Lie Back And Think Of ... : Ban on sex advertising

So, the Spanish Government is planning to ban the advertising of sex for sale from newspapers. The government is almost certainly right to wish to do so, even if this sounds rather puritanical, a streak I am rarely inclined to display.

There is something of the bizarre about the pages of classifieds for call girls, "massage" and a smattering of rent boys that are to be found in mostly all newspapers locally. The two Spanish dailies in Mallorca have them, as do the nationals, including "El País", which "The Guardian" points out is of a similar left-leaning nature to itself and thus, you would think, in the PC category, and also "ABC", a paper with more than a hint of religious righteousness.

The government, though, is going to cause itself some problems. The newspaper proprietors are unlikely to take a ban lying down, either on their backs or in any other position you may care to imagine. "El País", for example, is a natural ally of the Zapatero government, which can do with all the support it can muster at the moment. There is also a view that banning such advertising would be a curb on free speech, which may be a legitimate argument were it not for the censorious nature of the media when it comes to anything to do with the royal family; overstep the mark and it will land a journalist, or a cartoonist, in the dock before a beak. If the press was wishing to seek a free-speech battleground, this might well be it, and not sleazy ads for well-endowed females.

The sheer volume of these ads can be overwhelming. How much sex can actually be sold? Not enough where the papers are concerned, which already derive significant revenues from the advertising. The papers are also at pains to point out that if the government wants to stop the ads, it should make prostitution illegal. But this argument begins to move into rather murkier territory. Were it the case that the ads were just being placed by some local slapper, then there wouldn't necessarily be much harm in it. However, though a punter calling an ad might indeed end up with the woman of his dreams as opposed to one who might once have appealed to Wayne Rooney, or worse still, looks like Rooney, between that punter and the bed sheets is usually a third-party; pimps of frequently overseas origin - Russian, Nigerian, South American. The anti-ad lobby argues that the ads represent a form of "slavery" for women caught up in the "industry" (and it might add, presumably, some men as well).

The government's move to initiate a ban comes against a background of what seems like a growing willingness on the behalf of the police to move against some so-called "relax" or "alternative" clubs; prostitution may not be illegal, but exploitation and trafficking are. And there is a further dimension to this - the potential link to organised crime.

In one respect, the adverts reflect a rather reassuringly un-PC element in local society, but it is what lies behind the ads that the government (and police) are right to take an interest in. The papers may not like a ban, but they are probably going to have to learn to live without the income that prostitute advertising brings them.

* I acknowledge the source of some of the above from "The Guardian" - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/16/spain-sex-adverts-newspapers

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.