I'm for the decriminalization of prostitution as defined by the working girl and political activist Dolores French. You should be able to find that definition in her autobiography, which is what I read years ago, Working: My Life as a Prostitute.
I'm stating that upfront because I've had more than one internet discussion where the words decriminalization and legalization were used differently than what I understood them to mean from reading her biography.
My recollection is that she basically wanted no laws against prostitution. She felt that legalization would be worse than what we have currently because it involves a lot of bureaucratic BS where the working girls get tested, tightly controlled and so forth worse than what typically happens currently in our system that actively aids and abets human traffickers because a woman who is the trafficked slave of a pimp cannot seek assistance from the police without admitting SHE is breaking the law.
Currently, prostitutes are typically forced into The Life and they may be arrested for doing something against their will but the pimps are seldom arrested.
This is a serious women's rights issue.
We currently essentially expect all women to primarily earn a living on their back and whether they are "respectable" women who married well or prostitutes, they have few rights and legal protections.
Plus good women are expected to do "women's work" for everyone "because we care" while no one cares about us. It's an expectation of slavery though I imagine stating that will not get this piece taken seriously.
If you fall in love and have a good marriage, coolios. Sometimes that works well -- at least until he dies, most likely before her, typically plunging her into relative poverty no matter how comfortably well off they were while he was alive, though certainly the occasional billionaire does fine after the funeral.
But for most women it doesn't work well and our collective cultural expectations mean that women are expected to support male careers "because we care" and WHEN the relationship ends, he keeps the gold mine of his well paid career and she gets the shaft.
It's common for single mothers to go into some variation of sex work, whether prostitution or stripping, because it pays better than the housework and other "women's work" related jobs that respectable women can readily qualify for and they need an income adequate to support their children, which is not what cleaning floors typically gets you.
We expect women to actively harm their earnings capacity out of love of their children and husbands, do not require their children and husbands to make that worth their while and then men bitch and moan about having to pay child support. We've largely done away with alimony so if you didn't have kids, you may get little or nothing in the divorce or when your common law ("shacked up") marriage ends without having to run it past the legal system at all.
So the fact that we have so many hangups about sex and hold women to some ridiculous standard of virtue who marry for love and have no interest in sex etc is a big problem.
I write about that using the expression heteronormative culture in various places, such as here on this blog.
And when women are forced into prostitution -- and most prostitutes are forced into it -- the fact that prostitution is illegal makes it hard for them to escape because to go to the police and say "I'm a victim of human trafficking" they have to admit to a life of crime.
While it's extremely easy to prove she's a hooker and prostitutes get arrested all the time, it's vastly harder to prove she's a victim of human trafficking and pimps are arrested much less often than the women they victimize.
I'm for the decriminalization of prostitution because:
A. It's your body. If you can't say "yes" to sex in exchange for cash voluntarily, you don't actually have agency.
B. It keeps trafficked women prisoners of their pimps.
C. If it's a crime, you can't do something "dumb" and naive in youth and then grow the fuck up and make other choices. It tends to become a lifestyle you can't leave.
If someone WANTS to make a living that way, because it pays well or whatever, they should be allowed to do so.
But at the same time, they should be allowed to change jobs and not have it be some permanent black mark barring them from some other lifestyle.
The fact that you get stuck in it for purely social reasons is probably why it's called The Life.
It's effectively a life sentence and can become so due to one youthful mistake of some sort.
It can be hard to change jobs under the best of circumstances. When you can't put anything on your resume because you can't admit you've been paying the bills via sex work or even if you change jobs it could disappear if they learn of your past, it's EXTREMELY tough to change jobs.
This is a recipe for women resenting sex and men resenting women and no one actually enjoying it.
I'm a bon vivant. I would like to enjoy life. The criminalization of sex work actively harms me and my life as a woman even though I've never charged for sex.
To reference Heinlein: I'm a good girl. I've only ever given it away.