Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business by Ronald Weitzer

Preface
     
    In recent years, America has witnessed major trends in the normalization of some types of vice or previously stigmatized behavior. Marijuana has been decriminalized in some places; gay rights are increasingly protected by the law; casino gambling and state-sponsored lotteries have become quite popular; and pornography, strip clubs, and other sexual entertainment have proliferated. Prostitution is a glaring exception to these trends, not only in the United States but in many other countries as well. The very notion of legal prostitution is alarming to many people; they simply cannot fathom it.
     
    Yet in some nations, prostitution has been decriminalized and is regulated by the government. People who live outside these countries know very little about legal prostitution—what is permitted, how it is regulated, and what the effects of legalization are on those involved. Likewise, many Americans are unaware that prostitution is legal and regulated by local authorities in a number of counties in Nevada and that this legal order has existed for four decades, beginning in 1971. Americans might also be surprised to learn that, until recently, Rhode Island had no prostitution law on the books. The state controlled street prostitution with a loitering law, but indoor prostitution was not an offense and was freely carried out in the state’s many massage parlors and by escorts who worked either independently or for an agency. This situation ended in 2009 when the legislature voted to criminalize those who buy and sell sex as well as landlords who allow prostitution on their premises.
    The Rhode Island and Nevada cases show that decriminalized prostitution is not a totally foreign idea in modern America. But there are several other countries where prostitution has been legalized as well, and I think that we can learn much from their experiences.
Legalizing Prostitution
sheds light on these systems, with a special focus on three cases—Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. The book is intended to help readers think outside the box, to consider alternatives that may be superior to the criminalization approach that reigns almost everywhere in the UnitedStates and in many other nations as well. After describing key dimensions of prostitution, contrasting alternative theoretical perspectives, and considering a variety of policy issues in chapters 1 – 4 , the book presents my research on the red-light landscapes in three cities: Antwerp, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam.
    Amsterdam hosts one of the most famous red-light districts in the world, so it is an obvious choice for investigating legal prostitution. But several other cities—including Bangkok, Brussels, Hamburg, The Hague, Singapore, Tokyo—also have well-established and officially tolerated red-light districts featuring a variety of sex businesses and attracting large numbers of customers. The three cities that I studied were selected because they share some basic features as well as differing in some intriguing respects. Antwerp, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam are major northern European cities hosting at least one geographically distinct red-light district that has existed for decades. The national contexts differ somewhat in their legal regimes—certain types of prostitution are de facto legal in parts of Belgium, whereas they are de jure legal in Germany and the Netherlands. They are regulated by the government in all three places, but the regulations differ across the settings. In addition, each city’s sexual geography differs in at least some respects from that of other cities. Each red-light district can be distinguished by its social organization—including the constellation of businesses (sex related and other) in the area, the district’s appearance and ambience, the location and visibility of sex workers, and the kinds of people who visit or work in the area. Each city also differs in the kinds of sex businesses that are located
outside
the parameters of the