German insurer Munich Re held orgy for salesmen

[MollysChamber]

I have no words

The subsidiary has admitted to it: here.

Jeepers, Rob, stop digging that hole, before someone starts filling it in over you!

(and I've only seen the first 50 comments so far)

Very easy to see this would get the vast majority of MNet readers gobsmacked that a firm might do this at corporate level. Perhaps not so surprising to those familiar with German businesses rather than UK (and that some others have known it is bad, though perhaps more closely tied to 'city' firms with loads of cash washing about, at least in earlier years if not recently... maybe kerrymumbles can say which city she was familiar with, Dublin and financiers by any chance? or have I the wrong country?)

Certainly by UK standards this is morally repugnant. But bear in mind that in Germany, prostitution is legal.

So knee jerk claims of prostitution = slavery is likely to be very wide of the mark in Germany and the ladies are performing a job as legal as sitting at a checkout in Tesco's.

Whether or not it's a good way to incentivise your staff is another question. But it sort of puts my B&Q voucher from my employer into perspective!

The salesmen went to Hungary, which perhaps has less 'ideal' situations compared with the "performing a job as legal as..."

(and not sure how long Hungary has been part of EU but criminality may have been rife in 2007, further muddying the waters over the legality or otherwise and employment situation or otherwise. I suspect most countries of Eastern Europe [which were in the Soviet Bloc] have a big gap between rich and poor and exploitation may still be rife.)

The whole concept of 'legal prostitution' is a morally bankrupt argument anyway.

Recently in Amsterdam, around half of the legal brothels were closed down because the number of trafficked women working in them was so high.

Making it legal to coerce a woman into being sexually abused by strangers is not a magic wand that rids prostitution of its inherent violence, exploitation and traumatising effect on women.

Who makes the law to make it legal to buy sex? Do you think it is poor women or rich white men? Who are the ones who end up being bought for sex? Do you think it is rich white men or poor women?

From this link;

"In the words of one survivor of prostitution: "Legalization will not end abuse; it will make abuse legal."

"Prostitution should not be legalized. Legalization means that the state imposes regulations under which women can be prostituted. In effect, regulation means that under certain conditions it is permissible to exploit and abuse women. In several Eastern European states "tolerance zones" are being considered; in other states there are proposals for legalization. Most arguments in favor of legalization are based on trying to distinguish between "free" and "forced" prostitution and trafficking. Considering the extreme conditions of exploitation in the sex industry, those distinctions are nothing but abstractions that make for good academic debates. They are, however, meaningless to women under the control of pimps or traffickers. Certainly, the sex industry doesn't differentiate between "free" and "forced," and my research reveals that men who buy women and children in prostitution don't differentiate either. Legalization and regulation aim to redefine prostitution as a form of work, indicated by the use of the term "sex work." The renaming may clean up the image of prostitution, but it doesn't end the violence and exploitation. It only allows criminals and members of organized crime rings to become legitimate businessmen and work hand-in-hand with the state in marketing women's bodies. In the Netherlands, where two-thirds of the women in prostitution are immigrants and one-half of them are trafficked illegal immigrants, legalization has, in fact, increased prostitution and trafficking."

Sorry, forgot to add the link;

www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/mhvlegal.htm

Where I used to live we occasionally had to drive through the red light district.

It was really tragic. Young, pale, skinny, grubby girls waiting for some filthy letch to show up.

They were, seemed to me, drug users. I often wondered which came first - the prostitution and then the drugs to cope with it or the drugs and then the prostitution to fund it.

Pretty Woman it certainly wasn't (hate that movie with a passion).

Hey Kerry, I'm really glad if the info I am posting is showing you the reasons why legalization is not straightforward.

I don't really agree with you about health checks being a particular advantage of legalized prostitution.

Health checks protect the johns, they don't protect the women. Health checks serve to let a woman know that she is sick and that she should not be working because she will infect a john. Until the johns are forced to undergo health checks before they are allowed to penetrate the women, health checks just legitimatise paying to sexually abuse women.

Health checks won't stop prostituted women from being hit, raped, coerced, verbally abused and threatened.

www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/mhvhealt.htm

" Women in prostitution are targeted as the problem instead of making the sex industry problematic and challenging the mass male consumption of women and children in commercial sex. This is institutionalized when governments and NGOs argue for the medicalization of prostitution when they propose laws on prostitution which subject women to periodic medical check-ups. It is stated that women in the sex industry would be better protected if they submitted, or were required to submit, to health and especially STD screening. The way in which sex industries are responsible for the widespread health problems of women and children is mystified with proposals to implement health checks of women in the industry. No proposals have been forthcoming, from those who would propose both mandatory and voluntary medical surveillance for women in the sex industry, to medically monitor the men who would purchase sex."

"The same is true with current attempts to medicalize prostitution. No action will stabilize the sex industry more than legitimating prostitution through the health care system. If medical personnel are called upon to monitor women in prostitution, as part of "occupational health safety," we will have no hope of eradicating the industry. Furthermore, from a health perspective alone, it is inconceivable that medicalization of women in the industry will reduce infection and injury without concomitant medicalization of the male buyers. Thus medicalization, which is rightly viewed as a consumer protection act for men rather than as a real protection for women, ultimately protects neither women nor men."

This is a good article on the shift in the perception of women and children when prostitution is state endorsed - that of 'chattel status'.

Surely if one is to argue for legal prostitution then one would accept that prostitution becomes a job - it would be hypocritical to argue otherwise.

I wonder how many people who think legal prostitution is a good idea would be happy with a proposal to advertise this job in job centres? Would they be happy with their 18 year olds being encouraged to do a bit of prostitution as a summer job? Would they want women to have their JSA withdrawn if they refused to accept this job? Would these people be happy with how the gendered nature of prostitution flouts equality legislation and health and safety rules that all other types of work are legally obliged to respect for the general good?

Because unless one is a hypocrite, the above are the logical consequences of legalized prostitution.

Beachcomber: there is stuff on exactly that on t'interweb somewhere, in Germany or Holland (?) prostitution is advertised in Jobcentres. In GB, 'glamour' modelling was advertised in Jobcentres. That's GOvernment-run recruitment when thge same government is sacking public sector workers (mainly women) including Jobcentre workers. Equal opportunities, anyone?

I think prostitutes are self-employed in countries where it is legal.

*nonetheless with all the extremely nasty diseases around these days I can't imagine how anyone would stick their dick in something like that.not to say the "high" class hookers are any less disease ridden^

"that" is a human being. I'm sure you don't meant to sound so horrible but if I didn't know better I would assume you were talking about rats.. Disease ridden?

Well, I tell you what Rob, why don't you go to one of those places, set yourself up in business and then come back and tell us how you got on?

Lap dancers are self employed. They are self employed so that the management don't have to pay them a contracted salary or pay insurance and to offload as much responsibility and cost onto the women as possible. The self employed factor also enables management to get around health and safety laws and equality legislation.

Being self employed means that if you don't work you don't get paid. It puts pressure on women to accept punters they would prefer to refuse and to engage in acts they would prefer to refuse.

Being self employed does not mean that the women don't have pimps and it doesn't mean that pimps aren't making money off the women's backs. It just means the pimps and clients are able to exploit the women without the constraints of a salaried contract and the employment law that does with it.

I know Alice, it makes an absolute mockery of any notion that women have equal rights .

Networkguy/Niceguy
Yes, prostitution is legal in Germany but it is still a mileu that is known to have links to organised crime. And there are restrictions. You cannot just open a bordell wherever you want.

And I have never heard of jobs being advertised in jobcentres. Not to say it doesn't happen, but it is not common. School leavers would not be encouraged to seek employment as a prostitute.

As to the culture, yes. I would agree that there is an expectation from some businessmen to frequent strip bars. DH was in Spain a few years ago and after the official part of the evening's entertainment, some of the customers wanted to go to a strip bar. DH went back to the hotel, disgusted at the behaviour of one particular customer, a family man with a lovely wife and kids who he later heard had gone upstairs with one of the women. He found it difficult as he knew the family back in Germany. DH is not in sales, but in finance; he said that the sales guys pretty much had to go, as the customer had requested.

MmeLindor - your DH's experience is pretty common. There is always a minority of just a few blokes (ie a client plus one of the salemen) who actively want to go and the rest are ambivelant or really dont want to go at all.

Rob, if you have a wife or partner, would she be happy if you were one of these men & had taken part? Or if your wife/partner was similarly 'rewarded' by their employer with an orgy with male prostitutes? Or if a female relative/friend was one of these women?

RobF said: "something as insignificant (which it IS, at the end of the say) of sleeping with a prositute"

On the basis of that there isn't much point in engaging with him on this or similar issues.