Confused about prostitution laws - it's basically legal, right?

[LadyBlaBlah]

So, there are clearly and blatantly brothels advertising online and elsewhere.

An example is www.sandyssuperstars.com

It is clear that this is a brothel, you can pick from a menu of sexual services.

I thought this was against the law?

They might be according to AICM!

I guess that the idea that "most prostitutes are escorts" doesn't really mean much if there isn't really a definition of what an escort is!

I do wonder if some people are excluded from the picture when considering the situation for prostitutes. For eg if a girl or woman is being coerced into selling sex then she's still a prostitute, but do some people say well that's illegal so she's in some other category?

What about my friend, she prostituted herself that time, I'm sure that sort of thing goes on a lot, but she wouldn't be included in conversations about prostitution I guess? Even though if things were slightly different then it could well have been more than a one-off for her. In which case it would be fine? Fine as soon as she turned 18? 16?

I guess for me it's about the whole interaction between males and females around this rather than about seeing it as a job. For some it's a job but for lots it isn't and so where does that take us. If being a prostitute and buying a prostitute is to be normal and legal and fine then what will that mean in real life for those who are not on the legal side of it in the first place.

I've been offered money for sex more than once and it's not something that I think is good just for random people, if buying females for sex is seen in society as being just a totally normal thing like buying a bar of chocolate or something won't that mean in increase in behaviour I would see as undesirable?

I guess that one side feels that the side of those who are happy working as prostitutes and / or want it to be socially acceptable for men to buy sex

And the other side feels that the harm both to individual women and girls and to females in society as a whole is too high a price to pay

I just don't see how this can be resolved.

People talk about what the women say - whether it's women who earn lots of money and have a great time or women who tell stories of horrifying abuse - but these are used to support how the people already feel. I don't imagine that anyone on either "side" ever really gets persuaded to the other side by these stories. Both sides say "oh well that woman's story is rare". For me personally my gut feeling is that the happy successful in control mentally healthy prostitute is a rarer thing than the totally fucked-over one. And for me it's all a bit "there but for the grace of god" although I'm not religious so luck I guess otherwise I can easily imagine having ended up prostituting myself, whether once, more than once or on a regular basis, and whether alone or controlled or to feed an addiction etc. I can't however imagine thinking yeah I've got loads of money and opportunities and things are good actually I'm going to start working as a prostitute that sounds like a good plan. So that's where I come at it from.

Just for the sake of clarity, when I said "high end escort" I meant a woman who considers herself self employed, advertises in newspapers as an escort service or through word of mouth and gets jobs through private bookings. She does not work through a brothel, under a pimp or solicit on the streets, charges fairly highly, and has a good amount of control over which clients she decides to see, most likely taking bookings herself.

I don't think that a one off can be talked about in the same way as prostitution generally, TBH, and if she was 15 then legally it was rape, anyway, not consensual prostitution (if such a thing exists in law). If you'll excuse the comparison, it's a bit like babysitting a small child for a few hours vs having children yourself. It's always going to be more tiring, more emotionally draining, more relentless when something is a constant over a longer period of time than when you do it as a one off.

I mean, this is an old argument, but there's that age old belief that men love sex, the more sex the better, with anyone at all, so why aren't there many male prostitutes serving female clients?

Did you see the link to the site for male escorts on here a while back Bertie?

It was not quite the same as the sites for female escorts!

With the thing with my friend I guess the point is that there are many forms of prostitution and lots of people engaging in it in different ways. So when considering what to "do" about prostitution the whole piece needs to be looked at. eg in a culture where purchasing women for sex was completely everyday and normal, I would imagine situations like with my friend would become more commonplace.

Leaving aside the definition of "escort", I'd also like to see the stats that prove most prostitutes in the UK are trafficked or coerced, esp in the face of Operations Pentameter 1 & 2, which, using "intelligence", the back pages of the Sport raided every known brothel in the country and resulted in, um, someone remind me how many convictions for trafficking? (I honestly can't remember, think there may have been 2-3 convictions, one of which was trafficking-related... Last time I tried googling, the official reports were vague.)

OP - It's your call of course, but I'd think twice about reporting that establishment for being a brothel. While prostitution is legal in the UK, laws against things like working in brothels are precisely what some sex workers are fighting against, because they increase the danger of the profession. Obviously there is a certain safety-in-numbers aspect to carrying out the profession in a shared premises with others.

There are compelling arguments both for full legalisation of prostitution and for the Nordic model. But the current UK "solution" of allowing women to sell sex as long as they do it in the most risky way possible and are deprived of the kind of workplace safety considerations the rest of us take for granted, seems worse than either.

I suspect the last thing these women need is well intentioned people sticking their oar in and making their job harder.

Sardine -

I've been offered money for sex more than once and it's not something that I think is good just for random people, if buying females for sex is seen in society as being just a totally normal thing like buying a bar of chocolate or something won't that mean in increase in behaviour I would see as undesirable?

What behaviour, specifically?

And the other side feels that the harm both to individual women and girls and to females in society as a whole is too high a price to pay

Please don't forget boys and young men are victims of prostitution too.

The harm to the individuals being sold is too high. They are on the front line. However it goes beyond that. The harm to society as a whole caused by tolerating the buying and selling of people for sex is too high. Everyone loses.

The person being sold hates the buyer and the buyer despises the person being bought. That is not a healthy society.

YY Cordon true.

I suppose it seems more widespread for girls to me. So where boys are trafficked it usually seems that they are "trapped" in some way eg children's homes. Girls get that that when they are in those situations but then there is a much more open layer on top eg Rotherham type situations where it is "known" - I'm not sure that would happen in quite the same way on the same scale with boys. Certainly I think that girls and woman are far more likely to be approached by strangers for sex, whether paid or not, than men and boys.

That's the sort of undesirable behaviour I'm talking about increasing BTW (as I said in my post!). I don't think that it's socially desirable for women and girls to experience random men approaching them for sex related stuff (or boys and men for that matter although I do think it's much rarer!) or to be coerced into things.

Also just remembered that there was a Scottish study a while back that I saw, they found that men were put off buying sex if it was illegal and they thought there might be consequences (unsurprisingly) so I guess the question is, if we remove all barriers to the purchase of sex, what will that mean for society as a whole. Demand will increase, people to service that demand will need to be sourced from somewhere, I would imagine an increase in men "scouting" strangers - as this happens at the moment but it's a bit shady I imagine that would increase.

I guess I foresee even more than at the moment young people being coerced / persuaded / propositioned when at a vulnerable moment into entering prostitution and like I say this goes on all the time now but it would worsen for sure if buying a person was seen as the same as buying a bar of chocolate or a haircut or whatever. I guess the difference is that with a haircut you want a good hairdresser whereas with sex you want to fuck who you want to fuck and so if you see someone you like the look of then what's the harm in asking type behaviour would increase.

I understand lots of people will say "what's the problem you can just say no" but I put being propositioned for paid sex in the same box as other street harrassment personally I don't like it. And also it's not to do with not wanting to be "taken for a prostitute" it's just to do with I think people should be able to go about their business without this happening.

Sorry that's all a bit stream of consciousness! Bottom line is there is undesirable behaviour associated with men who but sex, and I think that a drive to normalise the purchase of sex would increase that behaviour + lead to more young people in situations where sex for money is presented to them as an option and I don't think it's good or healthy to have more young people prostituting themselves even if it's just once or a few times.

Again maybe it comes back to who you are "counting" when you think about prostitution. If you are only "counting" anyone who is not there illegally (or started illegally) then that is a very different picture to if you count everyone who is or has had sex for money (even if the selling and exchange of money was via a 3rd party) as being a part of the picture of prostitution.

I just don't see a resolution really. Because group A will say well that stuff is illegal anyway so shouldn't be happening I'm not going to consider it. And Group B will say well it might be illegal but it happens all the time and increasing demand will increase these things happening. So impasse.

Sardine - That all makes a lot of sense, I think I agree with you.

Just as an aside - As a pretty attractive young man in my teens and twenties (sadly now long behind my paunchy middle aged self), I got chatted up and propositioned all the time by random men - despite being completely straight and never giving any impression I was interested.

I expect that there is a certain limiting factor of homophobia, whereby gay men have to consider whether they might get beaten up etc. for such things. But that's probably unlikely with a single, vulnerable young guy - or at least it didn't seem to put off any of the men who pursued me.

And that was a few decades ago. As homophobia and homophobic violence decrease, it would presumeably become even more common.

That's interesting, I was wondering how men got this stuff as obviously I'm not a bloke! I do know that when women tell men about street stuff they are generally quite shocked so was going off that. That's not "chatting up" though which women do to men too obv but more this sort of aggressive approach - you know the street harrassment side of things. I would put being offered money for sex firmly in the harrassment side of things rather than the chatted up side of things IYSWIM.

I am sure that boys get offered money for sex by men as well and obviously that's entirely undesirable behaviour also.

There's also a numbers game isn't there - a lot more people are straight than gay. But then when it's propositioning children / younger people I'm again unconvinced that the sex of the child is going to be a key requirement to the sort of men who do this.

Getting a bit out of my depth there! Can only speak to experiences I've had and people have told me about IYSWIM.

It's all a bit of a minefield this isn't it.

My feeling is that normalising the purchase of sex will increase demand and increase undesirable behaviours.

I can't prove that though, obviously.

I have no doubt that there are people working in the sex trade who are perfectly happy with their jobs and I wish them well but I can't get around all the rest of it all the awful stuff that goes on.

I feel like the purchase of sex is already pretty normalised.

I have known quite a few men who are open about having used prostitutes.

Even worse, I know women who are dating or married to men who have used prostitutes in the past.

I grew up with a father in the Oz military and I observed how many aspects of the soldiers' lives were regulated, but laughing about "visiting the pros" was not unusual.

My brothers both joined the US military. When I visited one of them in Korea, I noticed prostitutes working out in the open up a small street where I also saw young soldiers drinking and partying.

I could go on, but these examples alone make it pretty clear.

True. Interestingly the men who I know who are open about having paid for sex it's been on holidays "with the boys".

I know of plenty of men who have done it under those circs but only 1 who has in the UK (that I know about obv). As if it's become socially acceptable for men to do it when on holiday but I think most would still see a stigma about doing it as openly in the UK.

This is in my circles I'm sure it's different in different areas and different groups and stuff.

So yes you're right. Probably where there was more stigma say 30 years ago men wouldn't have been buying sex while on hols or at least not being open about it. And so normalising it further would mean that attitude would be for the UK as well.

I mean the armed forces it's no surprise that it's considered totally normal to purchase sex it's always been that way hasn't it. Men living in suburbia and having an office job not so much - while they did it they kept quiet about it and while that stigma was there less men probably "tried" it. Now you have this perfectly "acceptable" idea of doing it on hols which I'm sure increases demand here.

It's this whole thing of people tend to follow the social cues around what is the done thing and what is not. And at the moment it's not generally the done thing for men in the UK while in the UK to openly use prostitutes (although this is increasing). What impact will it have on society to increase that even more, to make it totally normal?

I think you're right there sardine - there's a "part of the holiday/tourism experience" / "what goes on tour, stays on tour" thing about going to Amsterdam/Germany/Thailand etc

YY

But 30 years ago men my age would not have been comfortable with others especially women knowing they had paid for sex even if it was on holiday.

So the normalisation is well under way really. Just do we want to say yes great let's have it a totally standard recreational activitiy in the UK and what will that mean for wider society. My feeling is nothing good, too many men already see women and girls as nothing more than walking decorative fuckholes and I can only think that would get worse if buying them to fuck was just as standard as buying a bar of chocolate.

Oh I agree

DH used to work in one of those bland large chain budget hotels. Their biggest custom by far was businessmen attending conferences - at every conference there were men using prostitutes in the hotel. On more than one occasion they even phoned down to reception to ask for a recommendation :( DH's colleague was quite well versed in this and used to send someone immediately. I couldn't believe that - that a well known hotel branch would have "regular" prostitutes they acquired for their guests. Perhaps it was a known thing at this branch, considering the guy was pretty well versed in it, but I don't know. I know when DH moved to a more upmarket hotel, it didn't happen there. But at the cheaper one the men would be quite open and matter of fact about it, didn't make an attempt to hide it at all.

Hmm is it the away from home thing?

Urgh

On the business stuff I go on that doesn't seem to happen or maybe it doesn't happen if there's a woman (ie me) there IYSWIM.

Just thought I used to know a long distance lorry driver and he said in the places where they park up to sleep the prostitutes would come knocking.

How prevalent / open this is does depend on where you are / what circles you are in I think. So some it will be open and normal others not. So what we're looking at is having it open and normal across the board.

Yes true Petula same idea as holiday somehow.

And there's me just getting excited about a cooked breakfast.

Sardine honestly what you describe isn't my experience at all.

What I describe when?

Everyone has different experiences don't they.

For eg Badonna has more experience of the armed forces than me.

Apologies; I meant cordon