Is Any All-Female House Really Considered a Brothel?

It's been a very long time since I was a college student, so this was something new to me. There is talk on some campuses about an "old law" that says a house with a certain number of females living there is legally considered a brothel.
The story is often told to explain the absence of sorority houses on certain campuses. But for as many times as the tale is told, these laws have never actually been documented anywhere. In 1998, a group of eight Tulane University students searched through municipal and state law books going as far back as the 1800s and came up empty. I did a little digging of my own closer to home; I couldn’t find any laws in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or the municipalities where I went to school.

This is a completely strange concept to any single mother with daughters, or anyone who ever lived in the old-fashioned dormitories that were segregated by sex (I have lived in both situations). Have you ever heard of such a thing? Read more about housing laws that do and don't exist at mental_floss. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user albioncollegespecialcollections)

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This is a case of bloggers creating a rumor just so they can write about debunking it. If there was a single case of a law like this being used to prevent a Sorority, it would have been instant national news and we'd have Gloria Allred banshee screaming from dusk till dawn.

Use some common sense, people.
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I always heard that was the case in San Francisco, with the exception J Cubed mentioned...and while I never looked up the law, it did make sense considering San Francisco's history as an old west town...and the number of prostitutes there today.
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I lived in an all women's dorm at the University of Pittsburgh, unlike bug, our Residential Direction was female. There were no men living, and only one or two working, in my building.

Most of Pitt's sororities are housed in Amos hall, and people cite the brothel law as reasoning. But it's clearly false, as we do have sorority houses on upper campus.
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This is a real law in Evanston, IL, the site of Northwestern's campus. This article is dated, as I think they may have changed the law by now. The term "brothelgate" is used to refer to the controversy, but apparently ther are a number of brothelgates.
http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/city/in-focus-evanston-will-enforce-brothel-rule-starting-in-july-nu-administration-won-t-fight-it-1.2446387
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