Civil disagreements with Lynne Varner and Bruce Ramsey of the Seattle Times editorial board is a weekly feature of the Ed Cetera blog. Bruce tending more conservative and Lynne more liberal—but here, on the issue of prostitution, they switch sides.

Bruce Ramsey: Well, Lynne, I see that Seattle has imposed a $150 “fee” on the crime of patronizing a prostitute in addition to the penalties already in the law, in order to pay for mandatory classes. (Imagine such classes!) At the same time the city cracks down in this nannyistic way, it does nothing to two free weekly papers, The Stranger and the Seattle Weekly, that for years have had several pages of what appear to be graphic ads for illegal acts. Craigslist also has sex ads, though with the disclaimer that it does not “condone illegal activity.”

I’ll take the devil’s position here: I think prostitution should be allowed for adults over 21. Sex between consenting adults should generally be none of the government’s business. If the sex is otherwise lawful, why should an exchange of money make it a crime? We may disapprove, but if done discreetly and in private, it need not be a public concern.

The greatest beneficiaries of legalized prostitution would be the prostitutes themselves. They would be hassled less, and exploited less. They would have police protection. Their agencies, if they had such, would have an aboveboard address, a web page, and could be regulated, served with a summons and held accountable in court. People in this business could speak openly, and we could hear what they have to say.

Our city attorney says he wants to enforce the anti-prostitution law in order to protect women. I don’t think prohibition protects women. People are easier to exploit when they are in an illegal line of work. When people can stand and speak for themselves, they have protection.

I am not arguing here for turning the city into a wide-open town. What exists now, judging from the ads, is an illegal-but-tolerated outcall and incall service, run through ads in the weekly papers and online. That could be legalized, and no more. See if any problems develop. If you allow bordellos, you face the issue of where to put them, and that is a whole other issue that can be saved for later.

Lynne Varner: Bruce, this is an easy one. Our society would dissolve faster than a sugar cube in water if we turned a blind eye to the plight of men and women who sell their bodies. Prostitution is as much a community blight as crack dealers on corners.

Talk to the judges, lawyers and cops that deal with prostitutes and they will tell you that few prostitutes want to be out there, illegal or not. Most feel they don't have other options. Many are addicted to drugs, were sexually abused or by some other experience coerced into turning their body into a commodity.

It is not as though prostitution is on the rise and the option of legalizing offers some sort of government revenue source. Seattle sees about 100 cases a year of people patronizing prostitutes, a level that has remained constant over 10 years.

But to get to the heart of your point Bruce, how would legalization work? Would police demand to see I.D. cards and do interviews to ensure a prostitute is a 20-year-old happy with her choice and not a 14-year-old forced into this line of work. How would police make the distinction between legal prostitution and victims of international sex trafficing rings? A worrisome concern is whether the distinction would make a difference once prostitution was legalized.

I'm surprised that on this subject I'm not as liberal as I thought I was. People like to think of themselves as progressives when talking about legalizing prostitution, even calling it the world's oldest profession as though it is akin to medicine or law. I suspect one's liberalness stops at one's front door. No one would be in favor of their child or a sibling being a prostitute. But a neighbor's child brings out the c'est la vie tendacies in some of us.

What none of us ought to forget is that prostitution is rarely voluntary in the truest sense of the word.

Keep it illegal. Enforce the law. Provide medical treatment and counseling for prostitutes and make it a condition of staying out of jail. Make it expensive for people to pay for sex.

Let's draw a line in society and pledge not to cross it even when we think we have bigger criminal fish to fry. You're right Bruce, prohibition didn't work for alcohol. But in legalizing drinking, our society created a workable balance between treatment for alcoholics and punishment for the harm drunkeness causes. We haven't found this balance with prostitution.

Bruce Ramsey: To answer your questions:

Would police demand to see I.D. cards of a prostitute they suspected was underage? Yes.

How would police determine if someone were a victim of an international trafficking ring? The same as they determine that now for a prostitute or an enslaved garment worker (another example example of illegals being subject to exploitation).

Would anyone care about trafficking and slavery? Yes. More so, if there were a lawful industry with a right to defend itself.

Would I like to come across a prostitute and her client in, say, a public park? No. I am not suggesting changing the indecency laws, nor condoning streetwalking. Essentially what I'm suggesting is that the "escort" services that already exist, and that most people never see, be legalized and regularized. Most people would still never see them.

Lynne Varner: It sounds so decent and sanitary the way you describe these "escort" services. There will always be such businesses, just as I'm sure you can find opium dens in various parts of the world, but their existence doesn't mean society ought to condone it. We're better than that. Everyone of us, even the ones we'd condemn to prostitution by legalizing it.