10.1. Discussion Topics.

Does your country have an open mind towards the adult entertainment industry? Nothing shows the difference between cultures more than our differing attitudes to sex. Just about every country seems to have contradictory attitudes on the subject. Americans are prudish about putting topless women and love-making scenes in their films, but are the largest producers of hard-core films. (After years of industriously researching this book, the author can conclude that the Germans come a close second.) The Dutch are famous for their open-mindedness, and look at how well-balanced that magnificent race of people are. They speak such beautiful English too, which obviously proves…something.

Can a healthy love life and good English be related?

Does that mean that because the Spanish speak the worst English that they are also the worst in bed? I once had a Spanish girlfriend, and she wasn’t…. well…. very good at….

Perhaps the most false stereotype about the British is that they are sexually repressed. This is simply untrue. Just look at your teacher. What a veritable God of sexuality! Perhaps we are not as liberal thinking as the Dutch, but statistics show that Britain has a multi-million pound adult industry, a much lower than average age for losing their virginity, an outrageously high number of unwanted teenage pregnancies, and a fairly open-minded attitude to sexual relationships.

Does your city have a ‘red light’ district? What is it like in comparison with those of Amsterdam and Hamburg? They call prostitution ‘the oldest business’. Should it be legal? How legal is prostitution in your country? Trying to clean up and hide away the business of prostitution and sex only encourages the underworld of crime, criminals and exploitation. Discuss.

Private adult sex between consenting adults is legal in Britain. Virtually all other aspects of prostitution such as ‘soliciting’, ‘kerb-crawling’ ($ street-walking) and ‘pimping’ (the ‘management’ of prostitutes) are not.

London’s has several ‘red light districts’. The area Soho is the respectable side of the business. This part of central London has a multitude of ‘sex shops’ ‘peep shows’ and strip clubs, all of which are largely ‘respectable’. You certainly won’t see topless prostitutes in the window of shops, like you do in Amsterdam. The sleazier, less glamorous parts of town include King’s Cross, where there is a lot of prostitution, underage ‘hookers’, and illegal immigrants forced into the business, who are often ‘owned’ by ‘pimps’.

It is arguable that most crime related to the sex industry is related to these mafias that run the business. We have, perhaps, a ‘romanticised’ view of what prostitution is, thinking that the majority of prostitutes were independent women working and making money for themselves.

The reality is more likely to be that they are exploited, immature victims, brought illegally into the country from places such as Kosova or Albania, who work for a pittance (very little money) and are regularly beaten or abused by their pimps. If this is the case, then legal, controlled and sanitised prostitution must be a serious proposition. The Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales are experimenting with banning street prostitution, but semi-legalising it in certain ‘zones of tolerance’ and ‘massage parlours’ in the style of the role model of those wonderful Dutch people.