A Stitch in Haste

Glenn Greenwald via QandO:

[A]re there actually many people left who care if an adult who isn't their spouse hires prostitutes? Are there really people left who think that doing so should be a crime, that adults who hire other consenting adults for sex should be convicted and go to prison?

My response at QandO:

Actually, the "need" to criminalize prostitution is one of those rare worldviews that unites radical conservatives ("morals," "social fabric," etc.) with radical liberals ("oppression of women," "the powerful exploiting the powerless," etc.).

While the Vast Center-Wing Conspiracy just shrugs it off.

I would add "imagining negative externalities where none exist" to the liberal parenthetical.

Discuss.

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I forgot to save it, but here's a related comment, more or less, that I left somewhere:

Why are prostitution (and pornography) policy debates always framed in terms of "men exploiting women"? There are undeniably cases in both contexts of "women exploiting men," "men exploiting men" and "women exploiting women." Isn't it both sexist and heteronormative to assume, to the extent one assumes that there even is a "problem," that the problem is strictly one of straight men "exploiting" straight women?

Discuss.