on legalizing prostitution

I'm still confused by the two sides of the argument about the rape question. I have understood that rape is punished FAR in excess of battery or aggravated battery because of the special place we have for the rights of a woman and her chastity.

Now, if a woman is on record as simply offering her body for money, any idea of a special protection for sex goes out the window, and posters in this thread readily admit that selling sex is not morally different from selling hamburgers.

But in the same scheme, why should we keep the heightened protections for rape when the transaction falls apart? If sex is not special and a woman has regularly consented to vaginal penetration for money by strangers, why when one particular stranger's transaction falls apart should the prostitute be protected by a law designed to protect the Virgin Mary?

I don't see how it can be both ways. Either prostitution should be illegal (or at least considered legal but with a stigma attached) and rape laws enforced or prostitution should be treated like selling anything else with a violation of the terms of that contract treated like everything else.

If I don't pay my water bill, I don't get 25 to life in prison..

[[Your last point would indicate that rape is treated as a lesser crime when the victim is a 'slut' than when she married her high school sweet hart. Is this the case in the US? Are damages/prison terms determined by the sexual past of the victim?]]

Any other crime is treated this way. Some are even codified into law. In Florida, a battery against a person over age 65 is punished more severely than a battery against someone younger.

I think were it not for the politicization of the issue, we could all agree that a prostitute would feel less damage from a rape than would a nun. We can't say that in polite society, though, so we pretend its all the same.