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?

"Unfortunately you are going to be inundated with YABVU from 'feminists' who think 'sex workers' are making a 'lifestyle' choice like choosing to working in Morrisons checkout or setting up a dogwalking business"

Sorry ibelieve but you obviously haven't been on FWR have you? If there is such a thing as a party line there it's that the legalization of prostitution is not good for women. The same as your opinion in fact.

Shining what you said is spot on. It's not just about the rights of women who choose to work in the industry but what it says to women and girls about their place in society and what they are valued for.

Perhaps it should ONLY be legal for a man or woman to use a prostitute who works from a brothel of not more than 10 people, and that must be owned and run as a co-operative. With the governance, board set up and equal voting rights of that arrangement.

Men/women using prostitutes outside of that arrangement would have an automatic 5 day jail term and be put on the sex offenders register. Just enough to fuck their lives up.

the cooperative brothel would have certain H&S and reporting regulations as well as all inherent employment rights.

I never discussed my particular experience, manhowdy, I explained that any of those potential 'occupational hazards' cannot be 'regulated' away by any form of legal brothel system. Did you not get that?

In any case, many women in prostitution do have those experiences, decrim or regulation doesn't change that and nor does it help those most vulnerable escape the worst excesses of their existence.

If you'd like to know I didn't actually suffer anywhere near as much in the industry as other women I have met and known, and I don't just arrogantly make decisions about my politics on this or any issue entirely based on my own individual experience.

Indeed, now that I have left the industry I am better able to be objective about it, now that it has no real personal consequence to me either way.

But the Nordic Model puts sex workers in danger by driving the industry underground. Everyone I have spoken to in NI says the same thing - the men still come but they will no longer book through verifiable channels. So the girls there have gone from being able to vet their customers in advance, to opening the door to a complete stranger.

I'm sure abusive men will always want to purchase women for sex. I don't believe it should be made any easier for them to do so. As people have said it's either "a totally harmless job like any other" or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.

"But the Nordic Model puts sex workers in danger by driving the industry underground"

Which speaks to the inevitability of prostitution. We need to ask why it's so inevitable that legalization or not it will always happen.

Rae - so that was a collection of horrible experiences from other sex workers over the years but not yourself? OK.

We can not make the industry 100% safe, but we can make it safer with decriminalisation of brothel keeping laws. That's what I am arguing for in this thread. I cannot understand why someone who has worked in and presumably still knows women in the industry would not want that.

It's about the wider picture, not really about you.

Exactly venuisinscorpio, too many take this much too personally. This is about public policy surrounding a trade, one which we must decide, as a society, if we want i to be able to grow, expand.

We don't live in a libertarian free for all; any state has to decide to make policies that weigh up individual freedoms with social damages or shared ethics.

As it happens, the Nordic Model to me is rater similar to the decrim policy on drugs in Portugal, which decrimmed the takers (those whose choices were personal to them and/or victims) and kept criminality for the drugs barons and dealers, and the system worked well.

We can not make the industry 100% safe, but we can make it safer with decriminalisation of brothel keeping laws

But why does the industry need to exist at all?

There's the theory - sexual freedom, control over your body, doing something that can earn you some cash

There's the reality - people in a semi-slavery existence, to feed a drug habit or because they have nothing else to sell or do.

Actually I've changed my mind it should remain illegal. Or he factors surrounding it should anyway.

It's a societal choice, sacrificing the few for the many. Life remains shit for those that are forced or choose the trade. However it prevents others who would never be anywhere near the sex trade to remain that way. It keeps it an illegal dangerous no other option choice.

Hobnails and rice.

100% agree

As people have said it's either "a totally harmless job like any other" or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.

What does this mean?

For us it's just a job. Sadly, some men out there mean us harm. We want to be able to protect ourselves more easily from them. We are asking for decrim so we can do this.

I'd argue that you shouldn't be doing that "job". And that support should be provided to help you get out of it if you want to (there's the agency you have, you don't have to get out of it if you'd rather do a dangerous job, you can choose all manner of dangerous situations to put yourself in, it's up to you).

Not that it should be legitimised. Because that affects more women than just you.

We get it shining - you hate us
nope, although you dont seem to be very good at making a case for yourself!
I can see the attraction of sex work, if I was into casual sex and found a wide variety of men attractive, I could have sex with say 4 men per week, £200 a time, £800 a week cash for a few hours work sounds like a good way to make money.
I wouldnt complain that society shunned my profession, because...
well durr ....
the social unacceptability is what makes it so lucrative.
You dont seem willing to admit that, you just keep playing that victim card whilst bragging about how liberated and minted you are

The implication that I don’t care about the safety of my friends I will put down to one of two things on your part,

A.You are so unquestioning and indoctrinated into a certain dogma that the idea that another person with experience of the industry might have a different opinion to you is beyond your current scope
B.You wish to make an incendiary, emotive and manipulative remark in order to undermine my points

Either way I am done conversing as it is seemingly impossible to continue to try and have an objective, open discussion.

"For us it's just a job. Sadly, some men out there mean us harm."

I think that's the point. What other profession out there exists where the actual point of it for some clients is to actually cause the provider of the service harm?

exchanging sex for money is a way to make money, the problem about saying it's a job like any other is that it differs in fundamental and significant ways from any other way of making money

one cannot make an argument by analogy because there is nothing with which it is strongly analogous
sex is a unique human activity, it's not really like anything else, therefore as a service offered in exchange for money it is not analogous to any other service

one cannot say that 'x' is like sex and because 'x' is an acceptable/unacceptable way to make money we ought to treat sex in the same way

there is no 'x' which is like sex

I think we can say that the UK has a certain way of dealing with activities which use people's bodies though. Surrogacy, organ donation, medical tests, giving blood... all not for profit.

I other countries you can sell blood or surrogate for money.

Just going to answer the OP

YANBU

I can't see that any of those examples help to show a way forward with prostitution though MrsTerry?

OP your post is leaning seriously towards propaganda quite frankly. The figures you quote do seem to be correct, but out of context.

I fully support the legalisation of prostitution in whichever format offers the clearest and most secure option for prostitutes.

The current legislation is pointless, endangering women and men for no good reason.

Take off your NIMBY hat and think of the bigger picture.

I want the law to protect anyone from being coerced or trafficked and to make it as easy as possible to leave the oldest profession. Large scale brothels do not seem the answer to me, though I am not sure what the answer is.

It works brilliantly in Nevada
Really
Really??😒

The bigger picture is that a small minority of women do well from sex work
And they are free riding on the harm done to other sex workers and women in general