Steve Oh in his letter , 'Legalising prostitution will still commodify women', presented in response to Jeffrey's call for legalisation of prostitution, reasons for prostitution to remain illegal, but did not deal with the benefits of legalisation. He selectively picked arguments to poke at, and that is unfair analysis.

Legalised prostitution will bring regulation - which is a huge boon for public health safety - and include government bodies in measures to curb the downside to illegal prostitution, protect workers from exploitation of pimps and organised crime and provide a sexual channel for those seeking gratification legally and without harm to general society.

How come Steve missed all of that completely?

The introduction of Sweden's law penalising purchasers of sexual acts is a knee-jerk reaction resulting from an increase in the number of female parliamentarians.

There has also been incursion of Eastern European workers; its growing reputation as a transit point for Latin American sex workers to the EU; the Sexual Crimes Report of 1972 that sullied feminist groups; and the fact that only two men have, since 1999 when the law was enacted, been charged with that law, which imposes a fine or six months in prison.

Europeans are still arguing about it, and the eventual tying of European Law is probably going to repeal this law.

There are not many countries in the world that explicitly legalise prostitution, but neither are there nations strenuously stamping out prostitution. Prostitution in most nations survives in the in-between zone of laws, lobbies and implementing agencies.

In Catholic Philippines, the girls are called 'customer service officers' and though sex is not spelt out, the need for the girls to undergo regular check-ups and Aids tests whisper the truth of the trade. Even the conservative Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has refrained from waging war on prostitution in Thailand. The same situation is reprised all over the world.

Prostitution is tolerated, yet not talked about publicly. This slows down legislation, and legalising is the obvious long-term outcome.

Steve's parallel between paid sex and theft, or murder, or incest, is false. Paid sex does no demonstrable harm to society when buyer and seller voluntarily participate. The fear of forced paid sex is going to be far better addressed with legalisation since parlour owners operating under law would be under the scrutiny of the law.

As Steve himself alludes, what happens within the confine of private space between two consenting adults is a personal matter, not a matter for the state or others. Theft, murder and incest abridge the rights of individuals forcibly and therefore require law-making to protect the victims. Pimps and underground elements are bound to suffer in an legalised environment.

The heart of Steve's conservative upbringing shows when he says participation in prostitution shows how little value is placed on their bodies and those of others. Sexual morality and absolutism has ended a long time ago, acts are relative with personal interpretation and implementation of morality allowed as long as it does not exterminate the other's individual rights - this is the preserve of individual and not for the sermonising or the self-righteous.

That is why, even as far back as 1949, Eleanor Roosevelt, the longest serving First Lady of the United States campaigned for the decriminalising of prostitution.

If it is pagan to deviate from monogamous relationships staid with only sex for the purposes of procreation, then I think a fair number of men and women in the Klang Valley are pagan. It is not that those who pick the conservative path are wrong, just that they are no more right than the rest.

Respect for women and the emancipation of women does not tie in and rely solely on society, as a whole, condemning prostitution.

There is space for alternate perspectives in the feminist ideologue and the view of the prostitution lobby - primarily led by women - has a legitimate place in the spectrum. Difference of opinion are rife in the movement - eastern and western feminists have shown strong disagreement in how to advance women and their rights, highlighted explosively at the UN Conference on Population Development in Cairo 1990.

Bestiality, paedophilia, necrophilia and other sexual traits that transgress on the rights of others, are criminal and psychological in nature. The legality or illegality of prostitution does not factor in their behaviour.

But if the link is sexual congress, then by the same strand of analysis sex in sanctified monogamous relationships should also be barred.

Of course parents are not going to be rooting for their children to become prostitutes, just as we do not currently root our children to become garbage collectors or tattoo parlour technicians. By allowing a trade does not mean we are promoting it, but rather being graceful enough to recognise the social realities.

Assumed moral supremacy based on forcing alleged goodness is only going to take us seven steps away from a police state.

Steve pointed that crime and sex can never be eradicated, but the good fight has to be fought. Wrong.

Crime can be eradicated when a society provides means to all its members and helps develop their social consciousness through education and example setting - theoretically a goal that all governments surge towards.

Sex is a complex human need, and suppressing it along the dictates of prohibition, celibacy and moral subjugation will only endear a false utopia filled with sexual anomalies.