Heine on Friday - Why the moral panic on brothels isn’t warranted

On Tuesday evening, I went shopping in Summertown at Tesco’s. A woman in front of me was moving slowly in the narrow aisle. I decided to squeeze past but our baskets clanged. She looked up, “Oh, sorry, Bill.” I looked surprised.

“You don’t remember me, do you? We met often several years ago. I know quite a lot about you.”

That had a ominous ring. “Yes, you’re right,” I said. “I don’t know who you are. Could you refresh my memory please?”

“Sasha. We met at Sasha’s,” she smiled.

No obvious clue here. Sasha could be male or female. Some musician friends had tried to introduce me to “Sacha” Hamilton, married to the Duke of Abercorn, and I remember meeting a Russian film director called Sasha.

When she saw my blank look, she lowered her voice in the milk aisle at Tesco and said “At her brothel in Middle Way, just around the corner. I was the receptionist, and I’ve brewed you several cups of tea.”

“Oh, really? Did I take milk?

The question threw her for a moment. “I didn’t work that often to get to know the details of the regulars, just helped out on the odd days. I met Sasha when we were both studying psychology and she felt she could call on me.

“Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I’ve never been to Sasha’s brothel and I’ve never met you,” I said firmly.

“Oh yes you have, many times … or at least the man looked just like you, talked like you and even said he was Bill Heine.

“Now let me get this straight. You think I walked into a brothel, went up to complete strangers and said ‘Do you know who I am?’.”

“There were some unusual people there. Sasha’s was the brothel at 28 Middle Way which the police raided in 2007.”

“Oh that one! Yes, of course, I know about it. I’ve written about that brothel and talked about it on my BBC Radio Oxford programme; but I’ve never visited. Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, getting ready to move on to the croissants aisle.

“I know this might be a bit cheeky,” she persisted, “but did you drive here?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well I had a knee operation about six weeks ago and as you can see the main thong of my white slipper sandles has just broken. I live only two streets away. Can you give me a lift home?”

“I’m terribly sorry, but my car is full,” I explained. “ I’ve been gardening today and the passenger’s seat is loaded with bags of weeds and rubbish”

“Oh, that’s alright, I can sit on top of rubbish,” she suggested.

“Well as much as I would like to help, I can’t.” I repeated that four more times to each of her additional requests because sometimes ‘a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’ I went back to the BBC and recounted the scene to the TV presenter Geraldine Peers who had just finished the eight o’clock news. She was quietly aghast. “So someone has suggested you went all the way in Middle Way?” she assured me nothing like that had ever happened to her.

But even without experience, I do have an opinion about brothels.

What do you do with a problem called Maria or Sasha or the Kitten Club, and why is it a "problem"? Why should we consider a brothel in the neighbourhood to be a "bad thing"? Some would argue if there were no brothels, the girls would be on the streets, and what would that do to the tone of the neighbourhood?

Others argue that if sex workers are not being exploited, a brothel is a business just like any other. If a man decides he has enough money, £80 to £100 to purchase something that is not illegal and willingly offered for sale, what harm is involved?

Flashback: A leaflet distributed locally about the Summertown brothel in 2007

After three years the penny dropped in North Oxford and people rang my BBC Radio Oxford programme to complain in an understated way about everything but the elephant called "Sasha and Friends" in the corner of the bedroom – parking problems in narrow streets, pollution from people sitting in cars waiting in queues and noise, especially groans from first-floor open windows in summer. A few wanted to talk about human trafficking and women from Kosovo and Albania being forced into the sex trade.

Several locals were incensed and thought that a brothel was a magnet for morally bankrupt men and created a place where "perverts are visiting until the early hours". They went further and pointed out that ‘this is ruining the reputation of our much loved Summertown’; and they suggested a brothel would "contaminate" the area, be a blight on house prices and a threat to the safety of their children.

Because a brothel amounts to opening a business "on the wild side", the madams can get away with things that business people on the civilised side can’t. They slip through all the loopholes: no insurance, no health and safety checks, no corporation tax, no VAT, no business rates and no planning approval. If anyone else but sex workers set up a business from home, the Establishment would come down like a wolf on the fold.

Eventually fifteen police officers with truncheons drawn broke into the Summertown brothel and closed it down in 2007. This did little to calm the natives; their cages had been rattled. But it did re-open a debate started by the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police at the end of the century about legalising brothels. He argued that current laws on prostitution are absurd and that licensed brothels would get prostitution off the streets and allow for thorough health checks and taxation.

It’s a dilemma that is one of those national "no go" areas which combines moral choice, public health, sex trafficking, safety and harm reduction. The arguments are clear and passionate from all angles.

The politicians don’t make either an ethical or a practical choice, so the game of Russian roulette continues and of course, the result is that both prostitutes and clients die, That’s the one thing that nobody disputes.

So people take their case to the local BBC radio station and get it off their chests, but they never quite get it onto the political agenda.