Prostitute checked into our hotel!

[GrumpyL]

Ok, so away in London for a couple of days with DH and DD (10). We were staying in a 4* Hotel which is part of a large chain of hotels, not a small independent. We went to reception about 10.30 on the 2nd morning and was met with a lady (who was very obviously a prostitute) being told her room would be ready in 5 mins and her handing over £100 in cash to the receptionist. The hotel is £250+ a night and check in is 3pm!

AIBU to this this made the hotel feel a bit icky and sleazy after I saw that? Husband and I spoke briefly when DD wasn’t listening and he said “well they have to work somewhere!”. Not sure if I’m turning into a prude in my old age, but I really didn’t feel comfortable in the hotel after I saw that. I’m sure for her, it was a safe and comfortable place to work and I know this goes on in hotels, I suppose just seeing it in broad daylight shocked me a bit. We knew what she was there for, the receptionist knew what she was there for, the man behind us in the queue knew what she was there for, maybe I thought she and the hotel should have been a bit more discreet if they allow this to go on in their hotel, especially when it’s a family friendly hotel and there were a lot of children around?

I wouldn't be thrilled either OP. How are you so sure though?

Prostitution is demeaning and dehumanising. It suits pimps, brothel keepers, human traffickers and their like to try to prettify it up by calling it " the sex industry" . "Sex worker" conveniently for them includes the exploiters as well as the exploited.

I am unutterably shocked. In the late 90s, we needed a hotel in Madrid for one night and MrG found some cheap place near the Prado. The taxi driver kept on about it not being "suitable" but we just assumed he wanted to take us somewhere that would give him commission. When we got there, there was nothing downstairs but a very small bar full of old men in suits and young women dressed in very little and it became clear it was a brothel.

They were a bit surprised that we wanted to stay all night, but gave us an extraordinary decorated room with fake frescos painted on the walls and a massive curtained bed. It was scrupulously clean and extremely cheap. Would recommend, if only I could remember what it was called. 😉

So all there is to this post is the OP saw a woman she didn't like how she was dressed paying cash.

No evidence of prostitution at all, basically the OP is being snobby and guessing.

100 %.

OP I judge you more for writing ‘10.30 am in the morning’ than I do this woman for choosing to work in a ‘safe’ environment. If indeed that’s what she was doing.

I hope you managed to enjoy your lovely family weekend anyway..?

It is a hotel not a convent...

It is likely that prostitution goes on in many hotels, including the most expensive ones.

People also use hotels to cheat on their partners with their lover.

Frankly just enjoy your break and don't worry about what other people do in the rooms they paid for.

You are also unreasonable for assuming she is a prostitute by the way...

@BettyShagter Novotel, Holiday Inn, Best Western are all cash payments. Hilton and Marriot take a £5 deposit and cash payment on arrival.

'I'm a snob. When I pay £500 a night to pay in a hotel I want to be surrounded by classy rich people - people who dress expensively and can afford expensive meals and cocktails. It's all about the ambience.

I don't want to be surrounded by prostitutes. if I wanted that, I'd go and hang in Kings Cross. And save my £500'

Well, yeah, you can keep your £500 if you want but you know that your filthy rich hotel fellows are the ones that like to splash out on all the classy rich sex workers don't you?! I mean, they even fly their rich little friends to private islands let's not forget so they're really are not going to be fussed about paying £500 quid to have their cock sucked in your fancy little hotel!

Incidentally, I wouldn't call you a snob either! I love nice things and I will pay through the nose for them but I'm just naive enough to not know that vice goes on even in the nicest establishments. It just costs the punters more! And guess what, even sex workers wear nice clothes and drink nice drinks!

Hotels have day rooms, it's not a new thing, I've been in the travel industry for 25 years and they have existed at least that long. The charge is less then overnight. People use them between flights or trains and I've seen them advertised as office space as they have a desk, phone and WiFi. Sex workers may use them. You don't get to choose who else stays in the hotel unless you book out the whole place.

The ugly, harsh but realistic word did the same job.

Bless your little try-hard socks.

If you'd ever been near a £500 per night hotel you'd know they're visited by prostitutes all the time.

Classy rich prostitutes who dress expensively and can afford expensive meals and cocktails

Yeah, because sex work is work, isn't it? Just like factory work or social work! Yay for men renting women's bodies!

Give your head a wobble and read the Nordic Model Now website. You're not quite as right-on as you think.

Its the other way round surely

Sex worker, implies a 'job' that someone legitimately chooses to do, its been a term used to try to place a veneer of empowerment and agency over. It tries to disguise the exploitation

Prostitution is what it is.

@Hecate01 thank you. I can stop wondering now ☺

I would judge the OP for that but I would also judge you and other posters falling over yourselves to be so cool about prostitution. It's ugly, degrading and dehumanising, but hey, let's prettify it up by calling it "sex work".

If you think there are no prostitutes in high end hotels then you are very naive

I think sex work is a term people use because it covers everything - ie, men using women's bodies, men using men's bodies, women using women's bodies and women using men's bodies.

I'm pretty sure it also covers cam work and sex chat lines.

@ByUmberViewer "I'm a snob. When I pay £500 a night to pay in a hotel I want to be surrounded by classy rich people - people who dress expensively and can afford expensive meals and cocktails. It's all about the ambience".

Classy clearly means different things to different people. Snobbish, judgemental and conspicuously consuming does not spell class to me.

Er yes , I agree but my point is that pimps, etc can claim they're "sex workers" and use that to push for legalisation.

Correct. If we have a lot of time to kill in a US port after disembarking a ship, we sometimes take a "day room" for a few hours.

How do you know she hasn't booked it for day use? Shower after fight and before a meeting? My manger used to do this when she used to fly down, and she most def wasn't a prostitute!

There's quite a few posters falling over themselves to show how right on they are. Completely agree about Nordic Model being the way to go.

Agreed.

I think the clamour on this thread to roundly denounce OP's prudish naïvete risks looking like trying much too hard to be the cool girl.

Men buying women's bodies to use and abuse as they please really isn't cool. The fact that men can so easily buy sex helps to perpetuate misogynistic objectification. I am not here blaming the women who do sex work but rather the patriarchal system they operate in.

What does it matter? It’s not affecting your stay. Mind your own business.