For many weeks now, the so-called “D.C. Madam” has been sending shockwaves through Washington D.C. Charged with racketeering for allegedly running a prostitution ring, Deborah Jean Palfrey gave away 46 pounds of her escort business’s phone records, likely rife with names of various politically high-ranking customers, to ABC News.

One man has already suffered from this suit against Palfrey. Randall Tobias, an official in the State Department, resigned last week. The Chicago Tribune reports Tobias saying that he only called the service “to have gals come over to the condo to give (him) a massage.” Palfrey regretted any harm she might do to her customers, but claimed she needed testimonies such as those of Tobias in order to exonerate her.

This is not the first time a sex scandal could rock Washington, nor is it the first time sex has caused the demise of high profile or important careers. Just this year, Ted Haggard, arguably the most influential leader of the American Evangelical movement and a pastor at the New Life Church in Colorado, resigned from the National Association of Evangelicals over accusations of relations with a gay prostitute and the purchase of methamphetamine. In 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury amidst a scandal that involved his sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. In 2004, during the Senate race in Illinois, Barack Obama’s opponent Jack Ryan withdrew from the race on the heels of a messy divorce with his wife in which information about their sex life became scandalous enough to make him unelectable.

I have always been slightly confused about the relation between the personal lives of policymakers and their viability as politicians. There is certainly a relationship between a person’s character – and therefore their ability to lead – and their personal life. It is also true that public servants must live up to different standards than other individuals, as they are responsible in theory for the welfare of entire populations. But I still think that the private sexual lives of even the most powerful politicians are irrelevant to their skills as leaders and policymakers.

Certainly when Ted Haggard campaigns against homosexuality and lobbies to legislate against gay rights, it is important to point out that he has been deeply misguided politically and hypocritical in his personal actions. But Bill Clinton’s approval rating remained astronomically high, even though people understood that what he did in private was wrong. This did not diminish his capacity to be a good leader publicly and did not in any serious way challenge his core political beliefs.

The D.C. Madam may cause serious problems for many in Washington – her files contain over 15,000 phone numbers – but this will only be relevant if important people show up in the records. I don’t think it should be a big problem even if noteworthy people do surface. In fact, the truth is that sex scandals, particularly ones involving prostitution, aim to sensationalize and demonize sex, sex workers, and people who have sex in general in ways that are probably not beneficial for society.

Prostitution is illegal almost everywhere in the United States largely for its negative externalities; human trafficking, violence, and disease are all serious risks when a woman is a prostitute. Certainly the origin of legislation on this matter may be moral or religious as opposed to serious concern over women’s welfare, and many more women suffer the legal consequences of prostitution than men in the United States. Instead of prosecuting people like the D.C. Madam or her employees, we should aim to make the lives and jobs of these women safe. Instead of trying to reveal the names of “sexually deviant” politicians, we should judge them for their political skill and their policymaking. What they do in their bedrooms should not be the focus and deciding factor of how we evaluate the “goodness” of policymakers. Their policies should.