Should prostitution be legalised?

As I've never had power or money hadn't associated the two.

Power is a strong aphrodisiac too.

I'd like to throw another curved ball into the pot. Before we start, I have no specific views, but there does often seem a common denominator, beautiful people and money.

How often do we see old and sometimes unattractive (IMO) people with young attractive partners on their arms. Is this love as we know it or is it money that makes the attraction. ?

I suppose the terms sugar daddy and toy boy come to mind.

grumppa, thanks for being gracious in correcting my post and accepting I hadn't meant to misrepresent you. Your summary of where things on this thread began to go wrong isn't far out either. Penstommon probably speaks for most of us in her post on 15.03.16 at 23.02.
How many asylum seeking women, men, boys and girls are being trafficked into the sex industry? Unimaginable numbers I suspect. I am not convinced that decriminalisation would help the most vulnerable.

In Italy last year we took an excursion and on the coach trip noticed in many places along the dual carriage way route there were girls being pimped..sitting on car bonnets ' in their underwear (it was not warm)with a driver in the car. I know prostitution is all around us but found it quite shocking and saddening . Most of the girls were black so presumed they were in desperate circumstances and coerced/forced/beaten into prostitution. This group of women may be quite different to those who may chose to work in a 'regulated' house.

It is a difficult situation. If I thought that providing a safe , healthy and regulated service would also reduce the 'demand' for the women controlled by men/business/gangs due to traficking/abuse/illegal immigration I would back the proposals 100%. I just worry it could push the darkest side of prostitution into murkier places.

Of course both of you are 'of us'!

Actually, Iam64, I drew attention to another poster's comment that there was a continuing problem in Amsterdam, and said it pointed to one of the difficulties of ensuring effective legislation. I can live with being told I'm not one of us, but I would rather not be misrepresented, although I accept it was unintentional.

Reviewing the thread, I think it started to go wrong when Ab lightheartedly questioned the feasibility of brothels in market towns because of the gossip factor (the Llaregyb factor as we fans of Dylan Thomas call it), and I made a joke about country life with no particular region in mind. Ab took it as a reference to Wales, and the whole thread degenerated into a mass of accusations of sexism (in both directions), racism, and heaven knows what else.

May I suggest that this "degeneration" took place because there was a fundamental agreement that prostitution should be legalised, but nobody was quite sure what to do about the practicalities? So we ran out of real things to discuss.

Finally, as a half-Welshman, let me say that it is murder tracing a family tree when one has one of the most common Welsh surnames and one's family along with many others has favoured a very popular man's Christian name. On my English side, one strand took me back to Wales in the 16th century, where I hit the problem of Welsh patronymics and other researchers' misunderstanding of ap and verch. Ab, you have my sympathy.

Talk about prejudices showing on so many fronts.
Anniebach, you mentioned you know a man who uses prostitutes. Well, I know a footballers wife. She'd be absolutely horrified to be stereotyped as someone who'd get a black eye if she looked at another man. She is a lovely young woman, with her own business who just happened to meet and fall in love with a young man who plays footi for a local team. I'm genuinely lost as to the connection between the OP, Julie Birchill's views and the Saudi and Windsor families.
A word of support for JessM who has pointed out that inappropriate humour isn't acceptable for her.
I think it was Grumppa who suggested that if we had a designated red light area as they do in Amsterdam, it wouldn't spill over into residential areas. If only is my response to that one. Having lived in a residential area that shared a main road with the red light area (no it was designated but we all, including the police, knew exactly where it was. I was harassed every day, morning and afternoon when escorting children to and from school. I didn't want to explain to my 6 and 7 year olds why the streams of men in cars kept pulling up, driving along side us and asking 'are you working" "how much love" - I feel the need to stress I was wearing perfectly respectable jeans and sweat shirts - not the stereotypical prostitute dress.

To return to the OP - yes I can see arguments for legalising/decriminalising and for keeping things as they are. I suspect decriminalising soliciting would help the men/women boys/girls working the streets to avoid arrest. Otherwise, it wouldn't do anything to keep them safer

But we can't all be lumped together as us (apart from pompa and grumppa apparently) because, as pointed out, you are dealing with people you don't know well
- in fact people you don't know at all.
Or very few in RL

I'll join you.

Looks like we need our own forum Grumpa.

That's the rest of "us" put firmly in our place, then.

And by "us" I mean a bunch of grown up people who normally have the maturity not to make others the butt of inappropriate humour. Who realise that certain types of humour may work in one's normal social setting but here you need to tread more carefully because you are dealing with people you don't know well, and doing so in a public forum. And who have the grace to apologise when they have offended rather than playing the "you've got no sense of humour" card. Or even the "women don't have a sense of humour" card.

Beyond my comprehension janeainsworth - too much jargon and in-jokes. She lost me completely.

It was a quote from the article bags linked to in the OP, ab.
Hence my reference to the OP and my use of quotation marks.

Oh the burchill opinion. Difficult to comment on that, I fully agreed with the talks with Northern Ireland but did have problems with Cameron and PoW grovelling to the royals in Saudia Arabia and this country flying flags at half mast following the death of their ruler. Perhaps it's acceptable with the
Saudia royals because they give the most fantastic jewels to the windsors and we make a lot of money selling arms to Saudia Arabia.

Going back to partridge, we have had a red-legged one perambulating around the garden this afternoon.
He did not answer to 'Alan'.

As you were, back to thread.

Oh I thought they were your own claims Janeaworth not you quoting someone else

Since when have the Welsh been a race? misses point of thread

Read the article yourself ab

What gangsters does Corbyn Cosy up to?

Coming back to the OP, you just gotta love Julie Burchill, don't you?

"Whenever I think of Jeremy Corbyn’s nasty habit of cosying up to any goon-squad gangster going, I can’t help but recall Alan Partridge swivelling about on a makeshift stage in his Y-fronts for a silent thug at a ringside seat: “Ooo, scary Irish men! I like your berets! Would you like me to lapdance for you?” "

I fully expect this to produce a series of pro-Corbyn diatribes.

I bow to your expertise on your knowledge of Welsh parish records Elegran, I only transcribe for several Welsh county archives so what would I know

Pompa If you live within reach of a Mormon Family history Centre, you can order microfilm of old parish records to view there. They have filmed original data from all over the globe.

The vicar of a Church of England church in Wales would have recorded events (or not recorded them) in the same way as a vicar in a similar church in England would have recorded them (or not) and the record would have survived (or not) much the same.

OK, William son of David - but if the Welsh distinguished their children by the given name of their father and no other differentiation, it is hardly the fault of the vicar who recorded what he was told. In a village with a dozen Williams and Davids baptised every year (at a minimal estimate) with several of their fathers being William or David, that is bound to cause problems when someone is looking back from modern times. William David himself could probably recite his pedigree back several centuries, but if it wasn't written down, it is now lost.

Not everything that irks you is the fault of the English.