A state judge has ruled a website used to run a multistate prostitution ring legal. The website “Southwest Companions,” made its way into the court system when prosecutors were scheduled to present to a grand jury their case against former University of New Mexico President F. Chris Garcia, who is accused of helping a physics professor from New Jersey oversee the prostitution website .
Though the alleged prostitution ring had a membership of 14,000, including 200 prostitutions, the State District Judge ruled that the website, an online message board, and Garcia’s computer did not constitute a “house of prostitution,” the Albuquerque Journal reported. The judge also said the website wasn’t a “place where prostitution is practiced, encouraged, or allowed.”
The problem is that prosecutors are now dealing with prostitution in the digital age and laws created before the internet make rulings against these kinds of sites even more difficult. Many of these laws are specifically geared toward street walkers and brothels creating limited guidelines for prosecuting outside these areas.
In Thai law prostitution is illegal but the prostitution trade nevertheless appears to be flourishing. Under the Prostitution Act prostitution is defined as:
“Sexual intercourse… or the commission of any other act for sexual gratification of another person in a promiscuous manner for remuneration or any other benefit…”
To some readers, this definition of prostitution sounds a lot like marriage…
All across different nations and cultures, it seems laws prohibiting the world’s oldest profession never seem to stamp out the practice. Perhaps, the sex drive which is inextricably linked to our biological drive to procreate and sustain our species is stronger than restrictive man-made law.
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