs. Spitzer have with one another regarding their marraige? Since you've anointed yourself the one to protect this arrangement, you're obviously privy to it.

That's a big story. Let us in on the secret.

Has she ever strayed outside the marriage? Do they allow each other to do so? What's their private arrangement? Let us know.

So, when he decides to have sex with prostitutes he is potentially endangering the health( and even life) of an unconsenting adult, his wife.

Here's a good idea. Why don't you let Mrs. Spitzer worry about her husband's obligations to her and keep your nose out of their marriage?

Don't you have your own personal life to worry about without butting into theirs?

"Prostitutes are sexually/physically assaulted in the course of their work on average of once a month."

Prostitution's illegality makes it more likely that prostitutes will get assaulted.

There is nothing inherently dangerous about selling sex. What makes prostitution dangerous is that it is performed in the shadows, because prostitutes fear the law. And when prostitutes are victims of crimes they don't go to the police, again becuase they fear the repercussions.

wow - that was fast!

When a single man pays a prostitute for sex, that's an agreement between two consenting adults, and arguably nobody else's business.

But when a married man (such as Eliot Spitzer) pays a prostitute for sex--presumably without his wife's knowledge--then two of the affected adults have consented, while the third is oblivious and non-consenting.

This is not a case of "ignorange is bliss": depending on the circumstances, the non-consenting spouse might be in for anything from a case of the crabs to a life-threatening STD, not to mention humiliation if the situation should be made public.

Glenn, if you've never been on the receiving end of clandestine marital infidelity, count your blessings. Whether the sex was paid or unpaid, it's a bitch for a blindsided spouse.

weirdly, Prohibition actually worked as far as drunk driving was concerned. Read the literature. Nobody wanted to be caught as a drunk driver and accidents involving alcohol decreased almost to the vanishing point.

It didn't, in the end, turn out to be a good enough argument to keep Prohibition because of the huge cost to society in the form of organized crime.

Prostitution is a billion dollar industry for organized crime, and some may make the legalization argument. However, I would argue for the approach of Sweden--make prostitution legal for the women who are selling but not their buyers. So the women can't be prosecuted, but the johns can, and are. It seems to be working.

It's possible to drink responsibly; it's not possible to treat women like cum rags responsibly. They are two different issues and need to be treated differently. What we need to get rid of is this stupid mentality that prostitution can be good for any woman. Someone over at Cary Tennis' column just posted some of the emails he got from a high class "call girl" friend--her loneliness and fear of falling in love with one of her steady clients, not to mention her expressed wish to "settle down", were palpable. And she is from the "good" class of prostitutes--no pimp, no addictions, works out of her home--all of the prereqs that GG describes. And yet this 20 year old woman is already clearly deeply scarred.

Prostitution isn't a victimless crime. It just isn't. People shouldn't be treated that way. Only if you have no moral compass can you argue that it is just fine.

Yes it is, because those were the precise claims made here in comments that she was not free to which I was responding. High-end "escort services" -- het or gay -- are not bad employment as considered by the many women and men who choose that work.

Last time I glanced at actuarials it was commercial fisherman and waitresses that had the shortest life spans. And then cab drivers. That was some time ago. I'm sure a streetwalker is right up there but that's what is so infuriating here. Legalization and regulation would make their demonstrably lives better. High end escort services are a whole other universe and they are more pampered than the rest of us plebes.

It's interesting how easily we confuse political embarrassment with illegality. Getting caught with a hooker is obviously bad form, politically, for a multitude of embarrassing reasons: he has to pay for sex! he cheated on his wife! he likes some kind of exotic sex that only a hooker can provide! he's a hypocrite! And each observer can embrace his favorite reason, and a guy like you has to try to debunk every one of them while new reasons continuously churn up.

Meanwhile, the actual crime is so minor that any of us in the same situation would naturally expect to be able to contain the damage to our lives.

Why do sex scandals occur time and again to people who should know better? Because we all expect our private lives to remain private, as long as we don't hurt anyone. Everyone who has ever been found out in an office affair has experienced the same outrage that all those gossipy coworkers would care about their business. Our splendid news media enable us to be anyone's gossipy coworkers -- the New York governor's, the president's, Senator McCain's, or PeeWee Herman's.