Sex workers claim they are gainfully emplyed

[Brownie]

Brownie, I'm sure you'll know this. How do the classy escort girls become classy escort girls? Is there some kind of apprentice they are required to carryout on the streets, working their way up the grease poll?

No, they just decide they would like to try it.  If they are reasonably good looking, poised, well dressed, groomed and spoken, and are able to send their mind to another planet while performing with someone they don't fancy in the least, they can do it.  An ability to shut off their genuine feelings is necessary, as is a talent for conversation.  If they are 'lucky' they'll have a couple of regulars who aren't too much of a turn off. 

Just thinking about it makes me weary. 

[Jack Knave]

No, they just decide they would like to try it.  If they are reasonably good looking, poised, well dressed, groomed and spoken, and are able to send their mind to another planet while performing with someone they don't fancy in the least, they can do it.  An ability to shut off their genuine feelings is necessary, as is a talent for conversation.  If they are 'lucky' they'll have a couple of regulars who aren't too much of a turn off. 

Just thinking about it makes me weary. 

I see it's a class thing then. Those with good breeding get the top jobs.

[Hope]

Guess why that is.

Because they are run by pimps and undesirable groups.  Registration isn't going to change that.

[Brownie]

I see it's a class thing then. Those with good breeding get the top jobs.

I don't know how true that is Jack but presumably they have to be presentable and able to converse, be at ease in social situations, because it's not just about sex.  Sounds like flipping hard work to me and frightening to meet someone for the first time in that way with the expectation that you spend an evening with them, eat dinner and all that.  Supposing they had terrible manners, talked loudly or had too much to drink?  My imagination is running away with me, I daresay most of the clients are just ordinary people.

[Hope]

I'm not guessing why it is; I'm wondering if it is, as Hope has provided nothing but assertion yet.

Well, if you read your newspapers, listen to radio news, etc, you will know that what I have said is correct.  An article from 2012 - https://www.rt.com/news/human-trafficking-slavery-crime-746/

Another from 2014 - http://bit.ly/1Edwxpj

This, from 2015 - looks at the numbers coming from a single part of Nigeria.

This, from the Hope for Justice website - http://bit.ly/1TJyeTF

It doesn't have to be across international borders, either!!  http://bit.ly/1SLJSuZ

[Harrowby Hall]

For an insider's view, go to Amazon and check out The Sex Myth by Dr Brooke Magnanti, who used to be a sex worker.

[Shaker]

For an insider's view, go to Amazon and check out The Sex Myth by Dr Brooke Magnanti, who used to be a sex worker.

Looks worth getting - thanks for the recommendation.

[Brownie]

For an insider's view, go to Amazon and check out The Sex Myth by Dr Brooke Magnanti, who used to be a sex worker.

I read that too, HH, I didn't think it was all that well written, nevertheless it's informative.

Brooke Magnanti worked as an escort/call girl for fifteen months, Shaker, whilst doing doctoral studies. 

[Shaker]

Yes I know - Belle de Jour.

[Brownie]

Yes  .  I preferred the TV dramatisation starring Billie Piper to the book.  I found that fascinating, it was my guilty pleasure to watch that on my own once a week late at night and was gutted to miss the final episode.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Interesting little piece from the Graun:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/01/romanian-sex-workers-challenge-uk-immigration-policy

If Harpy & co had their way these women would be starving, since it would have been illegal to pay them!

I wouldn't want them working in my area if it meant there were men looking to pay for sex openly hanging around or they attracted the drugs trade or profitable opportunities for traffickers to undercut the market. I don't have a problem with them avoiding starvation by finding other employment.

I support it being illegal to pay for sex if it got them out of my neighbourhood. If they are working elsewhere I don't have a problem with it, but the people living in that neighbourhood might.

[Brownie]

Don't they usually work away from residential areas?  When I've seen things like that on TV the women usually hang around a particular area where no-one actually lives, might be the edge of a town or near a station.  I wouldn't like it where I live either but it's not likely to happen; I have to say I've never seen it for real.

Nasty, cold and scary, much better to be indoors and take bookings on the 'phone I would have thought.

[Sassy]

Sex workers should be allowed to operate in an appropriate legal and safe environment. And they should pay income tax.

Providing they possess the appropriate qualifications they should be able to benefit from the EU free movement of labour regulations.

And long may this continue ...

You have no idea do you. Criminals are running those brothels and the girls are not getting any money.
The trafficking of bringing young girls here and then imprisoning them threatening their loved ones back home is becoming a real problem. They are also trying to take monies from those on the street for protection. They simply do here what they did in their own countries. Our own families can be put at risk. You have no idea what is going on in our own streets with our own criminals being in turf wars with the foreigners.

So when you actually know what is going on in the streets then you can comment instead of making stupid suggestions based on your own ignorance.

My information is good in that it comes from the people on the streets of Manchester. The thugs from other countries are trying to muscle in and even at the cost of the lives of others. Get out and find out before thinking that these people are anything like British Pimps or people. They are ugly, nasty and evil in the things they do to others.

[Brownie]

Sassy:  ''Criminals are running those brothels and the girls are not getting any money.
The trafficking of bringing young girls here and then imprisoning them threatening their loved ones back home is becoming a real problem.''

Sassy is right about that.  The Russian mafia run quite a lot of this.  It exists alongside what has always gone on here and is quite dreadful, young women from Eastern European countries being exploited and sometimes ending up dead.  It goes on behind closed doors but is well known to the police who (some of them) try and combat it, not easy.  It's the sort of enterprise that documentaries are made of.

[Harrowby Hall]

You have no idea do you.

No Sassy, it is you who have no idea.

By regularising and licensing prostitution and having it operated from safe and protected premises you are reducing the opportunities for criminal gangs to operate. You take it off the streets.

Tolerance reduces the incentive for criminal activity. Openness is the enemy of trafficking.

I think that your heart is in the right place, but your brain is stuck in what is and cannot comprehend what could be ...

[Brownie]

I agree with you HH but also know that Sassy is right about the girls who are trafficked and more or less kept as slaves.   

The theory you put forward is a good one and it could work but it would need the co-operation of the police force.  Some of course would be all for it but there is a hard core than benefits from things as they are - and have always been in different forms - who won't want any change.  So it will be a long job.

[Sassy]

No Sassy, it is you who have no idea.

By regularising and licensing prostitution and having it operated from safe and protected premises you are reducing the opportunities for criminal gangs to operate. You take it off the streets.

Tolerance reduces the incentive for criminal activity. Openness is the enemy of trafficking.

I think that your heart is in the right place, but your brain is stuck in what is and cannot comprehend what could be ...

Your ignorance is outstanding... illegally run brothels will not change by regulating them and giving licenses to pimps.
It will just make it easier to run and hide the damage being done which means the girls might never get justice or restitution.

My heart and brain appears to work better than yours. It would only aid the criminals in hiding away as the girls are too frightened to speak out. But when the police go in and show that criminals cannot get away with this, then and only then is something done.

It needs intercontinental police co-operation. So police abroad can seize criminals abroad and ensure the women returned to their family safely. They should open the rock up in America and put all the criminals who do this from every country in it.
Life should mean life....

So HH I really don't think you are an idiot over this but I do feel you are mislead if you think making brothels legal will save these victims forced into prostitution. It will just make it easier to hide.

[Sassy]

I agree with you HH but also know that Sassy is right about the girls who are trafficked and more or less kept as slaves.   

The theory you put forward is a good one and it could work but it would need the co-operation of the police force.  Some of course would be all for it but there is a hard core than benefits from things as they are - and have always been in different forms - who won't want any change.  So it will be a long job.

It would not work for girls illegally forced into prostitution. It would make it easier to hide it in full view of everyone.

[Brownie]

You are right about those illegally forced into prostitution but there are plenty who are not , who choose that way of making a living.

I agree with you in principle about getting the intercontinental police involved to stop illegal trafficking etc and I believe it already happens but I don't trust the police that much.  There is too much corruption in the police force.

As for opening up the rock, I've no idea what that is.