AIBU to not want brothels legalised?

[RoseanneDownton]

A lot of people aren't aware that our government is currently considering changing the laws on prostitution so that it will be legal to set up huge brothels.

They did this in Germany, not envisaging that they would end up with chains of 'megabrothels' in which 400,000 girls are needed to meet the demand. These poor girls are awfully degraded and have little control over anything. They are obliged to accept any man and do anything he wants, or get excluded by the owner. The majority have to be lured (or worse!) from other countries, as there aren't enough German women to 'service' the ever-increasing numbers of 'customers'.

Surely I am not the only MumsNetter who can't bear the thought of my daughters and grand-daughters being recruited into such places once they are legal in the UK. The thought of them having to go with an endless stream of strange, random men off the street really turns my stomach.

It's obvious to me that naive young girls will be persuaded that this is an 'easy way' to pay their student fees, get a deposit for a flat etc.

The other thing is, women have been fighting for equality for over 100 years, and this feels like a huge step backwards. I don't see how we can ever persuade men to respect women as equals when they can buy and sell us for sexual use.

It seems to me that the girls and women who will end up in the brothels are going to be the vulnerable and the desperate. It just seems like a way for men to exploit this vulnerability for their own selfish ends, and that's wrong.

Most ordinary folk don't think prostitution is any of their business, and to be honest, if it's just a 'discreet housewife' seeing a few 'gentlemen friends', I'm not bothered, either. But this national lack of interest means that those who want to open big brothels here are currently able to put a lot of pressure on the government behind our backs.

AIBU to not want brothels legalised, but to want to leave the law as it is?

I found this, too

nordicmodelnow.org/

The telegraph article makes grim reading, it's appalling that a modern wealthy country has legislated to allow this to happen.

From the article:
'Paradise’s Jürgen Rudloff appeared in a documentary, “Sex - Made in Germany”, which aired on the German public broadcaster ARD last summer. In one scene he’s sitting in his spacious kitchen dressed in an open-necked white shirt and linen jacket, surrounded by his four shiny-haired, privately-educated children.

Would he be happy for either of his two daughters to work at Paradise, the interviewer asks. Rudloff turns puce. “Unthinkable, unthinkable,” he says. “The question alone is brutal. I don’t mean to offend the prostitutes but I try to raise my children so that they have professional opportunities. Most prostitutes don’t have those options. That’s why they’re doing that job." He pauses and looks away.

“Unimaginable”, he repeats. “I don’t even want to think about it.” '

Also:
'There is “absolutely” a correlation between legalised prostitution and trafficking, says Andrea Matolcsi, the programme officer for sexual violence and trafficking at Equality Now. “For a trafficker it’s much easier to go to a country where it’s legal to have brothels and it’s legal to manage people in prostitution. It’s just a more attractive environment.”

She points out that Denmark, which decriminalised prostitution in 1999 – the same year Sweden made the purchase of sex illegal - has four times the number of trafficking victims than its neighbour despite having around half the population.

It’s one reason the Netherlands has gone into reverse with legalisation. The Deputy Prime Minister, Lodewijk Asscher, has called it “a national mistake”. As Deputy Mayor of Amsterdam he spent millions of euros buying back window brothels, turning them into shops and restaurants in an effort to rid the city of the gangs that had moved in.

Chancellor Angela Merkel attempted to raise the issue in the summer of 2013 but things got so out of hand (there were riots at conferences) that the matter was quietly dropped '

To the brothel owners these women are mere livestock, a sub category of humans who because of their disadvantaged position in life are ripe for exploitation and degradation by predatory business people

Things like fruit picking get raised as an analogy often. Unpleasant, hard jobs that people would rather not do. But the owner of a fruit farm might well have their kids do a season at least to learn the value of hard work, learn the business... it would not be 'unthinkable'.

I am an escort. I have worked as one for a year now and I for one think they should be legalised. Working alone can sometimes be dangerous, however well you vet your potential clients. I couldn't have another escort working in the same premises as me for safety due to it then being considered a brothel. So brothels aren't always a seedy back street dodgy business. Many of he women and girls are educated, independent and make what they consider to be the right choices for them.

Don't tar us all with same brush of being either abused/slaves/pimped. Not saying his doesn't happen of course it does but legalising brothels would be a fantastic step in the right direction.

the, this, apparently my phone isn't keen on the letter t

*"I am an escort. I have worked as one for a year now and I for one think they should be legalised. Working alone can sometimes be dangerous, however well you vet your potential clients. I couldn't have another escort working in the same premises as me for safety due to it then being considered a brothel. So brothels aren't always a seedy back street dodgy business. Many of he women and girls are educated, independent and make what they consider to be the right choices for them.

Don't tar us all with same brush of being either abused/slaves/pimped. Not saying his doesn't happen of course it does but legalising brothels would be a fantastic step in the right direction."*

This thread has been going for some time now, so it would tedious for anyone to have to reiterate the many and varied points that have been raised that you either have not read or don't think to be important. But this isn't just about you, its about a huge scale public policy that has many geopolitical consequences and considerations, as others have pointed out. If the consequences of any form of legal policy are as negative as they are in all of the states wherein these polices are in place, then they have to be taken into as much or more consideration than the personal interests of a minority of 'education independent escorts'.

If you choose your 'occupation' willingly and have plenty of other options then it seems to me greatly foolish to operate in an industry that you believe to be dangerous enough to need to work with others. I have never heard such sentiments expressed from other occupations wherein the person may need to make autonomous house calls, such as accountants, lawyers, hairdressers, for instance.

If it is the case, as has been well argued by many here and elsewhere, that a legalised system in the UK would result in large scale brothels, lowered prices, a legitimisation of the industry and increased trafficking and interrelated crime syndication, then doing all that so that a few middle class prostitutes can feel safer (note; not necessarily be safer) and feel more like a taken-seriously professional (again, feel) then that seems like an awful lot of stick for not much carrot.

If you are, as you say, an independent educated women making a totally free choice, and you feel unsafe in your choice, then your examination of politics of prostitution should probably start closer to home.

User says: "Working alone can sometimes be dangerous, however well you vet your potential clients."

The only people who make your lifestyle dangerous are the clients.

These are men who just want a blow-up sex doll, who want just their sexual needs met, on demand, without having to bother to arouse or satisfy her.

These are men who believe they have the right to penetrate women who do not want to have sex with them.

These are men who cannot be bothered to build a relationship with a woman; or they are men who are cheating on their wives.

I genuinely cannot understand why any woman would want to build a career out of submitting to hundreds, maybe thousands, of instances of unwanted penetration by an endless stream of anonymous, self-centred men.

I also cannot understand the logic of: "I will submit to hundreds of selfish brutes masturbating into me, but please give me protection from their violence".

It's the punters who dish out the beatings, nobody else.

Great posts, Rae and Roseanne.

I agree with Raestory and would add that surely an educated, intelligent woman would want to build a career which will last her until retirement, and in which her earnings will go up over the decades. But over the years a prostitute finds herself less and less in demand and has to drop her prices accordingly.

Surely an educated, intelligent woman would want a career that she can be proud to admit to in public, to her children and her partner and her parents.

I'm not being horrible but I honestly cannot comprehend why anyone who is educated and intelligent, and therefore had a choice to be something else would choose to be something universally scorned and disrespected, by society at large and also by the actual clients upon whom she has built her entire career. It's this lack of respect that leads to clients dishing out violence and rapes.

Agree with the above.

I was educated when I worked in the industry, but I was also deeply insecure, had addiction issues and poor sexual and interpersonal boundaries as a result of various negative things that happened to me in the past.

I never met anyone in the middle class industry, let alone cheaper brothels or the streets, who were educated and free of addictions and mental health problems and from a solid, happy background and had no former experience of domestic violence. Quite often these things were multiple.

If someone is educated, has no addictions, no serious mental health problems, no history of abuse, I find it hard to to imagine why they would opt for prostitution as a 'career' given the known dangers, the fragile earning life span, the general unpleasantness of many of the interactions and the social stigma. Unless they are just a total idiot.

legalising brothels would be a fantastic step in the right direction
You do realize that it would drive prices down sharply?
As I understand it the main draw of prostitution is the high hourly rate?

There is no way to make prostitution work such the pros out weigh the cons

Great posts from Rae and Roseanne

Things like fruit picking get raised as an analogy often. Unpleasant, hard jobs that people would rather not do.

It's such a false analogy. I did potato picking in the school autumn holidays. It was bloody hard work and miserable when it rained. On the other hand it was not in the least bit dangerous, no one was abusive and the world very much needs the labour of potato and fruit pickers.

I'm in awe of Rae and Roseanne's posts.

There is nothing morally repugnant about fruit or potato picking. It might be unpleasant work, but it's necessary work. Potato picking does not destroy self esteem and relationships in the same way that prositution does.

Which would you rather your daughter did - pototo picking or selling her body for sex? Is it ok for someone else's daughter, sister or mother to sell her body to make ends meet?

There isn't a job which is analogous to prostitution

Would a woman who had any other choice choose to become a prostitute? Only women and girls who feel they have no other option are going to work in these brothels, this is exploitative. Hence the situation in countries where brothers are legalised, local women don't want to work there and so women are trafficked in from poor countries.

Once these women are brought in and are beholden to the brothel owner, do you think they'll be reporting any assaults that happen?

Also, a person who chooses to market and sell people as a commodity is likely to be involved in other shady dealings. Legalising brothels will finance these kinds of people.

So you are definitely not being unreasonable in not wanting brothels legalised.

Shining great posts from you too.

thank you Lass :)

I didn't mean fruit picking as analogous BTW. I was arguing that it wasn't.

I am part of a nonprofit program that houses youth. They pay you to do it. But in order to take part you have to prove you don't need the money. Because they only want people who want to do it, rather than have to. I wonder how many sex workers they would have in those mega brothels if they applied that test...

I wonder how many sex workers they would have in those mega brothels if they applied that test
indeed! even the high charging sassy independent escorts who claim to love the job because they love sex, wouldnt do it if not for the money

they may chose to have a lot of nsa sex but I think their sex lives would be very different from what happens during paid encounters

I didn't mean fruit picking as analogous BTW. I was arguing that it wasn't

No, I get that. The other comparison is the "it's better than flipping burgers" line. I really dislike that one. It's so disrespectful to "burger flippers".

This thread has really brought home to me how disingenuous the call to make prostitution safer is.

As for escorts saying they love sex ...

I find it hard to believe that any woman can "love sex" so much that she wants it with any random, strange man off the street, of any age, any level of hygiene or attractiveness. I find it very hard to believe that any woman could be so totally non-discerning.

And then, if you are genuinely enjoying it, why sully the whole wonderful experience by charging money?

Great post s I can't really say anything else I just don't understand how an intelligent woman can go into a situation where during her appointment a man can be violent how is that free choice ?