Of course I would not claim that brothels are “safe and free solutions” to sex work. Indeed, regulation at all might not be the way to go, since it comes with its own perils.

You mentioned “exploitation”, but I find that word, along with “trafficking”, get very muddled in debates over sex work. Labelling the entire institution as exploitative gets us nowhere — it both obscures genuine instances of exploitation (which can be dealt with through forced confinement and other such statutes) and silences those voices who oppose such labelling of their own experiences.

I would highly recommend reading Agustín’s blog for further information on this topic, if you are interested.

Whatever one thinks of the role of women’s agency in entering sex work, to normalize brothels as the safe and free solution to sex work is deeply disingenuous and requires ignoring the working conditions of women in legal and illegal brothels around the world, including ones that look like these. I appreciate this series of images but am afraid that I take the opposite impression from them than that which Ms. Agustin intended. i appreciate the way that they show how sex work is a normalized part of many different communities, but that in itself does not mean that the work or the working conditions are acceptable. It merely normalizes the exploitation even futher.

For instance, the image “Soldiers’ brothel (France, WWII)” is clearly a depiction of Nazi soldiers entering a brothel that was formerly a synagogue. I’m not sure how that helps change the image of sex workers, but it is incredibly jarring for anyone who can decipher the (none-too-hidden) subtext.

Part of the point, I think, is that given their appearances, brothels might be more pervasive than we notice. The banality of their exteriors is also at odds with other images we may associate with prostitution, which can challenge our perspectives and acknowledge that these places are less “other” and more a part of our every day communities.

I am also not convinced that this is supposed to be an exercise to get those who are already steeped in the study of sex workers or their lives. I think it might be intended to get those who don’t think about these issues regularly to consider them more carefully. Perhaps it is geared directly at those who are in the moral “uproar” about sex work as indicated in this quote at the top of the post:

“With all uproar focused on the morality of buying and selling sex, most people have little idea what much of the sex industry actually looks like. Or rather, the media repeatedly show the same images of women in short skirts and high boots leaning into car windows, giving the impression that street hooking is the dominant situation, which is far from the truth. And, of course, we are constantly shown horrifying images of the worst sites and victims of trafficking and exploitation…”

In other words, I think Molly makes a sound point about the need to show more brothels from outside of Europe and the U.S.; but I think that these images help to show prostitution and sex work as a set of concerns that are relevant to any community and their problems are not those of the other, they are problems that should concern us all because these brothels are clearly integrated into “regular” communities (at least in the US and European context).

Also, is the question that we should be focusing on here really that of the exterior? It seems to me that what a brothel looks like on the outside matters far less than what is going on on the inside and in the individual lives of the sex workers. Shouldn’t our focus be not on the exterior presentation, but on whether or not we’re looking at the homes of sex workers with agency and some measure of safety, or that of sexually trafficked people (mostly women) working against their will? How does looking at a building help us address either end of the spectrum, or those in between?