A weak sentence can undermine a strong argument. The other day I read Steve Chapman’s libertarian case for legalized prostitution. Then I read a moral case against it, made by Sarah Marshall in the New Republic. I won’t say one writer was right and the other wrong; they frame the question differently and reach different conclusions, and it is up to you to frame the question for yourself the way you want to.
Marshall is reviewing the book Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution, by Rachel Moran, which became a best-seller in Ireland when it was published there in 2013. Her argument against prostitution, says Marshall, “demands the reader see decency, not autonomy, as a society’s cardinal virtue.” It assumes that the choice of prostitution, like the choice of stealing bread, can be both rational and tragic, made only “because she is utterly desperate and lacks any other viable choices.” Moran’s prime example of prostitution’s miseries is herself. “At age 14, I was placed in the care of the state after my father committed suicide and because my mother suffered from mental illness,” she wrote recently in the New York Times, “Within a year, I was on the streets with no home, education or job skills. All I had was my body. At 15, I met a young man who thought it would be a good idea for me to prostitute myself. As ‘fresh meat,’ I was a commodity in high demand.”
Strong language, but is it Moran’s? Moran doesn’t say this—she suggests it. But no, she doesn’t even suggest it—she seems to suggest it. But actually, she doesn’t even seem to suggest it. She would seem to suggest it, if— If what? If the phone hadn’t rung? If she’d been Marshall?
