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?

We get it shining - you hate us.

Two women working together in a flat for safety is classed as a brothel.

So we've moved on from blaming prostitutes for men's attitudes towards women, to comparing them to drug dealers.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either prostitution is a form of exploitation and those in it are, to varying degrees, victims who must be dealt with in society with compassion or special understanding akin to victims of rape or domestic violence , or it is a job like any other, which women choose of their own volition - in which case they can and should be subjected to the same courtesies or criticisms (or lack of) as anyone else in any other profession.

In any case, after working in legalised and decriminalised brothels I can tell you it doesn't remove any of the inherent dangers or damages of the 'job', nor does working for some swishy, high end escort agency. And I've done that too. Many of the 'activists' in this country who are calling for these systems have never even worked in NZ or Germany, are independent prostitutes, who would never work in brothels anyway and probably by the time any policy change occurs and for those changes to take any cultural effect, will be too old to work in the industry. So the issues aren't just about what a tiny percentage of current prostitutes who call themselves 'activists' want its about the next generation.

And as others have said, the obsession with NZ is foolhardy in relation to the UK because our economics and geopolitical situation is much more akin to Germany and the differences in policy are much less robust than what is often suggested. Indeed, the sex industry lobby used to 'fight' for legalisation style policy and when that was an unholy mess they back tracked and altered to decrim. And whenever I ask anyone who claims that it is much safer in NZ if they have the evidence for this, they usually don't. Aldded, I know of prostitutes in NZ complaining that prices have dropped, competition has increased, brothels have more power and punters - vindicated by the legitimisation of the industry - feel they have a right to more for less.

interesting raestory.

I am curious, why doesn't having brothels help with safety? if it is regulated, I would have thought it would help.

It is a job just like any other. I suppose your risk of being murdered at work is pretty low? We'd like the same please.

If it's a job like any other, you would support it being treated that way by government? So benefits curtailed if you refuse to work there etc. Included in Jobcentre materials, offered in schools as work experience or shadowing, suggested for school leavers?

Good posts above from shining particularly.

YANBU, OP. Not at all. I don't want to live in a world where women are for sale, not because I hate prostitutes, but because that is a shit world to be a woman in. It's a symptom of a world that sees women as commodities. Maybe some of those women are happy as commodities, because they choose it. But the rest of us still have to live in the society where men are told that women are for sale. And yes, it has always been with us, but the argument from antiquity is always rubbish - so what? Social customs can change. And in fact, they must, or societies stagnate.

And while I don't hate prostitutes, I don't have a good word to say for punters. Loads of bad ones, though.

There are a lot of extreme statements on this thread.

Manhowdy if it is a job like any other then I am not sure how you explain away the murders that you talk about; indeed murders that have not disappeared in any form of legalised system.

Hi chilipepper, because they are no regulations that can alter what goes on between punter and prostitute 'in the room'. Firstly, if even you're indifferent to many punters much of the time the 'bad guys' who pull of condoms, call you a slag, slap you too hard, spit in your mouth, shove your head down on their penises so that you gag, try and snog you when they have rotten teeth, stick their fingers in places against your will, etc etc etc ad nausea will still happen, intermittently or even often. Its part of the job. If I recall correctly one of the 'sex work support' groups in NZ (I think it may be the NZCP) has a 'what to do if you suffer burnout' as a result of these 'occupational hazards'. Burnout if a colloquilism for trauma, basically These things happen in all areas of prostitution, I have worked in brothels, agencies, indie.

I remember a 'day in the life' cartoon a prostitute drew which was supposed to be funny, of er being given oral sex that was so uncomfortable and painful she was grabbing the sides of the bed and screwing er face up. While we are at it that is one of the worst tings about the prostitution, being made to have an orgasm with someone you find unattractive, even repulsive.

You can't regulate these things, they are prostitution. Added, the legalised brothels do nothing at all for tose women working te streets most at risk of the extra violences; we have brothel sin this country and though they are illegal they mostly function 'professionally' and te police mostly don't go near them. The street women won't work in them because they can't cope with the structure of the day; they come, see one punter, go buy hard drugs and the brothel pimp won't let them back in. Even more so in legalised brothels because the expectations become even more strict. Not only would they never take on street women but they become more strict on age, body size, conventional attractiveness and so on, because they can. The 'legalise brothels it will get girls off the streets' thing is a total fallacy.

The only people who hate 'prostitutes' are the men who use them.

A job like any other? Surely you mean profession. Lawyer, doctor, teacher. Why aren't they getting a special committee hearing in Parliament to safeguard them against danger?

Job like any other was a quote in response to rae who offered two options.

The problem with legalising and the goverment treating it like a 'normal' job is:

a). Most women would not want to do it. I don't blame them. No woman should be forced into sex work.

b). If you are outed as a sex worker, your life will be ruined. See some of the attitudes on this thread as to why.

c) It's not a safe job. We are trying to make it safer but the nature of the work means it will never be 100% safe.

For most ladies working in the industry in the UK it's just a job. You get up. You get ready. You go in. Some days are good. Some days are bad. Some times you just really can't be arsed. Some punters are lovely. Some you fancy. Some bore you into a coma. Some are repulsive. At the end of the day - it pays the bills. We don't want a different job. We don't want to be saved. We just trying to get by, much like the rest of you I am sure.

Manhowdy, you haven't actually responded to anything I have actually written; added it is rather irritating to be given the 'lowdown' on an industry I have worked in for most of my adult life. But thanks all the same.

I agree with everything you've said manhowdy. And this:

prostitutescollective.net/category/decriminalisation-new-zealand-others/

I'm sorry to irritate you Rae. I am also sorry that our experiences of the industry appear so vastly different.

If you don't want to be 'saved' then why bother with legislation? It's costly. Who exactly is bringing this to Parliament?

No one dislikes sex workers. I haven't seen any evidence of that on this thread.

It's the punters who are despicable and you need saving from, by your own admission. Plus the keepers.

Parliament is spending millions of pounds on this simply because men want to have their sex. Crazy in these economic times. Where's the austerity?

And I do hope post Brexit this isn't a way of getting eastern Europeans into Britain.

(I'm being sarcastic)

Manhowdy, you ave all the stock pre-rehearsed sentences down don't you? 'I'm sorry you had such a different experience to me' is one of the favourites.

Tell me, how was my experience so different to yours? What do you know of it? I mean, I worked for many many years and you seem to have decoded the extent of 'our different experiences' from only a few short paragraphs, most of which wasn't specifically about my personal experience.

Can you actually tell me, specifically, how my experience was 'different to yours'? I'd love to know.

'Saved' refers to those trying to get us out of the industry. I think they want us all to become secretaries and cleaners.

We want to be sex workers. And we want to be as safe as we possibly can be.

Rae, this is not what I recognise in my job:

Firstly, if even you're indifferent to many punters much of the time the 'bad guys' who pull of condoms, call you a slag, slap you too hard, spit in your mouth, shove your head down on their penises so that you gag, try and snog you when they have rotten teeth, stick their fingers in places against your will, etc etc etc ad nausea will still happen, intermittently or even often.

The OP assumes that women working in brothels are being forced to. Whilst that may be true in some cases I doubt it is even the majority, ie most prostitutes are choosing to work as prostitutes. That choice may be constrained, eg by poverty, but it is still a choice. After all, there are many women in poverty who decide not to turn to prostitution.

For those women who are trafficked or coerced i don't think whether prostitution is legal or not will make much difference, if someone is going to break the law by trafficking someone then it won't make much odds to them to break the law some more by running an illegal brothel.

Whilst I don't agree with prostitution in principle and would certainly never want my daughter to do it, what I do agree with is giving people the choice of how to run their lives. If someone decides they want to be a prostitute or run a brothel why criminalise them by making it illegal? It smacks of a nanny state.

YABU.

I think legalised brothels are an excellent idea. It would mean the women who genuinely want to do the job (and there are some) would be able to do so safely and comfortably. It works brilliantly in Nevada. Lovely establishments, intelligent women and customers have to have their details kept securely on file in case of issues. Every girl is regularly checked for STIs and has mental health checks too. I don't see why we can't have something similar.

I couldn't give a fuck whether you're a secretary or a cleaner. I do care about women as a class being seen as disposable wank socks by men though. And the Nordic model de-legitimises prostitution as much as possible without deliberately penalising prostitutes who often have little choice either for economic reasons or because of coercion, which I think is a good thing. I certainly don't think it is a good idea to relax the rules around sex work and legitimise it any further. I haven't always had this view btw and I think I got it wrong in the past. It's about the wider picture, not really about you.

It does make a difference to trafficking to legitimise prostitution more, Maggie.