For a brief moment it all seemed too real. I was on a tour of Cleos on Nile, a luxurious themed brothel in Brisbane's Woolloongabba, when a gruff, grey, hairy man in workman's clothes popped out of one of the rooms.

"I'm the new boy here," he said in a faux seductive, breathy whisper.

Initially I was taken aback, but then, after a moment’s consideration, I recalled that Cleos on Nile doesn't offer male prostitutes. Why did I know this? I was in too deep.

The workman, of course, was not the newest employee at Cleos but was carrying out some minor renovations. After being given a full blown tour (no, not that type of tour), including a funky disco themed room, the S&M parlour and the very busy Iaundry you can easily grow suspicious of reality.

But that is what legal brothels are about: creating a fantasy world where societal rules are temporarily non existent Your job, status, income, hair loss (or abundance), shape, weight eye colour, star sign, ingrown toenail or conversational ability is irrelevant. And all it costs is $220 an hour.

Ray Van Haven has dabbled in the industry for decades In his native Holland, he helped set up red light districts before moving to Australia and working for a construction firm, a glass company and as a financial planner and stockbroker.

"I've had a colourful life so far, no one was surprised when I went into the business here," Van Haven, Iicensee of The Oasis at Sumner Park, says.

"I've been to Syria, Egypt all through the Middle East, even Islamic societies... I've been everywhere and not one place have I not seen prostitution." Van Haven, 49, says one of the biggest hurdles for legal brothels is the community perception that conflates both the legal and illegal sex industries.

"We're like any other company, we pay taxes," he says

"We test the clients for any STIs and for some of them it's often a bit of a revelation. We have clients who come back and say 'Thanks for letting me know, I've had it all fixed up... now lets go!"'.

In terms of public health we have a lot to do with limiting the spread of STIs (sexually transmitted infections).

Nick Inskip was the chief executive officer of a manufacturing company before he became one of three licensees to open Queensland's first legal brothel, Purely Blue, in Brisbane.

The two other licensees of Purely Blue have the diverse backgrounds that characterise the licensees of the legal industry. One is a former social worker with a degree in theology and who trained to be a priest while the other used to be a civil engineer.

Inskip says the realities of spinning a profit in a tightly regulated business environment ensures the novelty wears off quickly.

"We have 22 licensed brothels now in Queensland and few of them are doing well.... I don't think that suggests a healthy industry," he says.

Aside from the significant financial considerations, Inskip says the social implications of starting a legal brothel can be just as testing.

`Anybody going into the industry quickly finds out if they have friends or not... but you gain a whole new set of friends," Inskip says.

In Queensland, legal brothels don't actually employ prostitutes. Instead, the sex workers, according to the law, are treated as private contractors who pay the brothel for the room hire, just as the client does.

The expenses involved with setting up a brothel are prohibitive to say the least. Aside from the $20,000 paid to the Prostitution Licensing Authority (PLA) every year, the running costs (just think of all those dirty sheets that need to be laundered) can be astronomical. Because none of these costs have to be covered by the prostitutes, some licensees, including Nick Inskip, put forward the highly dubious claim that legal brothels are in fact large "charitable institutions".

One of the most interesting licensees in the industry is "a brothel owner who wishes to remain unnamed", an articulate Buddhist who describes his interest in prostitution as "academic".

Prior to opening Resort Two Six in Crestmead, south of Brisbane, "a brothel owner who wishes to remain unnamed", who has a PhD in organisational psychology from the University of Queensland, co-founded the School of Justice Studies at QUT and lectured part time in the university's Master of Laws program.

With such an esteemed career, some people close to "a brothel owner who wishes to remain unnamed", were shocked and disappointed when he left an academic role behind to open a brothel.

"There were two women who were close to me with whom I decided to be honest with.... When I truthfully told them what I was doing both of them eventually confided to me they could no longer be my friend."

While many licensees paint a merry picture of a legal brothel that attracts high achieving, highly educated, confident women, "a brothel owner who wishes to remain unnamed", is perhaps more realistic.

"I've learned that there is, in my experience, a very high rate of childhood physical or sexual abuse amongst the service providers," he says.

Resort Two Six has so far struggled to make a profit and this has clearly taken its toll on the beleaguered "a brothel owner who wishes to remain unnamed".

"If I had my time over it would have taken me less than a microsecond to answer loudly and negatively no [to opening a brothel]... we're finding it near impossible to make any profit and we're not the only brothel in the same position."

University of Queensland Professor of Medical Sociology Jake Najman has studied prostitution in Queen~ for many years and says that, morality aside, the issue should be about keeping the vulnerable members of the industry sate.

"I'm a public health worker, and our position is to find ways that the industry can safely operate and you can only do that if the industry isn't clandestine."

Najman rebukes the behaviour of some -pressure groups" who insist prostitution is an avoidable moral failing that should remain a crime.

"Remember ... that a number of these workers provide [services] for men who would not be able to obtain this on any other way.... Men who get an enormous amount of pleasure from this service in an otherwise very difficult life.'

Results of a community survey conducted by the PLA and published in the January 2005 edition of In Touch the newsletter for the sex industry, revealed that three out of four respondents held the view that prostitution should be legal and that a majority of people held the view that prostitution should be seen as an occupation like any other (although the last point was held by a much slimmer majority).

Vocal opponents of the industry include recently resigned Toowoomba City Councillor Lyle Shelton.

Shelton blames Queensland's growing acceptance of brothels on society's failure to 'teach the young what is right another banished concept in today's post-modern world'

He suggests a Swedish model of prostitution reform that makes it a crime for a man to buy sex from a woman and thereby "turning the gender power tables'.

But when three out of four Queenslanders agree with the legalising of prostitution in the state, his message may be falling on deaf ears.

"Try that logic [banning all prostitution] with the prohibition on car stealing, drink driving or paedophilia... technically, none of these prohibitions has worked, but they minimise social harm", he says.

Comparing legal prostitution - an activity carried out between consenting adults - to automobile theft and drink driving is a irresponsible assertion but, at the very least, indicative of the level of emotion and ideology that many attach to the issue.

Lynette Black worked as both a sex worker and a brothel operator in Queensland long before it was legalised.

"I started massaging back in '86 and then one thing led to another," she says.

"I think I'm one of the only licensees who has been a sex worker."

She now owns Cleos on Nile, the aforementioned Egyptian themed brothel discretely tucked away on Woolloongabba's Nile St (get it?).

The sex workers are well looked after and Black admits it's because of her experience as a "working girl".

But of course there are personal challenges also. Black, who was recovering from breast augmentation surgery at the time of the interview, has just moved in with her boyfriend and is caught between a job she loves (operating as a sole trader) and the boyfriend she loves (who wants her to give it up).

"You've just got to get a boyfriend who is very understanding... then again you've just got to make a decision," she says.

As for future business plans, Black is currently negotiating to purchase The Peep in the Valley, but remains reluctant to relinquish the job that has provided her with financial independence, self confidence and pleasure for nearly two decades.

'Anyway that's my debate for the next few weeks."

As I wrote and researched this story I often found myself locked in heated debates with intelligent, compassionate, open-minded friends, family, housemates and co-workers who, despite all their reasoning and logic, couldn't quite come to grips with legalised prostitution.

Of course, it fulfils a need for some people in our society, they would say, while at the same time admitting a certain uneasiness about it all.

Perhaps the problem is we are intellectualising an act that is completely unintellectual, in fact one of our basest physiological needs. Or perhaps there's simply no need to answer all of our personal moral quandaries.

Note: Article has image embedded within the text of woman’s legs in erotic pose with fishnet stockings.

Note" "a brothel owner who wishes to remain unnamed" had their name removed at their personal request to Scarlet Alliance