While prostitution is legal in some places – often with salutory effects on the prostitutes themselves – in general it is not going to expand in legality unless we take care of the problem cases – not because it shouldn’t legalized (and I think it should be) but because the voting public won’t allow it to be.

Re: informed consent, that may be so. However, one must adopt some sort of benevolent omniscient perspective in order to determine whether another is capable of granting that consent. I'd prefer to just ask them, rather than presuming.

Prostitution already is legal in any number of jurisdictions on this watery rock of ours. This observation alone reduces the last statement to a non sequitur, though I do see where you're coming from.

I agree completely with the thesis of this post. However, i want to make a minor point of contention.

“What’s the difference between a simple date that ends in a sexual encounter, and one in which some money or other form of compensation changes hands?”

One is a gift, the other; exchange. This is the difference. Even if there is no state there is a difference. Even though many here don’t want to see it, turning yourself and/or others into a commodity (whether through sex, labor, or anything else) is a reduction, rather than expansion.

I just hope that absent the state, most people will realize that the “security” or assuredness that comes with exchange was only necessary under the thievery of the state. (and other such institutions)

Prostitution can never be legal until we all understand that no consent = rape.

I fail to see how someone's mental state (i.e. "addiction") ought to enter into any kind of "justice" calculation regarding the sex trade.

And most "addicts" rescue themselves, anyway.

Two things need to happen to stop such government hijinks. The first is to legalize prostitution at large between consenting adults who are free agents (from both human trafficking and addiction). The second is to make sure that children, addicts and sex slaves (often all three) are rescued and given succor and treatment regardless of the legality of prostitution – even if they do not immediately consent to this.

Until the latter occurs, don’t expect the former anytime soon.

When people see this inaccurate reference over and over it creates a negative image of the website in the minds of the uninformed, which of course, is exactly what the mainstream media, particularly newspapers, hope to achieve. Craigslist is responsible for the loss of millions of dollars of classified advertising by these news organs. This is their revenge.