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I guess legalising it would limit the danger to prostitutes as the will be well tracked and there will be less chance of them being murdered or abducted as has been reported, also for clients the prostitutes will be vetted so there is less chance of catching anything.

on the other hand, if this is legalised, then what next? Its still selling your body in exchange for money which if not legally wrong I believe to be morally wrong.
RiverRock
On the news story, they showed a legal brothel in Cologne, Germany called Pascha.  The owner/manager charges each sex worker 120 Euros each day.  From that, the worker is taxed, provided with medical care and HIV checks.

Prostitution IS the oldest profession in the world after all.  Most of the prostitutes working on the streets are there because of drug addiction (with Pascha, addicts are not allowed in. It provides a safe environment, no pimps and no violence.
Suzi-Q
I'm of the same mind, Gypsie.  Probably because of the Crossbow Cannibal that was recently sentenced for killing 3 prossies in Bradford.  Then there ws that bloke in Suffolk (can't remember his name), the Yorkshire Ripper and the most infamous of all - Jack the Ripper.

Every day, women put themselves in danger on the streets.Do they really have drug habits to feed or do they take the drugs to get the courage to face some danger night after night?
Suzi-Q
Good pointt Erinp, that's true you will always have thoughs flying below the radar.

Did anyone see that Louis Theroux documentary where he stayed in the Brothel in the US?  I thought the brothel was so well run and so civilised.  If it takes as many girls as possible off street corners into some sort of safety though it can't be bad.

I may even become a Madame by the sounds of it
Temps
What Erin said , legalising it will just make a two tier system.
That could mean that those outside the registered brothels will be afforded even less protection from attacks etc than prostitutes are now as the police/govt etc will say "There is no reason for any sex worker to be on the streets, therefore if they do it then they have to accept the risks"
I'm not against legalisation btw just don't think it will solve a lot of the problems sex workers currently face
FM
What about the men who buy the services on offer? Will they walk up to a legal brothel, where everyone knows what goes on in there, or will they still be looking on dark street corners?

And surely pimps (is that a really old-fashioned word!) are the  problem. If they force a girl to work the streets won't that girl be too frightened not to?

I don't know what the answer is
Rexi
Yeah I think you're right Suzi, I don't know what the answer is tbh. I just think that like any industry there will be those who work within the rules and those who don't.
And like Rexi, I think that the Pimps are a major problem. it's one thing is someone is working for themselves, it's quite another when they are forced to do this
FM
Interesting case for.No to legislation

2007: against legalising prostitution

The real social problem of prostitution is not what to do about the women in the industry, but the men who exploit them.

As a response to the Suffolk murders, old arguments about legalising the sex industry have emerged. I fear that all the hard work done to convince society and policy makers that legalisation makes things worse for the women, not better, will be further eroded in 2007. There is much evidence about the failures of legalisation from countries such as Germany and Australia that clearly highlights why the future should not bring drive-in brothels, such as the one in KÃķln, to the UK.

Columnist Vanessa Feltz, who rarely concerns herself with prostitution unless moaning about the prospect of having "hookers and whores" setting up a brothel next door to her, proclaimed recently that: "The argument for legalising prostitution has never been so convincing or so urgent. All over the world, countries recognise the inevitable, bite the bullet and legalise prostitution." She is wrong.

Tolerance zones in the Netherlands, hailed as a great success, are closing down one by one, because they have proved a disaster, with criminality and abuse still prevalent. One third of all window prostitution has also been closed, as the government there recognises that links between the legal sex industry and organised crime is rife.

Where brothel prostitution is legal, trafficking of women increases, and unlicensed brothels operate exactly as they did before. There is no evidence that women are safer working under legalisation, but plenty that it increases demand.

So, in 2007, will men be able to more easily nip out to buy a woman, as easily as picking up a McDonalds? I fear they will, unless we shift the debate away from "the only way to protect women is to legalise", to "the only way to keep women in prostitution out of danger is to assist them out of the industry and lock up the pimps".

Moves to unionise and regularise women in prostitution - to ensure "workers' rights" - are ludicrous, considering the following: most women do not want to be registered as "sex workers" as this can further stigmatise them by creating a permanent record of their prostitution; and what pimp would feel happy about paying taxes? What child abuser would give up selling underage sex? What brothel owner accustomed to raking in thousands literally off the backs of women would give her employment rights? What trafficker of foreign illegal migrants would give up using women who are cheaper and more compliant than local women? And what about the women who are clear that their "job" is abuse, and are desperate to get out? How do those women feel when health workers, the police and others are telling them that they are in a legitimate, non-abusive industry?

My hope for 2007 is that, instead of accepting prostitution as an inevitability, we shift the focus from the women to the men who buy and sell them. Until we shift the stigma and shame of prostitution on to the pimps and the customers, women will face insurmountable barriers to leaving the industry.

Let's ensure that next year we begin to accept that, far from being the oldest profession, prostitution is the oldest oppression. Let 2007 be when we start to do something to help the women get out of prostitution, not, as those in favour of legalisation are proposing, encourage them to stay in.

FM
Erin, no doubt about it, women for centuries have been oppressed and forced into prostitition.  It's not something that has sprung up in the past dozen years or so.

By giving women a choice, stand out on the corner and wait for some punter that may or may not be a sadistic killer or provide your service in a safe environment, I can't imagine many women preferring to continue to work on the streets.

When women are empowered, have some control over their lives, have a choice, they will probably gain the self esteem to leave a life of oppression.
Suzi-Q

I'd be interested to know how many sex workers do it to fund drug habits, how many because they don't know how to do anything else and how many because it can be a way of earning money in the black economy etc.
I only say this as I have two friends who work in the sex industry. One is a sex line operator in the states where she earns a lot of money (they love the English accent apparently!) She is legal, pays tax etc etc, for her it is just a job.
The other friend is a professional dominatrix here in London. She works with a friend of hers and they only take clients on personal recommendation. It's all cash in hand and she makes a mint. There is no sexual activity with any of the clients
I know they are not typical of sex workers being that neither of them have actual sexual contact with the men but I think there may be more people engaged in this type of thing than most of us imagine

FM
See, Veggie, the woman that I saw on the news programme worked with prossies and stated that most, if not all, are on the streets because of drug habits.  I know we have all seen programmes on the telly (CSI springs to mind) that shows the workers on the streets to fund their addictions - addictions that were started by pimps.

I do wonder if their habits are more to do with blocking out the fact that they are having to go out on the streets in the first place?
Suzi-Q
Rexi, I've known both of them for 20+ years and both of them have spent the vast majority of their working lives doing the office thing
The one in the States was working in a call centre when the brother of a woman she knew offered her a job in his phone sex company. She tells me that the pay is way better, she can work her own hours to fit around the kids and she can cut off anyone that pees her off - which she couldn't do in the call centre lol. The one here was the receptionist at the local college for 15 years until ill health forced her to quit. A friend of hers (though not of mine) roped her into this dominatrix thing, she only does it for the money. She tells me she despises the men that they see although she does have some funny stories.
I couldn't work in the sex industry myself but thankfully I have the choice that I don't have to. In an ideal world only those who wanted to do it for whatever reason would work in it
FM
Haha Rexi, I was a cleaning lady for 15 years while my kids were growing up and then when I was studying at college I went self employed with it. I loved it tbh but although I was forever turning down clients I couldn't do enough hours to make it really pay well enough for a living - not when you take into account tax and NI etc and being undercut by people doing the cash in hand thing.
Which kinda brings us back to the legalised/not legalised debate. If you can earn money and not pay tax etc why would you move into being registered and get clobbered financially?
FM

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