Police officers & lawyers, I need your wisdom please re brothels

[MrsMcEnroe]

Hello all,

Some background: I own a shop in a part of town that has been grotty and neglected for years but which is now, thanks to a lot of hard work from residents and traders plus a Lottery grant, now starting to regenerate.

Across the road from my shop is a brothel. It is acknowledged as such by the local police. Residents and traders are not happy that the brothel is allowed to continue operating. Most people are worried about the supposed "dodgy blokes" (to quote a recent email, not my words, on the subject) that it brings to the area; however, I have more serious concerns regarding the welfare of the ladies working there. I have seen some of them leaving and they don't look well at all.

I am attending a meeting of the local community forum tomorrow, at which the police, council members and planning officers will tell us what they are doing re the brothel (if anything). I know I've read that prostitutes are at much higher risk of violence, including sexual violence, than other women; does anyone have any facts and figures I could use please? Also, is it even legal to operate a brothel? When I was doing my law degree 20 years ago, I'm sure brothel-keeping came under the heading of living off immoral earnings but perhaps this has changed?? I just want to make the point that there are vulnerable women right there in our midst who, rather than being condemned, should be helped. (I never qualified as a lawyer, hence my lack of current knowledge).

Or am I being naive? Or simplistic?

This post comes cross in a very stilted manner - sorry, I'm typing with 2 fingers with a puppy asleep on my lap!

TIA.

Thanks plenty for getting the thread away from the needless 'here is a list of my relationships with people in prostitution' competition (since it only went that way from someone throwing in an anecdote they didn't intend as evidence anyway).

"FWIW, having come from a 'challenging' background or being a survivor of sexual abuse does not mean that one's decisions are 'self destructive' or made without sufficient agency." If someone makes 'choices' they would never have made if they hadn't had a challenging/abusive start in life, then the genuine 'agency' of these decisions is surely an illusion. And I would say things like alcoholism, 'dropping out', drugs, abusive relationships, etc that often stem from such a start most definately are self-destructive. Often people think they are making a big 'f*ck you!' statement by self harming.

FoodUnit Sat 25-Aug-12 19:19:22
Thanks plenty for getting the thread away from the needless 'here is a list of my relationships with people in prostitution' competition (since it only went that way from someone throwing in an anecdote they didn't intend as evidence anyway).

Thanks for apparently confirming your actual knowledge of people in prostitution.
Looks like you don't even have any anecdotes?

Sheesh!

"Thanks for apparently confirming your actual knowledge of people in prostitution."

I am not going to list my relationships with people who've experienced prostitution like flippin' trophies for your satisfaction. Yuk!

Worked as an escort fot just over six months at the age if seventeen. Never got beaten up or raped.
But it was shit, it destroyed me mentally, would not be something that I would recommend to anyone. I was damaged when I started and even more damaged when I finished and that was in spite of the fact that I had some enjoyable experiences along the way.
It's not a good industry and it does not promote rights or equality for women.
How to make it better or stop it, no idea.

FoodUnit, you seem to be discussing some damaged individual(s) whom you have dreamt up to fit into your chosen schema.
And your apparently random list of 'bad things' sometimes stem from a challenging/abusive start - and sometimes not. I'm not sure that they relate or add to this discussion, though.

You're right that the thread has gone way off topic - I believe it was started by a poster who wanted practical advice.

Why do you think that posters posting about their own lived experiences are trying to start a 'competition', by the way? Do you think that about posters who discuss their experiences on MN generally?

How did you get into escorting? Some anecdata.

FoodUnit, you seem to be saying that people who have had bad experiences in the past lose the right to make choices if the choices they make are not ones that you agree with. This is fairly typical of sex-negative, prescriptive feminism; as are a lot of made up and exaggerated statistics.

When someone says: "May I ask, how well do you know any "prostituted" women? Friends with any? Been out with any? How much time have you spent with them and their families? How often have you shared a table with them? Have you ever met any of the other women they know who are prostititutes? Have you ever met a rentboy?"

I wonder how I am supposed to react. I'm being asked to turn human beings into case studies just to prove a point on a thread - for what? It is not "a polite enquiry" no, it comes across as "trying to start a 'competition'" and there is no way to engage with it without being tacky and disrepectful.

So anyway. Call me a poseur and fraud for not going there. Doesn't really matter in the scheme of things.

"FoodUnit, you seem to be saying that people who have had bad experiences in the past lose the right to make choices"

Where did you pull that one from SGB? The right to make choices? I haven't spoken about 'rights' whatsoever. I've spoken about how much you can really call a compulsion a choice, which is an entirely different matter to the rights of people, whatever their background, to make choices.

Also, the only aspects of sex I am negative about are the abusive bits.

I worded that badly - you seem to be saying that you get to decide other people's choices are not valid if they have suffered abuse in the past. This is something a lot of sex workers complain about: that a certain type of feminist thought treats them with such condescension, refuses to listen to their viewpoint, etc. I have seen a lot of it and it annoys me.

What is a 'valid' choice? What is a 'free' choice? There is a fundemental problem with free will, in that there's no such thing as determination if it exists.

I find it very upsetting to hear people with the odds stacked up against them berate themselves for their 'bad' choices. Life is a lottery as to what you are born into and this influences every decision anyone makes.

So, I'm not so attached to the word 'choice' since its fraught with delusions such as undeserved congratulation or blaming of individuals. 'Options' is a more meaningful word. And options are broadened or limited by social status and level of trauma-placed compulsion.

Yes some people find this worldview uncomfortable or annoying, doesn't mean it is wrong though.

Foodunit: You still don't get to badger people who have done things you wouldn't like to do and tell them they are damaged/misguided/wrong when they are telling you that they are not. This is the big problem with prescriptive sex-negative feminism: the disproportionate amount of effort expended on having a go at the sex workers who refuse to accept victim status when that effort would be much more usefully applied to the people who are trapped within the exploitative end of the sex industry and do want help and support.

Thanks for your ponderings on semantics, FoodUnit.

MrsMcEnroe how did the meeting go? It would be very interesting indeed to hear from someone who's trying to deal with trafficking in a practical way. (And I hope I'm not badgering you, as I also said this above.)

solid - yes, I agree. That approach turns whoat could be useful discussion of practical matters into a blurred and futile argument. Sad, wasteful and potentially dangerous.

SGB Badger people for having done things I wouldn't like to do? Where have I been doing this?

"tell [people] they are damaged/misguided/wrong when they are telling you that they are not" I have not told anyone they are damaged when they said they are not, I did challenge someone about his summation of someone else.

And "telling people they are [wrong], when they [tell me] they are not" - well sgb - people who aren't ready to be directly contradicted shouldn't hang out in internet chat forums such as this.

Now lets deal with the bundle of wrong assumptions in this sweeping statement:

"the big problem with prescriptive sex-negative feminism: the disproportionate amount of effort expended on having a go at the sex workers"

1. I am a sex-abuse negative feminist, and my only 'prescription' is that people shouldn't exploit or abuse people with less power/fewer options than themselves. To call this ''prescriptive sex-negativity' is totally misleading.
2. What on earth makes you think you know how I or other (sex-abuse negative) feminists apportion our time? Do you not know how much energy goes into the work done to address everything from sexual bullying in schools, to helping survivors trafficked into prostitution, to trying to close the wage gap, etc, etc, et-bloody-cetera. When do we 'have a go' at the 'sex workers'? Are you speaking about when they troll on radical feminist sites? I know many ex-prostitutes who speak out about the harms are properly harassed by sex-abuse positive people.

Wouldn't this thread have been interesting and useful if posters on it could have discussed the issues the OP asked about, rather than re-hashing circular arguments that take place again and again and again on these boards and so often end up with posters becoming defensive, splitting hairs about semantics, etc.
And wouldn't it have been useful if posters like Vicar, who might have been able to contribute something useful to address the OP's question hadn't felt harangued off this thread?

When vicar said this:

"For me, and this is a personal pov - not a police one - i would love to see the practice legalised, vetted, and the women who work in the sex industry be looked after, pay taxes....and not be subject to controlling pimps who take their earnings, i think the industry could become respectable instead of a way to find the money to score.....but thats just me, that said, most of my colleagues who actually work within the police agree with me...."

the "re-hashing circular arguments that take place again and again" were inevitable.

Well, it was certainly predictable, Unit.
Do you think it was productive?

I meant do you think the circular arguments were productive, by the way, not Vicar's contribution - which I thought could have been productive, useful, interesting.

What I meant was that vicar was the one to derail the thread. No I don't think it was helpful (for the OP) to do it, but the onus isn't on everyone else to leave opinions like that unchallenged, as you seem to believe.

What I meant was that vicar was the one to derail the thread. No I don't think it was helpful (for the OP) to do it, but the onus isn't on everyone else to leave opinions like that unchallenged, as you seem to believe.

Why blame Vicar, Unit?
Why not OLKN?
Or in fact, why not assume some responsibility yourself?

Actually, I think Vicar's earlier posts could have been very helpful to the OP, who I think was asking for practical advice rather than an opportunity to join a campaign.

I don't think your 'challenging' Vicar's point of view has left your opinions looking particualrly credible, and since the OP asked for opinions from police officers and lawyers I should imagine that that was what she wanted, rather then the same old, same old from posters who don't apparently have any lived experience of this area.

I think that we do have some responsibility to allow threads to develop in ways that will be helpful to the OP, and at times perhaps that does mean not charging in to 'challenge' other posters who have more relevant experience and therefore, perhaps, more relevant advice.

Rereading this thread and and (and a little bit) at the idea that Vicar was responsible for derailing it.