Also, there wouldn't be that many women engaging in prostitution and other form of sex work -- especially not at the lower price range -- if welfare was enough to provide for their needs and their family.
I think this will turn into a debate about the difference between "need" and "want".
If I quit my job and lived on welfare I would be able to pay for everything that I "need" but I would not be able to afford hardly any of the things that I "want".
My claim is that sex workers do not have more expensive needs than I do, and that they engage in the trade to pay for their wants, just the same as I go to work to pay for my wants.
Obviously, since (aspects of) prostitution is criminalized, being convicted of a prostitution related crime will have consequence on the convicted person. But the same can be said about people who smoke weed. Their right to do as they please with their own body, without endangering anyone else is also being denied and their choice criminalized. If they are found smoking, carrying, selling, or buying weed, they can be convicted and will suffer the consequences of such conviction. Would you say that this is comparable to the discrimination against gay people, people of color, or women?
The criminal penalties for being a drug user (specifically) or for committing a sex crime (specifically) are much, much worse than the criminal penalties for being gay, female, or black.
That is true today, at any rate. Things were different 100 years ago so if you want to talk about the *historic* struggle of those groups sure--but in terms of the here and now there is no longer anywhere near as much discrimination against, say, women, as there is against people who engage in the sex industry (and are found out).
Women are no longer wholesale denied careers just based on their status as women, whereas that is in fact the case for people who are caught hiring a prostitute and convicted.
To be fair most people who are caught are not convicted, they are diverted to "john school", but if they are caught a second time then they are indeed convicted, and some are convicted the first time around.
So it isn't as clear cut as all that--but when the criminal penalties are brought down they are much, much more severe than the penalties for other crimes with similar length sentences.
There are specific laws enacted, specific regulations, to iimpose extra penalties on those engaged in the sex trade above and beyond mere time in jail, criminal record, etc., both in Canada and especially in the United States.
For example being convicted of fraud or theft, even quite serious cases of fraud or theft, does not make you inadmissible to the United States, but being convicted of a *lesser* crime (in sentencing terms) of prostitution renders you inadmissible to the United States for life.
You mentioned drug use--I don't know if you picked that one intentionally, as that is the other category where a single conviction of even a minor charge renders you permanently inadmissible to the United States.
As a john, your choice to hire a hooker may be frown upon and criminalized (like it is for gay people), but your right to unpaid consentual sex isn't frown upon (like it is for gay people), and looking like a john won't get you beaten up and ran over by a SUV on the street.
Unpaid sex by definition isn't what we are talking about here. You seem to be broadening this to "gay vs. straight" whereas I am sticking to the topic of paid sex--which is subject to more severe sanctions whether gay or straight.