B E B E R E

It's not exploitation if it's sanctioned by the state.

It's been found that the coping skills needed to survive this sort of "career choice" are very similar to those developed by those who have been raped/systematically abused. Just because the state decides to legislate this under a rug in order to generate revenue does not mean that the now-legalized practice is not morally reprehensible.
I just can't wrap my mind around a state that would actually force its citizens, under threat of benefit loss, to sell their bodies. As Nick put it so well:

"...It's one thing to make prostitution legal. Fine. It's another to pretend that because it's legal, nobody should have a moral problem with it, and therefore force unwilling people into the sex trade. Who the hell thought this up? As far as I'm concerned, this borders on rape through blackmail... or at the very least government sanctioned sexual harassment."

My friend Pablo maintains that with these sorts of decisions, we're seeing a morality vacuum developing that may end well end up being filled with the likes of Sharia.

Ann Althouse has an interesting take on this:

...Of course, the Germans are contemptible if they continue in this fashion, but Americans can take a lesson from this too as we think about abortion, gay marriage, drug use, and other issues. You don't have to approve of something to want it to be legal, and legalization should not be read as a statement that there is no moral basis for opposing a practice. Law and morality are not the same thing, and we are fools if we allow the law to take the place of moral reasoning.

Fools, indeed. I hope, for the sake of the Germans (and particularly German women), that sensible minds will prevail in this. Best wishes to the conscientious objectors to this.