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?

The message of the mega brothel is that women are not human, they are pieces of meat for men to ejaculate into

But brothels will inevitably convert that into a massive, male-run industry which will use thousands of "barely legal" girls, then spit them out once they are "too old" or "used up"--- which might be only 25, and replace them with thousands more school leavers.

Not necessarily. If legislation were properly drafted it could outlaw brothels run by anyone except the women themselves, and prohibit mega-brothels completely. Of course, there would have to be a will to enforce those limits, which would become a matter of both politics and funding.

Would be owners of mega brothels are probably already greasing the palms of policy makers😞

Raestory had it exactly right. The women who work the streets are not necessarily capable of working shifts. So it's not like legalising brothels is going to clear the streets of prostitutes because not all of those prostitutes want or are capable of working in an actual bricks and mortar establishment. And they'll still be exploited, making it legal does not wipe out the exploitation that goes on. It just means the rats at the top and the rats coming in can't be touched legally.

WindPower get real. Do you really think there's enough ballsy businesswomen around who also happen to be on the game that could run brothels exclusively of male owners?? Yes there are "madams", but there won't be many comparatively. As if women-only owned brothels wouldn't get targeted and threatened by males who feel they should have a slice of the pie.

And why should the industry be made attractive women who are on the game who also could run a brothel as a business? That's going backwards, not forwards.

I notice the supporters of legalisation talk about 'consenting sex between adults' !
Surely sex is mutually chosen and enhancing - this is exploitation of women's vulnerability.
Why in this day and age are men allowed to buy another human being for sexual compliance ?
They should not have the right to drive this exploitation !
And legalising this will normalise it and drag women back to the dark ages !

In that case I'm sorry IBelieve ☺

Here are some things to make prostitution ethical:

-minimum age of sex worker to be 25 (to protect against exploitation of the vulnerable and young)

-obligatory ST checks for punters (to guard sex workers against being infected)

• brothel owners must have worked themselves as prostitutes themselves for a minimum of 5 years (because bosses should work from the ground up and it protects against exploitation)

• letter of authorization from punter's spouse giving permission (because it's only fair for people to be aware if their partner is putting them at an increased risk of infection)

I can't imagine why men punters would have a problem with those regulations unless of course the deceit and exploitation of young women is part of the attraction, surely not

you raise some thought provoking points Lessthanaballpark!

I think it is wrong to criminalise the women forced to work as prostitutes but at the same time I don't agree with normalising and making it legal to have huge brothels. I think it is degrading all round to men and women and anyone who thinks that young and vulnerable girls won't be exploited by the "business" men and even women running these places is deluded.

I also think it is just bad for the basic fabric of society, we are increasingly alienated from each other. Look at trends like MGTOW or the situation in Japan where people just don't connect anymore or turn their backs on relationships in general. Imagine a world of the future where men and women just went to brothel to get their needs for intimacy met and just paid for it rather than tried to build a relationship.

I don't want to see that future.

Also what if prostitution just becomes another job. Look at unemployment and the way the job centre act, what if a person was mandated to apply for a job in a brothel or to take unpaid work experiance as a sex worker? I believe this actually happened in Germany previously.

Yanbu megabrothels sound horrific prostitution is not a lifestyle choice prostitution is degrading humiliating and mysogognistic womens lives are ruined by prostitution from Glamorous prostitution to trafficking to the woman giving blowjobs for a tenner to feed a habit or her children or herself. She has no body autonomy and is damaging herself

"I think it is degrading all round to men and women "

But mostly for women, let's face it.

Lessthanaballpark, yes I do agree that it will be worse for women but men will also suffer although in a less tangible way. What I mean by this is that some, even many might never make the effort to have a real relationship if they can just get a quick fix for their needs and so suffer in that way.

Also there will be a demand for young males also in brothels mostly for men to use as well.

I think the people suggesting that if the running /owning of brothels is kept to women then it will be safe etc are being naive as if women have never exploited their own sex.

"I think the people suggesting that if the running /owning of brothels is kept to women then it will be safe etc are being naive as if women have never exploited their own sex."

Oh i agree with you there but it would probably be less exploitative.

Brothels and sex workers will always exist. To have a dedicated building away from homes (perhaps an industrial estate or similar) is far preferable to girls standing on street corners.
I would also suggest that getting group of girls together would make them safer and less open to abuse from their 'handlers/pimps' or whatever you want to call them.
It would also be easier to offer them appropriate health care and support.

small scale and collectively owned & run by the workers would surely be the way to go for brothels?

YANBU at all. This would send totally the wrong message and would IMO be a huge step backwards at a time when we seem to be going backwards anyway. Whilst there is clearly more equality now in some respects, I do feel that women are far more objectified now than 10 or 15 years ago. I realise that we will never stop prostitution and I understand the need to protect vulnerable women from abuse but this would just encourage it by legitamising it...... lap dancing clubs where the slippery slope.

small scale and collectively owned & run by the workers would surely be the way to go for brothels?

It would never work that way; if the government decided to legalise then they may as well make as much profit from business taxes as they can. That was one of the prime motivations in Germany and hence the permissive attitude towards mega brothels. The same thing in NZ and Australia but on a smaller scale because of smaller populations and lower migration more generally.

No business or industry in contemporary western society is organised with the workers in mind over the profits, and the less qualifications and specialism required to work (and hence more disposable you are) the more this is true. Prostitution to a tee.

Some pro sex industry 'activists' say prostitution is 'work but not like any other', meaning prostitution should be decriminalised and given special treatment - brothels run by workers with their best interests at heart - but respectfully they are living in some utopian, socialist fantasy. None of the non criminal models that have been tried have resulted in anything like this happening. Big businesses and big money for big business pimps.

Either we decide prostitution is 'just a job' and we subject it to the market or it is an exploitation/abuse that we must abolition or at least curb.

I know you're right Raestory....yes, my line about small scale and collectively owned & run brothels is 100% 'utopian socialist fantasy'

Yanbu. It's an appalling idea

If people think the conservative government will plump for a small-scale, collective, cooperative, female-oriented model... They are laissez faire, business friendly, misogynists.

Half of whom probably get spanked by paid women on a regular.

About the German/benefits thing:

www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp

m.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/a-882021.html

A couple of people have referred to prostitution as the oldest profession in the world. I never understood that expression or where anyone got that idea from, it turns out it was good old Kipling who thought it up. No basic in reality whatsoever.

So there is no reason to assume that prostitution is something we cannot get rid of.

I do like the sounds of the Nordic model, because I have nothing against sex workers, but god I hate the punters.

I would say fishing, hunting and gathering would be the oldest 'professions'. Back when the systems and lack of money meant that women enjoyed unprecedented equality. Halcyon days.

Treating people as things is Terry Pratchet's the definition of sin.

I literally cannot think how it would be a good idea to say as a society "yes, it is a good idea for bodies to be things that can be bought and sold."