[Slight hijack hooker story] When I worked in West Philadelphia selling vehicle diagnostic products, I was headed to the Philly School District maintenance garage for a demo one late fall morning. An attractive black lady was on the opposite corner wearing a calf-length fur coat and heels. Nice makeup, well coiffed-she was hot. This is 7AM-there’s nobody around and when the light changed green, she opened her coat to display her impressive assets. I waved and smiled while thinking, (as Al Pacino observed in Scent of a Woman) HOO-Ah![/SHHS]
Beauty is but a lightswitch away.
I’ve seen some pretty ugly ones hidden around the back of the Oude Kerk. Also in some of the side alleys on the eastern edge of the red-light district towards the Nieuwmarkt.
These are the poor women practically breaking the glass of their doors hammering on it desperately to get anyone’s attention.
I have the feeling the Johns who pick up these women look just as rough, if not worse.
People who travel down that road are very often drug and/or alcohol abusers, and over time those things destroy your body…these women probably also suffer abuse at the hands of their customers, pimp or significant other.
Right, but it’s not the legalization of prostitution that’s caused the problem. It’s the legalization of prostitution plus restrictive zoning that has fucked it up.
True enough, but the problem isn’t the legalization itself; it’s the way in which the legalization was undertaken, and the attitudes of the rest of the community.
After they decriminalized prostitution in Australia (or the state of New South Wales, which is where i’m originally from), some areas underwent similar changes to those described by Case Sensitive. The problem was that, while a pretty high proportion of the state’s residents agreed that decriminalizing prostitution was a good idea for all the reasons you might think (health, safety, easier oversight, etc.), most of these same people wanted prostitution decriminalized someplace else. That is, they suffered from a severe (but rather typical) case of NIMBYism.
Whenever a brothel tried to open up and operate legally under the new legislation, a bunch of “concerned citizens” would do everything possible to ensure that its application would be rejected. Under this sort of pressure, it turned out that most brothels ended up operating exactly where they had always operated—in the poorer, drug-ridden neighbourhoods—or else they operated illegally, ensuring that none of the benefits of decriminalization were realized.
Funny brothel anecdote:
I lived in an inner-city area in Sydney, and there were a few brothels within a half-mile or so, mostly in regular houses. You would only know they were brothels if you were a customer, or if you lived in the area and got used to seeing the comings and going of the clients.
Anyway, apparently sometimes these houses changed hands and new tenants would move in, because one house just around the corner from us had a sign written in black marker next to the front door which said:
“This house is NOT a brothel. It is now a private residence. Please do not knock on the door and ask for sex.”
Unfortunately, drug addiction leads many women down a path of prostitution, to which they’re not really happy about and are only doing for more drugs in order to numb themselves for what they’re doing to get more drugs.
That having been said, I know a lot of high-end escorts, and - hey, they’re happy with what they do, are proud of it. It’s a choice they made, and a damn lucrative one.
AIM (Adult Industry Medical) at www.aim-med.org offers monthly testing for sex workers in the adult industry, but has recently opened their doors to anyone working in the sex industry. If these facilities were more readily available, were completely confidential and provided by people who DIDN’T look down on them or talk down to them for what they were doing, a lot more women/men might get in there more often and get tested. Once in the door, they may be able to see what other opportunities lie out there for them, with classes, job training, referrals to job assistance and skill assessment, and we could do a lot to bring people back into the fold.
Having said all that - I think it’s crap to illegalize prostitution but make it completely legal to own a gun. One can take your life, and one can satisfy a need to alleviate loneliness, a need to feel desired, even if it’s for a moment, or much needed sexual relief. There’s no doubt that a prostitute who provides un-safer-sex can have the same effect of a gun, but there are ways to remedy that. And it’s a proven working model, in places like Amsterdam and in certain areas of Nevada. Checkups twice a week or once a month, constant testing, no contact until results are confirmed…this can be a working model. And think of the taxes you could collect!!!
But I’ve about given up. This country has turned sex into something naughty that needs to be driven underground again, where it will definitely turn into a lethal - in more ways than one - solution. I mean - what the hell - sex is GOOD for you!
But the FBI is on a witch hunt these days too and several beautiful internet sites have been closed recently because their erotic artwork or writing “pushes” the buttons. Since when is erotica a crime? And dammit, why should pornography be a crime? It’s completely consensual! Fer fuck’s sake, you’re not going to have sex in a room with at least ten other people watching and a camera if you’re not comfortable with your own sexuality and what you do with it.
This pushes my buttons. I am one of the people who could be drastically and devastatingly affected by the “enhanced” 2257 laws, which are COMPLETE and utter B*st. My livelihood is on the line because I talk about art, and sex, and sexuality and differences in chosen lifestyles in an effort to educate others. But I could be nailed too. No one is safe.
So if you’ve a little fantasy written in your LJ or blog or something online - take it down. Or find Johnny G-Man on your doorstep carrying away your Dell. It’s happening to friends of mine already. Other friends are leaving their lifelong professions - professions they enjoy and are good at and would like to continue but are afraid of the modern day Salem witch-trials.
Sorry …rant over…hijack over…just a hot button for me these days.
Inky
Well, the national laws are all fine and good, but the problem was that when the brothels were operating illegally, they flew under the radar as far as health and safety issues were concerned. The market pretty much decided which ones were clean and safe and which weren’t: the more expensive ones didn’t want any trouble with the cops and wanted the high-paying customers, so it was in their interest to have their places clean, upscale, and with no 14 year old girls looking for the price of a hit of meth.
As soon as they became legit, they automatically came under the purview of the local authorities, the tax man, the Health Department, OSH {Occupational Safety And Health - the government department charged with making sure that workplaces are safe and clean} and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. Since most of the upscale places had pretty much been playing by the rules anyway {well, except maybe the taxman’s rules} to keep the cops away and the punters returning, the only one that really bit was the local authorities.
They wanted to keep the parlours/brothels confined in the red light districts - in Auckland, a couple of strips in town - which tended to be where the dodgier places were anyway, but a lot of the better places were operating quietly away from the main action or in the suburbs, where rents were cheaper, places bigger, and it was more discreet for the customers. The local authorities couldn’t circumvent the national laws, but they could certainly add their own bylaws about where the brothels could operate, what kind of signage they could have, whether they could operate at street level, that kind of thing.
Pretty much the same regulations they could apply to any business, but unfortunately prostitution was an unpopular one with residents of the inner suburbs, where as mentioned a lot of the classier places operated. While they were illegal and thus didn’t exist the councils and the locals couldn’t do much - and the places kept pretty quiet so as not to antagonise anyone - but once the brothels showed up on radar the authorities could come up with bylaws that would be extremely difficult to comply with, in order to have them closed down or moved into the rats’ nests of vice in town.
It’s not wholly the fault of the councils: it was a fairly contentious piece of legislation from a left-wing government anyway, opposed mostly on moral and “social engineering” grounds, and the councils were suddenly pretty much charged with regulating and enforcing the operation of brothels that they couldn’t ignore any more, in the face of angry residents and with no extra staffing or resources to cope. It was bad government planning, and most local authorities simply opted for the path of least resistance and tried create restrictive bylaws to shunt them all back into Fort St and K Rd where decent people wouldn’t have to look at them and where they’d be easier to keep an eye on.
Instead, as I said, the brothels either went underground, with no implicit threat of the cops to keep them clean and safe, or the prostitutes themselves went out on the street: the end result was that prostitution became more rather than less dangerous and unhealthy. I’m not arguing against the legalisation of prostitution - it was definitely hypocritical when a prositute could be charged for soliciting sex but a customer couldn’t for having that sex - simply pointing out what happens when well-meaning but ill-thought out laws are passed and then left to the enforcement of people who have neither the inclination nor the resources to police them.
Or, on preview, what Marley23 said,
As far as the OP goes, I think we’ve been conditioned by movies to think that street hookers all look like Milan catwalk models on casual Friday: The Last Action Hero pretty well took the piss out of this, when the cop and the kid walk through the police station and all the women who’ve been busted are drop-dead gorgeous and wearing hot pants and thigh boots. The reality is more Hrothgar than Julia Roberts.
Yes, and they probably won’t be there for long. I’m not saying ugly women don’t take up prostitution, they do. And also, I guess there’s a market for everything. But on the whole, the Amsterdam prostitutes can be described as “attractive to just plain hot 18 to 26 year old girls from South America or Eastern Europe”.
All right, I can’t swear on the accuracy of that 18 limit…
But I’d think the uglier ones you saw probably won’t outlast the 20 year old Polish hottie next door. That’s all I’m saying.
Now, behind Central Station, that’s where you’d find the junkie whores. Illegal, but it still happens. Frightening. And very sad.
This story from today’s NZ Herald, although it deals with a sex shop rather than a brothel, pretty neatly exemplifies the problems I was talking about earlier {Ponsonby is an expensive, trendier-than-thou inner city suburb, Fort St and K Rd are the traditional red light areas}.