The Elliot Spitzer story has generated some online discussion (for example) as to why we have laws against prostitution in the first place. Lisa Schiffren has a nice summary as to why we criminalize prostitution, but there are a few related points to add.
1. There should be a general consensus that the human body is not a thing to turn into a commodity. Even if the entry into prostitution is consensual on the part of the woman, there are certain things to 
which we cannot justly consent. Prostitution is a form of slavery, the only difference being you are renting a person instead of out right buying them. As this story notes, the line between prostitution and conventional slavery is often very thin.
2. It takes only the most modest powers of observation to note that most prostitutes are women servicing men. Why that's the case is another question, but that it is the case is indisputable. Prostitution lowers the status of women in our society be encouraging the notion that women exist merely for the gratification of male lust.
3. Every time society weakens the connection between sexuality and marriage the family suffers. While we do not need to criminalize every sexual act outside of marriage (and we'd be fools to try), because sex often leads to children and society should not be indifferent to the milieu in which children are raised, it should frown on the notion that sex is only an exchange of currency away.
4. It cheapens the erotic portion of our soul that longs for completion to reduce it to a mere commodity.
These are not the only reasons to criminalize prostitution, and perhaps no single one of them is a sufficient reason (although I think #1 is). Most Americans would, all things being equal, prefer to simply let people live their lives and keep government intervention into our lives, particularly our sexual lives, to a minimum. But taken as a whole, along with the reasons offered by Lisa Schiffren, we can see that this is a case when the good of society trumps individual choice.
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