Opinion Legalising Brothels
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X9506800201 |
| Published date | 01 April 1995 |
| Author | James Morton |
| Date | 01 April 1995 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
OPINION
Legalising
Brothels
James Morton
Following on from
the
review of
the
law on sexual offences (see
www.sexualoffencesbill.homeoffice.gov.uk
and
Protecting the Public,
Cm 5668, November 2002), press reports at
the
end
of 2003 have
announced
that
the
government
is considering licensing brothels
and
creating
managed
areas or toleration zones to combat street prostitution.
This comes at a time
when
more
and
more
women
are being exploited
in
the
sex trade, often by organised crime groups
such
as
the
triads
and
criminals from
the
former Eastern bloc countries.
The laws relating to sex,
patchworked
over
the
years, are, of course,
both
complex
and
contradictory. Prostitution itself is
not
illegal,
but
it is
unlawful
for
two
women
to
work
out
of
shared
premises. Complete sex
does
not
have
to take place for a
woman
to commit
an
act of prostitu-
tion. That was established in Rvde Munck [1918] 1 KB 635. At
the
extreme
end
of
the
scale in his book, The Lesbian, D. W. Cory cites
the
case of a lesbian
who
remained
intacta by only permitting
her
clients to
practise cunnilingus. She too fell into
the
definition of prostitute.
What
is also
not
permitted
is living off
the
earnings of prostitutes or
controlling prostitution. There
have
been
some
anomalies. As
the
jour-
nalist
and
barrister,
the
late
Fenton
Bresler,
pointed
out
in his enter-
taining Sex
and
the
Law
(Frederick Muller: London, 1988), technically a
businessman
who
rents asmall flat for himself
and
his friends to use for
sex
with
extra-marital
partners
is guilty of
brothel
keeping. This is surely
not
what
the
legislators
had
in mind. More seriously, in 1995 at
South-
wark
Crown
Court, Susan Pando
was
acquitted of controlling prosti-
tutes. The
judge
found
that
there
was no evidence
that
the
prostitutes
were
subject to
her
'control, direction or influence'. This
brought
an
angry
comment
from
the
police
who
pointed
out
that
in
such
cases
the
men
behind
the
operation
would
go unscathed. All
that
needed
to be
done
was
that
a
woman
be
put
in charge along
with
some
notional
contracts
that
the
prostitutes
were
self-employed
and
no offence
would
be committed.
Statistics in
the
industry
are
notoriously difficult to come by,
but
towards
the
end
of
the
last
century
in a survey for The London Programme
(LWT)
it was estimated
that
in
London
the
turnover
from flats, saunas,
clubs
and
bars
with
hostesses was in excess of £250 million annually.
It
was
thought
that
about
one
in sixteen
men
between
the
ages of 20
and
40
purchased
sex. There is also a lucrative spin-off industry in
the
placing of advertisements in
the
form of cards in
telephone
kiosks. Those
employed
in this off-shoot
can
earn
about
£100 a day.
It is accepted
that
authorities in various cities
have
permitted
what
may
perhaps
be described as unofficially recognised brothels in
the
form
87
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