To think the use of prostitutes just isn't that big a deal?

I’m guessing that not all of the people on here disagreeing are also against surrogacy overseas. Some people would happily use a surrogate but be horrified by use of prostitutes. Both are people buying women’s bodies for their own purposes. Both are wrong.

Crinkle I disagree with the idea that sex is an activity that you can decide to "try out", because a woman's body isn't like sports equipment. Sex isn't a right, for anyone, in any situation. I think the man you are speaking about must have held some very misogynistic ideas to believe he can choose to experience sex in any way other than finding a partner who also wanted to have sex with him.

Where are all these brothels then full of trafficked men for women to buy

Probably young lads for men to buy...

I wonder if anti trafficking laws have had the unintended consequence of prostitution increasing. Craigslist used to have a section called "casual encounters" where people could hook up for consensual casual sex. They stopped it worldwide because of US anti-trafficking laws.

It’s just a bit icky. I’ve always wondered about the logistics, does the woman have a timer? When it gets to the allotted time is that it, even if he’s about to cum? If I was the man i’d just be so mortified putting the money down that it would put me off. Plus imagine seeing a work colleague coming out zipping up his trousers before you had your go 😬

I knew a young lad in his early twenties who had muscular dystrophy. He was confined to a wheel chair and knew that he would probably die young. Unfortunately he had never had a relationship and was going on holiday to Amsterdam. He wanted to visit a sex worker because he had never experienced sex and he wanted to before he died. I felt quite torn about it really because whilst I would never advocate paying for sex I can understand someone using them in those circumstances.

@ILoveBlinking

There's no disentangling the sex industry from abuse.

I'm sure a few women are happy doing it. But for most, it's either coerced, or in desperation.

A key thing would be to make sure no woman is ever criminalised for sex work. That is abhorrent - criminalised for being abused, essentially.

I understand some women's reasoning for doing it, however, it is never the only option

This is laughable to be honest. In at least 99% of cases, a woman selling herself for sex will be doing it because she feels like it's her only option. She will not be some happy, confident, middle-class woman who chose prostitution because it's more fun than working in an office and she likes choosing her own hours or whatever bullshit narrative people are pushing about "escort" work these days.

Just because the factors behind why some women turn to prostitution may sometimes be more complex than "she was trafficked and is being drugged and forced against her will by a violent pimp" doesn't mean those factors don't exist.

I work with trafficked children. I do not believe it is possible to be sure an individual isn't being trafficked or forced. They definitely won't tell you, their situation is too vulnerable.

I also just don't buy into the idea that it's ok for men to pay money to use a woman's body to cum in. I don't imagine that people for think women are people rather than objects would do that.

Consent is a complex issue. It isn't just about trafficking and coercion. It is about poverty, mental health problems, drug addiction and many other issues. I do not believe it is possible to have a system in which prostitution is legal for those who enter into it freely, while also ensuring that there is no one engaged in it who would prefer not to be. I am also strongly against the prosecution of women who engage in prostitution. It is bizarre that, historically, it was a crime to be a prostitute, but not a crime to buy their services. The legal situation would be reversed to make it clear to men that they are engaging in an activity strongly associated with the abuse of vulnerable women.

The claim that women on MN don't care about boys being raped is a bit weird as well! Trying to distract I suppose?

Predominately men but by no means all.

And here come the handmaidens with the "not all men!" rhetoric.

No. Not all men but enough men for it to be problematic. I think we'd agree that all of us here very much love individual men however as a group they issues and just because it is not all men does not mean we shouldn't discuss it.

Should a person who's say, 30 years old and still a virgin, and now feels their too old and too inexperienced to go out and find a woman to have sex with them, not be able to use a service that a woman is willingly providing? What about someone with some form of disability that wants sex but doesn't have the confidence or whatever to get it normally?

Nobody has a right to sex.

sorry should read "Having the penis of someone who you aren't sufficiently attracted by to choose to have sex as a freely consenting adult* inside your vagina is a violation of physical integrity."

key phrase got deleted while attempting to rewrite..

You say only if the woman is willing.

How do you ascertain that the woman whose body is being used is doing it because they want to? Actually want to. Oh I went to med school but I didn't like being a gp so decided I'd rather sell my body.

Choice doesn't exist in a vacuum.

They are hardly going to tell you they've been forced to by a pimp, that they have been trafficked here with the promise of a job only to then be prostituted, that their 'choice' is one borne of desperation and the only alternative to homelessness or not being able to afford to eat/feed her kids?

And really, is it any more moral to use a woman's body when she is offering it out of desperation than if she was trafficked or something?

And again, and leaving aside the morality of buying another person's body full stop - how do you identify with absolute certainty that the woman being "used", as you repeatedly call it is the fabled so called 'happy hooker' living it up rather than the many alternative situations?

'Men have sex because they have a hard on. They don’t have sex because they want to make their partner feel good. '

WTF

women have sex drives
Women get horny
Women don't just have sex to 'make their partner feel good'

Plenty of men prefer sex in a relationship/ with someone they actually like. They aren't all mindless rutting animals.

What a messed up view of human sexuality.

@FairyLightsAreMyCrack I was a ‘sex worker’. I had issues from childhood, got into an abusive relationship and was forced into it by my boyfriend. I would be beaten senseless and raped by him if I didn’t do what he said. He filmed and photographed me and me being raped and uploaded it to online sites and sold them to make more money. He would ‘trade’ me for free takeaways and taxis and to his friends. He would book me out online or make me stand in the street. He would ‘swap’ me for drugs. Many of the men knew I wasn’t willing. No man ever turned down the ‘trade’ or ‘swap’ no man ever tried to help me, called the police or told my boyfriend what he was doing was wrong.

This was from the age of 12 until I finally managed to escape.

I, to this day, have mental health problems because of it, I rarely leave my house, I can’t order takeaways or get a taxi or even have a repairman in my home.

There are many organisation to help prostitutes exit and provide support after (other ‘jobs’ don’t get these). And if anyone is still struggling with the after effects or struggling to exit prostitution, please try and find one in your area.

No, OP.

The human body is not a commodity.

The women or men who sell sex are not doing it because they love their job. They are putting themselves in a very vulnerable and uncomfortable position in order to earn money - it's very desperate and sad.

You sound extremely ignorant about sex work op. Have you read many mn threads on the subject at all?

Hoik I expect your right, but I am saying it does happen it just doesn,t firt well into the victim/perpetrator we like to paint. Also Women often involved behind the seens as Madams/ trafficars ect. Predominately men but by no means all.

You can’t buy consent.

No one has a right to sex.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. The attitude towards women and consent displayed by men who use prostitutes repulses me. I would be horrified to find out my DH had used prostitutes, ever.

Payment for sex is coercion.
Using coercion to obtain sex is a kind of rape.
Women who succumb to coercion to agree to sex that they wouldn't otherwise want do suffer from post traumatic stress and emotional turmoil in a similar way to other rape victims.

Physical and mental integrity is an inviolable human right. Inviolable means that it is not OK to pay someone or otherwise induce someone to surrender that right. Having the penis of someone inside your vagina is a violation of physical integrity. Using parts of the human body for financial gain is specifically debarred in the European Convention on Human Rights. The vagina is a part of the human body (NB the UK's signatoryship on the ECHR is independent of its membership of the EU).

The primary profit-making person when someone pays for sex with the prostitute is not usually the prostitute herself. Even if she wasn't trafficked there is probably a pimp on the scene who will take a high enough cut to ensure that she can't escape from this life until she is so broken that she can no longer be used profitably.

@drinkygin No, I’m not ok with any sex work.

I suppose you can argue that it some scenarios it is condonable. That's a long way from saying it's ok, or that you wouldn't think less of a man who did it. Or a woman.