I think you don't know how the justice system operates if you think every charge of rape leads to a conviction. In some jurisdictions prostitution is legal, such as Germany, but, afaik, that has not led to a higher number of johns being sentenced. The idea that legalization would somehow make prostitution seem to me to not be grounded in reality. More it seems like make believe for the customers: "It's not us clients making prostitutes unsafe, it's the damn police!"

Social workers and police can of course make outdoor areas in which prostitutes work safer even if prostitution is not legalized. So that is not an argument in favor of legalization.

I don't think every rape charge leads to conviction, though. Moreover, saying that clients make prostitution unsafe is like saying that drivers make the roads unsafe. What's the point of that?

I didn't present an argument for the legalization of prostitution. In my opinion, there is no need for an argument since it's completely obvious to any normal human being that it is not a crime. Why on earth would selling sex for money be crime? Is it the sex that makes it a crime? What's wrong with sex?

There is a lot of hypocrisy in the discussion of this question, though. People frequently confound other crimes with prostitution that already are crimes and would continue to be crimes after legalization such as human trafficking, rape, coercion, sexual assault, etc.

Besides, it is completely obvious that legalization improves the working conditions of prostitutes. Contrary to what you state, the police cannot make outdoor areas where sex workers work secure if prostitution is illegal, since the police is forced to persecute crimes. They'd have to arrest these sex workers. Consequently, these will conduct their business far away from the police, which is exactly what makes their work particularly insecure when it is illegal. This is just one issue. There are many other reasons why illegal activities are generally less secure than the same activities when they are legal. Illegality attracts all kinds of shady people you can avoid if you are allowed to go legit. That's not even a controversial thesis.

You are using phrases such as "completely obvious", "common-sense", and "not controversial" where they aren't warranted. What is obvious to you may not be obvious to others.

In Europe, laws around prostitution varies a lot. In some countries buying and selling sex is legal, in some only buying sex is illegal, and in others prostitution is completely forbidden. There appears to be no correlation between prostitutes' working conditions and the legality of prostitution. In Germany prostitution is legal, yet a massive number of women are trafficked from Eastern European countries to Germany, ostensibly because they are willing to sell sex cheaper than German women.

Yes, police and social workers can make outdoor areas safer whether or not prostitution is legalized. That's a false dichotomy.

No, these phrases are the right ones and I used them in a very literal sense and deliberately. However, being obvious and not controversial does not imply that there isn't someone who doesn't (want to ) get it. That even happens with mathematical proofs. What annoys me, however, is that you committed the very same fallacy in your reply that I mentioned in the post you replied to - deliberately mixing up highly illegal human trafficking with prostitution in order to somehow argue against the legality of prostitution.

> There appears to be no correlation [...]

Citation needed - but in any case that wasn't the point and you know it. There is no sound argument why people shouldn't sell sex for money, besides religious and other ideological arguments which are not sound (otherwise, why not use them in mathematical proofs, too?). Usually at this point people with ulterior motives shift their rhetoric to arguing that the clients rather than the prostitutes are committing a crime - aka "the Swedish model", where you order a very expensive pizza and it gets delivered by an attractive woman. They then go on to lay out that those clients cause great harm. That's not true either, they cause small harm like in many other stressful customer-oriented jobs such as working as a stewardess. But I'm resting my case here. Suffices to say that going from very high income to zero in a short time is problematic...

> There appears to be no correlation between prostitutes' working conditions and the legality of prostitution. In Germany prostitution is legal, yet a massive number of women are trafficked from Eastern European countries to Germany, ostensibly because they are willing to sell sex cheaper than German women.

The prostitutes country of origin somehow proves that it being legal does make it safer? Where do you take information about this or that country prostitution working conditions from?

> Yes, police and social workers can make outdoor areas safer whether or not prostitution is legalized. That's a false dichotomy.

But that is different topic. The area being safe for general public is not the same thing as prostitutes being protected or able to call cops or able to use those social services.

So if trafficking is illegal why not just crack down harder on trafficking? Your argument is like "online fraud is rampant" let's make purchasing items online illegal because we can't stop the fraud.