On The Legalisation Of Brothels
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
In 1978 possibly the most celebrated brothel of recent times, run by Cynthia Payne, was closed down by Police after a surveillance operation lasting several months. Following an anonymous tip-off, police observed 259 men and 50 women enter the house in Ambleside Road, Streatham, London, over a period of twelve days. Her subsequent conviction in 1980 and unnecessarily harsh sentence of eighteen months served to highlight the hypocrisy of the law.
Feminist activists have long been quick to point out the anomalous position of the marriage contract, in which men agree to support women for the rest of their lives in return for sexual favours. They point out that this trade is the essence of the prostitution contract. Therefore, the only difference between marriage and prostitution is that one is morally respectable and covered by the law, whilst the other isn’t. If we can accept the logic of this, we are one step closer to legalising prostitution, and with that brothels, which would bring to an end the staggering hypocrisies posed by the law as it currently stands.
The aforementioned case highlights this; ‘Madame Cyn’ received eighteen months incarceration, later reduced to six on appeal. Meanwhile, lawyers, legislating parliamentarians and members of the clergy who were all recipients of Ms. Payne’s social services went free.
A ‘Spectator’ magazine article of the time called for a change in the law, “…so that what passes privately between consenting adults, corrupts no minors, creates no public nuisance, disturbs no neighbours and frightens no horses is no longer a concern of the law, is no longer a matter of curiosity of the police and the prurience of the police”.
Feminist activists have long been quick to point out the anomalous position of the marriage contract, in which men agree to support women for the rest of their lives in return for sexual favours. They point out that this trade is the essence of the prostitution contract. Therefore, the only difference between marriage and prostitution is that one is morally respectable and covered by the law, whilst the other isn’t. If we can accept the logic of this, we are one step closer to legalising prostitution, and with that brothels, which would bring to an end the staggering hypocrisies posed by the law as it currently stands.
The aforementioned case highlights this; ‘Madame Cyn’ received eighteen months incarceration, later reduced to six on appeal. Meanwhile, lawyers, legislating parliamentarians and members of the clergy who were all recipients of Ms. Payne’s social services went free.
A ‘Spectator’ magazine article of the time called for a change in the law, “…so that what passes privately between consenting adults, corrupts no minors, creates no public nuisance, disturbs no neighbours and frightens no horses is no longer a concern of the law, is no longer a matter of curiosity of the police and the prurience of the police”.
