In This thread on prostitution Cecil says:
Britain has followed a third course, somewhat confusingly known as abolition. What was abolished was not prostitution but prostitution laws, after a fashion. Prostitution as such is legal in the UK. What’s not legal are various nuisances associated with prostitution such as soliciting on street corners, living off “immoral earnings,” and keeping a brothel. In short, prostitution is legal in theory, illegal in practice. English prostitutes complain of police harassment just as American ones do, and receive similar punishments.
Does this mean if you don’t hang out on street corners, have a regular day job and work alone [no pimp-daddys or partners] and use prostitution to suppliment your normal wages it is theoretically legal? One could put forth the argument that you are living off your wages and using the monies from hooking to add luxury items like booze, fancy clothes or whatever you normally wouldn’t be able to afford…or bank it towards retirement… :dubious:
Cecil summed it up rather well. Paying someone for sex in England isn’t illegal, but there are plenty of other laws designed to discourage prostitution. Many of those are aimed at outlawing the visible signs of the trade, which are for many people the real problem.
As it happens, the Home Office is currently carrying out a review of the prostitution laws and one proposal they are known to be considering is to make payments for sex illegal. This might be introduced as a quid pro quo for the introduction of licensed brothels, with such payments becoming illegal except in the government-approved brothels.
You’ve missed the meaning of ‘immoral earnings’ - that refers to pimping, when someone makes money from controlling prostitutes. Independant working girls are legally entitled to keep or spend the money they earn, and that isn’t immoral earnings. They don’t require “regular day job” either - it IS their regular job.
Oh and APB - "quid pro quo " your sense of humour is as twisted as mine.