This is actually a very confusing and difficult issue on which I tend to default to leaving things as they are because the current system of having prostitution illegal mostly works for the vast majority of people. What is the real pressing need for reform to the system?
I could see the case for legalizing highly-regulated indoor prostitution (brothels) like some parts of Nevada have, even though I don't really see a pressing need for a change in the laws at present. Most people talking about the issue in this thread, though, don't bother to make the indoor/outdoor distinction and it leads me to suspect that some of the pro people are talking about legalizing streetwalking, which I am most definitely opposed to.
That's...basically the same argument the Republicans used on health care.
A sort of Moderate Heroish but in place in much of the world including most western countries system is that simply buying or selling sexual services is not illegal
per se, but that most activities associated with it, including things like keeping brothels and streetwalking is, which thus allows the negative effects to be targeted without having some awkward laws that make something perfectly legal only until money is involved or criminalization of activity consisting only of consenting adults. I'd prefer some type of more regulated framework personally though, but this at least gets past the main issue I have of setting a fairly arbitrary criteria that something is perfectly legal unless any money is involved in which case it's not.
Of course in the Internet era this basically is the de facto state of it now as Torie stated, although I'll point out that as unenforceable as prostitution laws are when the Internet exists, they weren't particularly all that enforceable prior.
It's also rarely stated, but I think important to note, that many US cities have actually moved to a sort of "under the table" form of regulation, for example I read that the city of San Antonio requires anyone advertising services as an "escort" to get a license, which requires checks such as confirmation of citizenship and
STD testing, and agreeing not to target licensed escorts in prostitution stings, thus resulting in legal and regulated prostitution in all but name. Minneapolis has zoning laws which prohibit "massage parlors" in certain areas and allowing them in some specially zoned areas only for "sexually oriented businesses" while specifically carving out an exception for "therapeutic massage businesses", an essential admission of what happens in the zoned massage parlors but working to keep them out of certain areas regardless. Why I think this is important is because it's basically admission by those cities that full criminalization hardly eliminates the business, and results in lack of regulation which makes it more harmful.
