When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. P. J. O'Rourke
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Going back a century, Alexandra Kollontai, ( the only woman member of the Bolshevik central committee) wrote some interesting things about the buying and selling aspect of prostitution. She was completely opposed to prostitution. She thought it was "an evil. " And she thought punting has a corrupting effect (I don't agree with this summary myself): "A man who buys the favours of a woman does not see her as a comrade or a person with equal rights... The contempt he has for the prostitute, whose favours he has bought, affects his attitude to all women. "
But she *didn't* think working as a pro, or being a punter, should be criminalised:
"Can the presence or otherwise of material bargaining be used as a criterion in determining what is and what is not a criminal offence? Can we really persuade a couple to admit whether or not there is an element of calculation in their relationship? Would such a law be workable, particularly in view of the fact that at the present time a great variety of relationships are practised among working people and ideas on sexual morality are in constant flux? Where does prostitution end and the marriage of convenience begin? The interdepartmental commission opposed the suggestion that prostitutes be punished for prostituting, i. e. for buying and selling.
...The next problem that had to be tackled was whether or not the law should punish the prostitute's clients. There were some on the commission who were in favour of this, but they had to give up on the idea, which did not follow on logically from our basic premises. How is a client to be defined? Is he someone who buys a woman's favours? In that case the huabands of many legal wives will be guilty. Who is to decide who is a client and who is not? " -Alexandra Kollontai, "Prostitution and ways of fighting it"(Speech to the third all-Russian conference of heads of the Regional Women's Departments, 1921) in Alexandra Kollontai;Selected Writings,ed. Alix Holt.