brothel

Legal status

On 2 December 1949, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. The convention came into effect on 25 July 1951 and by December 2013, had been ratified by 82 states. The convention seeks to combat prostitution, which it regards as "incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person". Parties to the convention agreed to abolish regulation of individual prostitutes and to ban brothels and procuring. Some countries not parties to the convention also ban prostitution or the operation of brothels.

Various United Nations commissions, however, have differing positions on the issue. For example, in 2012, a Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) convened by Ban Ki-moon and backed by United Nations Development Programme and UNAIDS, recommended decriminalization of brothels and procuring.

Prostitution and the operation of brothels is illegal in many countries, though known illegal brothels may be tolerated or laws not strictly enforced. Such situations exist in many parts of the world, but the region most often associated with these policies is Asia. When brothels are illegal, they may nevertheless operate in the guise of a legitimate business, such as massage parlors, saunas or spas.

In a few countries, prostitution and operating a brothel is legal and regulated. The degree of regulation varies widely by country. Most of these countries allow brothels, at least in theory, as they are considered to be less problematic than street prostitution.

In the European Union, there is no uniform policy and no consensus on the issue, and laws vary widely from country to country. The Netherlands has one of the most liberal prostitution policies in the world and attracts sex tourists from many other countries. Amsterdam is well known for its red-light district and is a destination for sex tourism. Germany also has very liberal prostitution laws. The largest brothel in Europe is the Pascha in Cologne.

In Sweden (and in Norway and Iceland outside the EU) the buying, but not selling, of sex, is illegal; in most former Communist countries the laws target the prostitutes; while in countries such as the UK (except Northern Ireland), Italy, and Spain the act of prostitution is not itself illegal, but soliciting, pimping and brothels are, making it difficult to engage in prostitution without breaking any law. The European Women's Lobby condemns prostitution as "an intolerable form of male violence" and supports the "Swedish model".

In February 2014, the members of the European Parliament voted in a non-binding resolution, (adopted by 343 votes to 139; with 105 abstentions), in favor of the Swedish model of criminalizing the buying, but not the selling, of sex.

In parts of Australia, brothels are legal and regulated. Regulation includes planning controls and licensing and registration requirements, and there may be other restrictions to help improve the safety of sex workers, punters (customers of prostitution), and to reduce crime. However, the existence of licensed brothels does not stop illegal brothels from operating. According to a report in the Australian Daily Telegraph, illegal brothels in Sydney in 2009 outnumbered licensed operations by four to one, while in Queensland only 10% of prostitution happens in licensed brothels, with the rest being either independent sex workers (which is legal) or illegal operations.

Brothels are currently illegal throughout the United States, except in 10 rural counties in Nevada. Prostitution outside of the 19 licensed brothels operating in 6 of those 10 counties is illegal throughout the state. All forms of prostitution are illegal in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area. The Dumas Hotel in Butte, Montana, operated legally from 1890 until 1982.

History

The earliest recorded mention of prostitution as an occupation appears in Sumerian records from c. 2400 BCE and describes a temple-bordello operated by Sumerian priests in the city of Uruk. The 'kakum' or temple was dedicated to the goddess Ishtar and housed three classes of women. The first group performed only in the temple sex-rites; the second group had the run of the grounds and catered to its visitors as well, and the third and lowest class lived on the temple grounds but were free to seek out customers in the streets. In later years, sacred prostitution and similar classifications of women existed in Greece, Rome, India, China, and Japan.

Europe

State brothels/bordellos with regulated prices existed in ancient Athens, created by the legendary lawmaker Solon. These brothels catered to a predominantly male clientele, with women of all ages and young men providing sexual services (see Prostitution in ancient Greece). In ancient Rome female slaves were forced to provide sexual services for soldiers, with brothels being located close to barracks and city walls. Brothels existed everywhere. The custom was to display lit candles to signal that they were open.

Before the appearance of effective contraception, infanticide was common in brothels. Unlike usual infanticide—where girls were more likely to be killed at birth—a brothel site at Ashkelon in Israel revealed that nearly all of the babies were boys.

Cities first began setting up municipal brothels between 1350 and 1450 CE. Municipalities often owned, operated, and regulated the legal brothels. Governments would designate certain streets where a keeper could open a brothel. These sections of town were the precursors to so-called "red light districts". Not only did the towns restrict where a keeper could open a brothel, but they also put constraints on when the brothel could be open. For example, most brothels were forbidden to be open on Sundays and religious holidays. Some scholars believe these restrictions were enforced to make the prostitutes go to church but others argue that it was to keep parishioners in church and out of the brothels. Either way, it was a day providing no revenue for the keeper.

Although brothels were set up as a sexual outlet for men, not all men were allowed to enter them. Clerics, married men, and Jews were prohibited. Often, foreigners such as sailors and traders were the main source of revenue. Local men who frequented the brothels were mainly single; laws restricting the patrons were not always enforced. Government officials or police would periodically search the brothels to reduce the number of prohibited customers. However, since the government was so closely related to the church, common punishments were minor. These restrictions were put in place to protect the wives of married men from infections.

Multiple restrictions were placed on the residents of brothels. One limitation prohibited prostitutes from borrowing money from their brothel keeper. Prostitutes paid high prices to the brothel keeper for the basic necessities of room and board, clothes, and toiletries. Room and board pricing was often set by the local government but the price for everything else could add up to a common woman's entire earnings. Prostitutes were sometimes prohibited from having a special lover. Some regulations put on prostitutes were made to protect their clients. A woman was kicked out if she was found to have a sexually transmitted disease. The prostitutes were not allowed to pull men into the brothel by their clothing, harass them in the street, or detain them over unpaid debts. Clothing worn by prostitutes was regulated and had to be distinguishable from that of respectable women. In some places, a prostitute had to have a yellow stripe on her clothing while in others red was the differentiating color. Other towns required harlots to don special headdresses or restricted the wardrobe of proper women. The restrictions placed on prostitutes were put in place not only to protect them but also nearby citizens.

East Asia

Prostitution has existed in ancient China, but it was the politician Guan Zhong (管仲) who planned the brothel system. During the Spring and Autumn period in 645 BC, Qi politician Guan Zhong proposed to set up brothels in the city, and the operation of brothels was officially approved. As many as 700 women were entered into the brothels to work as prostitutes. Guan Zhong named this kind of brothel "Nvlv (女闾)". Most prostitutes in ancient China came from very poor families and were sold to brothels by their families to work as prostitutes. Prostitutes may also be asked by their families to engage in prostitution secretly outside brothels. Some girls are brought to brothels as children begging. There are also women who are resold to brothels by their husbands or lured to brothels by traffickers. The living conditions of prostitutes are not good, but the living conditions of prostitutes in high-end brothels are better than those in low-end brothels. Prostitutes in high-end brothels sell sex to wealthy and educated clients, so some prostitutes will learn some art-related content. However, high-end brothels are still places of prostitution, and prostitutes will still have to take prostitution as their main job. Their performances have a lot of pornographic content, and performances are not a professional field. In ancient China, brothels had different names, and each dynasty may have different names. There were also singing and dancing places in ancient China. These singing and dancing places also had different names, and the names also changed in different dynasties. Song and dance venues in ancient China were not brothels. Gējì were professional female song and dance performers, they were not prostitutes, as most Geji did not engage in prostitution. Geji in ancient China catered to famous poets and nobles. In addition to performing songs and dances, they would also have these men talk about poetry and have pleasant conversations. Prostitution was rarely found, but they would also develop romantic relationships with these men. This Geji culture in ancient China died out systematically during the late Qing dynasty and the Republic of China. Male prostitution also existed in ancient China; open male brothels generally appeared in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and such male brothels were officially similar to semi-open in ancient times. Male prostitutes in male brothels will also learn some arts, but like prostitutes, they are not professional performers. Male prostitutes learn arts to increase the price of prostitution, and their job content is to engage in prostitution. Male performers who are not involved in prostitution are often reluctant to associate with such male prostitutes and openly distance themselves from them. The number of male brothels and male prostitutes is far less than that of female ones, but male brothels only sell sex to wealthy male clients. During the Republic of China, due to social unrest and other problems, there were a large number of brothels and prostitutes in China. After the founding of New China, brothels were closed and prostitution and whoring were made illegal. New China treated prostitutes for sexually transmitted diseases, provided psychological counseling, taught them work skills, and arranged legitimate jobs for them to change careers.

India

The governments of many Indian princely states had regulated prostitution in India prior to the 1860s. The British Raj enacted the Cantonment Act of 1864 to regulate prostitution in colonial India as a matter of accepting a necessary evil so that the British soldiers could seek sexual gratification when away from their homes. The Cantonment Acts regulated and structured prostitution in the British military bases which provided for about twelve to fifteen Indian women kept in brothels called chaklas for each regiment of thousand British soldiers. They were licensed by military officials and were allowed to consort with soldiers only.

Brothels in India came into life in the early 1920s, when dance styles in states like Maharashtra, such as Lavani, and dance-drama performance artists, called Tamasha artists, started working as prostitutes. Such professions were strongly connected to caste and income levels.

United States

From 1911 to 1913, the United States Department of Justice counted the numbers of prostitutes in brothels to use the data against the much-feared "White Slave Traffic". This effort collected information from 318 cities of 26 Eastern states. It estimated about 100,000 women to be working in brothels, yet some estimated the total number of prostitutes to be as high as 500,000.

During the late nineteenth century, brothels in the United States were no secret. George Kneeland articulated his growing concern about the organized sex business in America well, saying that prostitution had grown into a "highly commercialized and profitable business that penetrated the deepest recesses of the political, cultural and economic life of the city." Brothels were commonly referred to as "disorderly houses", and their residents were called by many names, some euphemistic—e.g., abandoned woman, bawd good-time daisy, fallen angel, fille de joie, jeweled bird, lady of the evening, shady lady, soiled dove, wanton woman, and woman of the town—and some less kind—e.g., hooker, slut, and whore. As the 19th century went on, prostitution as a profession became more common, rather than just occasionally necessitated soliciting. As a result of these changes, the way prostitution was practiced changed. Many prostitutes still practiced their trade independently, but the new class of professional prostitutes created a demand for a location to do their regular business, and the brothel served this purpose.

Visitors could easily find disorderly houses by opening up the local or statewide directories, such as the 1895 Travelers' Guide of Colorado. This 66-page manual helped the interested client decide which brothel was right for him. These manuals did not attract by using euphemistic language, and though bold by standards of the time, were not crude. Some examples read: "Twenty young ladies engaged nightly to entertain guest", and "Strangers cordially welcome". In some areas, brothels simply could not be ignored. A nineteenth-century authority describes the city of New Orleans as such: "The extent of licentiousness and prostitution here is truly appalling and doubtless without a parallel in the whole civilized world. The indulgence and practice are so general and common that men seldom seek to cover up their acts or go in disguise."

The average house held five to twenty working girls; some higher-end brothels also employed staff servants, musicians, and a bouncer. The typical brothel contained several bedrooms, all furnished. Some upscale brothels were much larger; such is the case with that owned by Mary Ann Hall of Arlington, Virginia. It is described as "a rather grand house with twenty-five rooms and was enclosed by a brick wall. The interior was elegantly furnished. The principal rooms on the first floor contained large oil paintings, Brussels carpets, red plush 'parlor furniture', étagères (a shelf for small ornaments), and numerous items of silver plate." An archeological dig of the area outside of Mary Ann Hall's estate revealed refuse of a quality superior to that in surrounding working-class areas. This included many champagne bottles and corks, wire cages from such bottles, perfume bottles, high-quality porcelain with gilt edging, along with remnants of exotic foods—coconut shells and berry seeds, bones from beef, fish, and pork indicating that elegant meals were being eaten at this high-class brothel. These "five and ten-dollar parlor houses" attracted wealthy men, who used the facilities much as a gentlemen's social club, where they made business and political connections, met with associates and had exquisite dinners with wine, champagne, and women. Brothels were not only for the wealthy. "One-dollar houses" were visited by those of the working class. A 1910 Kansas vice report compares the two: "A few brothels were equipped with expensive furniture and furnishings including the finest of upholstered chairs, well-done paintings, and costly rugs, while others were hovels of repulsive squalor."

Military brothels

Until recently, in several armies around the world, mobile brothels were attached to the army as auxiliary units, especially attached to combat units on long-term deployments abroad. Because it is a controversial subject, military brothels and the women who provided sex services in them were often designated with creative euphemisms. Examples of such jargon are la boîte à bonbons ("the sweet box"), replacing the term "bordel militaire de campagne". France used mobile brothels during the First World War, the Second World War and the First Indochina War to supply sex services to French soldiers who were facing combat in areas where brothels were unusual, such as at the front line or in isolated garrisons. Brothels were outlawed in France in 1946; but the French Foreign Legion continued to use mobile brothels until the late 1990s.

During the Second World War, women drawn from throughout the Far East were forced into sexual slavery by the occupation armies of Imperial Japan in brothels known as Ianjo. These women were referred to as "comfort women". During the Second World War in Europe, Nazi Germany created military brothels where an estimated 34,140 enslaved women from Nazi-occupied Europe, particularly Poland, were forced to work as prostitutes in brothels.

After the Japanese surrender following the Second World War, the Japanese government formed the Recreation and Amusement Association and recruited 55,000 of its "patriotic women" to "sacrifice themselves" to the G.I. occupation, to protect the chastity of pure Japanese womenfolk.

In South Korea, women who worked as prostitutes for UN forces were called Western princesses. Between the 1950s and 1960s, 60% of South Korean prostitutes worked near the US military bases. Since the mid-1990s, Filipina women have worked as prostitutes for U.S. servicemen in South Korea. In 2010, the Philippine government stopped approving contracts that promoters use to bring Filipinas to South Korea to work near U.S. military bases.

Sex doll brothel

Some new brothels feature only sex dolls, which means that they can operate in jurisdictions which otherwise would ban brothels which offer prostitution. Countries which have or have had sex doll brothels include:

Japan, which has the largest number

France, Paris: Xdolls which the French government deemed not to violate the existing prohibition of brothels

Spain, Barcelona

Germany, Dortmund: Bordoll (closed in 2023)

Australia, Brisbane

Denmark, Aarhus

Proposed in Toronto, Canada but deemed contrary to by-laws in the city