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?

ceecee but as Raestory said upthread, street prostitutes don't necessarily want nor are able to work within an establishment, with set start and finish times and travelling to and from work etc. Legalising brothels won't necessarily clear the streets of street workers. I think it will just tempt more vulnerable women into the industry and attract more exploitative men to both set up and use the facility (of women). The punters and the business owners (men) will benefit, the women will still be as disadvantaged as ever because it will be seen as a more "viable" option but if rules are not obeyed in terms of how the women are treated they are still hardly likely to take their employers to a tribunal.

They will likely have not have the will, nor the time, nor the access to information, and also likely neither the spirit (especially if they are threatened which also goes hand in hand with the above environment).

Yes women who work the streets don't work in brothels for a reason and in NZ street women are still be murdered. They need well funded drug and exit services, not brothels.

And also I agree with wit MeMeMyMy that few cases are ever bought against brothel owners in these legal places, because if they act unethically women usually just either put up with it or go off to another brothel. As though a prostitute is going to be willing to go up against a millionaire brothel boss at a tribunal.

From the link posted by Littleprincess

'Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job — including in the sex industry — or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centers must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse'

Surely, surely that's not really the case in Germany?😨😱

Oh my god can you imagine that here some woman going to sign on and they saying well ms x there is an vacancy in brothel if you dont take it you will loose your benefit

I do

I think they should be legal. I come from Ipswich and they'd be five girls still alive if they were.

Horrific 😱😱
Sex work would become a minimum wage job
A very far cry from the picture painted by brazenhussy up thread:

I’m a decently educated, 30 year old woman making triple what I would otherwise be making in non-sex related work (and in about half the working hours.) To me, it seems nuts to not want to work in the sex industry given the high pay for very few hours

I always wonder if the women whonckaim to be raking it in to get them through college understand how much their prices would have to fall in the happy future of legal brothels on every corner?

Your margins are high because you job is risky and illegal.

Make it into just any old unskilled labour and you will be completing on price against younger workers from lower wage ecomonies, recruited from abroad.

We'll start to get all the usual propaganda about how local prossies are too lazy and ugly and won't put in the effort to please punters the way the hsrdworking Eastern European girls will.

Fuzzyduck brothels won't reduce violence against women, they will encourage men to view women as disposable and cheap pieces of meat who exist to service men

There certainly ARE women (and men) who choose to be prostitutes, for whatever reason, when they are perfectly able to choose another way of earning a living. However it seems that these 'megabrothels' would be likely to attract those at the lower end of the spectrum who have suffered abuse/have drug habits/etc, and legalisation would surely at least allow for some checks to be made. Prostitution will still exist no matter what the law states (and calling it 'sex work' does not make it any different.)

Prostitution is not inevitable, it's a human construct, as such it is mutable

Fuzzyduck again you perpetuate the misnomer that legal brothels bring women off the streets. They dont, and your emotive assertion that they save women from being killed demonstrates that you dont understand how the sex Iindustry functions. With respect.

The other assertion made that megabrothels or club style brothels in legal states will attract 'abused' women also mmisunderstands the industry on two points; first the fallacy that middle class prostitutes dont have drug problems and second that legal brothels wont be able to hire young attractive migrant women who are more 'willing' to see punters for less money a time.

Thank you Lessthanaballpark for this, which had me in stitches!

- 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)

The divorce rate would go through the roof!

Why is all the emphasis and analysis on prostitutes' reasons/ rights/ motivations to sell themselves, and never on punters' reasons/ rights/ motivations?

Here is a question that I would like those in favour of prostitution to answer:

• Why are male sexual urges cited as a reason for the prostitution of people to be encouraged, updated and regulated, made safe, etc? They already have at their disposal many masturbatory aids such as porn, a wide range of toys and sex dolls. Why is that not enough? Why do you maintain that men also must be provided with living humans to masturbate into?

Prostitution will always be around. I don't agree with it but what you choose to do with your body is your choice not mine. Legalising it will also hopefully stop trafficking because girls wont need pimps to protect them.

Ifeel -prostitution is legal in the UK - it's soliciting and brothel keeping which aren't legal. So what the "decriminalization" lobby are actually pushing for is the legalisation of pimping.

Oh Matilda I didn't know.
I wouldn't ever agree with pimping, if a woman chooses to sell her body for Whatever reason she should keep that money not give it to someone else who abusing her.

There was an interesting article in the Guardian a few weeks back - someone investigated brothels in London, I think it was, and found that pretty much all of them had links to organised crime.

The other thing to remember is that I don't think I've heard anyone advocated criminalising prostitutes themselves - the Nordic model, for instance, makes the buying illegal - i.e. it criminalises the punters. I've seen one poster on here who works as a prostitute say that actually in her experience that makes the men behave much better - because what they are doing is illegal, so the knowledge that if she were to report them, they would be absolutely liable, stops them pushing her boundaries (regarding condoms, anal, etc.)

Um, shining not sure why you've quoted from the link I posted when the part you quoted is DEBUNKED as being fake on that very link! Did you only read half the page or something? That's why I posted a link to the Snopes page debunking it as fake, and not the original fake article to begin with.

I do not support the German system at all but the claim that German women are bejng or could hypothetically be forced to accept sex work is 100% not true and been comprehensively debunked.

There was one incident of a woman being offered a job interview to be a barmaid at a brothel, the woman was under no pressure to accept, and the job centre apologised when they realised the bar job was in a brothel.

Another, more relevant quote from the link I posted:

*In 2004, the job centers issued a voluntary regulation that women who refused job offers as prostitutes would not have their unemployment benefits curtailed.

In a precedent-setting case on the matter, Germany's Federal Social Court ruled in 2009 that the country's constitution does not permit the "active promotion of prostitution through the exercise of official authority" -- a decision that provided legal backing to the job centers' position.

The ruling came after the operator of two brothels both called Laura's Girls in Speyer and Karlsruhe sued after a job agency refused to post listings to fill positions for 12 prostitutes.*

Ifeelike You say legalising would stop trafficking - sadly the opposite happened in Germany according to another Guardian piece.

After it was legalised the nos in prostitution doubled in two years from 200,000 to 400,000 shocking !
And most of these were trafficked to fill the huge rise in demand.
So what happens with legalisation is men feel it's all fine to buy women and the demand explodes and trafficking fills the gap !

Exactly right. Legitimising prostitution is not a good idea.

I agree with the op that brothels should remain illegal. I would like the uk to move to the Nordic model where the customer is criminalised rather than the prositute.

Selling sex should never be a career option. Often prositutes are some of the most vulnerable in society. I wouldn't mind better that many prositutes in Germany are migrants.

I have done some googling on the "Nordic Model" and see there is a new campaign group in the UK called Nordic Model Now. I think I might join it.

"Why do you maintain that men also must be provided with living humans to masturbate into?"

Because God forbid the little darlings don't have their sexual needs met. Or even worse, they actually have to put a bit of effort into satisfying their OHs' needs.

It's all asking a bit too much really

MatildaofTuscany ! ! V good point - that it's legal now is bad enough and we should be trying to stop this abuse.
I totally agree with the woman talking about the Nordic Model where the women are decriminalised and their records deleted to help them out and to allow them to access the police and health more easily.
But legalising pimping would be horrendous - imagine the pimp sharks starting brothels all over the place and trafficking more unfortunate women whether from down the road or abroad it's all the same !
There is a massive amount of money to be made from buying and selling these poor women.
I read somewhere - probably the Grauniad again ! - that pimps make £70 an hour from every female they sell.
And unlike a hoover which you can only sell once, a human female can be sold over and over until she's too damaged to be useful !

The OP's nightmare is actually happening in Germany, this article in the Telegraph is revealing.

s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/welcome-to-paradise/

Prostitution seems to me to be very old fashioned. Harks back to a time when men dominated women, and women's sexuality was thought to be nonexistent. It's never been easier for men to get sex outside of marriage, BUT women expect satisfaction, too; so prostitution must still exists as a way for men to get their needs met without bothering with the woman's, plus as a way to avoid having to put up with women outside the bedroom.