To add to that, in my state at least, the brothels have a maximum of 5 sex workers there at a time, and prostitutes can also work on their own (they can advertise on the internet and be listed under “escorts”, etc).
In the UK prostitution is perfectly legal - but the woman better keep quiet about it. She can’t advertise, have a flat for the purpose or even walk in certain areas wearing certain togs.
Having said that the back of most local papers have loads of ads for “massage” services - and they’re not talking tennis elbow.
It’s a hypocritical mess. In Kings Cross in London (a traditional area for this) you will have one governement agency - the police, persecuting the women and another, at the same time in the same place trying to make contact with them (health and drug agencies).
I think people will not be surprised when I add the Netherlands to the list of where it is legal. However, rather unlike our semi-legal position towards soft-drugs, we recently made prostitution fully legal. Limitations are street prostitution, which is still very restricted to certain areas, and many cities don’t want such areas at all and/or have recently closed them down. It’s still not wholly unproblematic, in other words. But other than that, it’s fully legal, taxes and all.
When you say “street prostitution” does that mean the windows like in Amsterdam or actual street-walkers?
What’s the reason for this crackdown? Conservatives elected to the local (or national) governments? A shift in public morals?
IANAL, but as I understand it, the situation in the UK is particularly interesting and peculiarly British. The UK has many laws that are very old and are regarded as having been quietly lapsed although technically they are still in force. Also, there is no written consitution that insists that all laws must be enforceable. All this leads to a certain flexibility.
In general, in recent years authorities have used their powers to discourage steet walkers and their clients while tolerating other forms of prostitution provided they do not cause a public nusiance. As owlstretchingtime says, we get a strange combination of tolerance and harassment. However, there are exceptions such as the new scheme in Liverpool. Is this really legal? I don’t think anybody is really sure.
It is no wonder that we get quotes like this: “We are not proposing a tolerance zone, but an intolerance zone. We will allow prostitutes to work but we will be intolerant of prostitution.”
Well, yes, and no. Yes, it is legal, no- there was no “case of a woman who was threatened with a cut in her unemployment benefit if she refused to accept a job as a prostitute.” In Germany some paper printed that this could be technically true. But the actuality of it seem to be an UL. See the thread in GD or check Snopes.
Dunno, really. One major factor may well be that the majority of 'tutes are foreigners (Chinese and Thai seem to be the majority), and the governors of Tokyo and Kanagawa (as well as the national police) have made no secret of their hostility toward foreigners* of any profession. In any case, they don’t seem to be the least bit intent on touching the ‘legit’ shops, which are run by, employ and service** Japanese.
*The gov. of Kanagawa once praised the Tokyo gov.'s ‘crime prevention’ initiatives, saying “the only downside is now the foreign rats have spread into Kanagawa.” When this comment was met with some outcry, he gave the interesting backpedal of “I didn’t mean all foreigners, only the ones here on work and student visas.” In other words, the ones that can’t vote. Charming individual.
**The sex clubs seem to maintain a pretty strict ‘Japanese only’ policy. I checked out the website of one and found the following assurance (in Japanese, naturally): “All the girls working here are guaranteed to be healthy; we strictly prohibit them from having contact with foreigners.”
I should correct that last comment of mine. The Japanese sex clubs are ‘Japanese only’. The Chinese and Korean massage parlors on the other hand, as well as the Chinese and Thai women working the streets, keep the borders open to all comers. No matter what you look like, a walk through one of the downtown neighborhoods will get you propositioned at least a dozen times.
We’re all over the place here.
The law (IANAL too) is that prostitution itself is not illegal, however advertsising for the purposes of prostitution “soliciting” is illegal.
That sounds simple enough doesn’t it? However what is actually cracked down on is scantily clad women walking in certain areas. Any local paper will have pages of adverts for “Massage” and “Escorts”, and this is tolerated, but illegal.
There is also a rule about how many pros can work on a premisies before it becomes a disorderly house. Again this is almost never enforced. However - here’s a thing: If you phone a brothel (I have been told this by a policeman, not from personal experience), they will only say that they have two women available - to get around this law (no matter how many bints may be actually present).
Our attitude to prostitution is similar to that on cannabis and other recreational drugs - a blind eye is turned to anything that happens in private.
Yeh the motel I used to work for used to allow out-calls only. If they thought someone was a prostitute and doing in-calls then they’d go through the paper and match up mobile numbers to the number on the suspected hookers check-in form. Of course, if that failed, they’d ring all of them whilst standing outside the hotel room door listening for the phone.
I’d always thought hookers would be at least remotely attractive, that was until I worked in a hotel.
Street walkers.
[grammar police]
tsk…tsk…tsk
That should read: “the ways off in which rocks can ge gotten”.
[/grammar police]
I do pedantry, but it’s an extra fifty bucks.
Ha ha ha, you’ve managed to give me, for the first time I might add, an impression of a prostitute that I might actually enjoy. 
(otherwise prostitution has always given me the feeling that it’d be like jerking off in a really big hand. And I think my hands are big enough as they are. )