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

If it's a case of 'I need to pay the food bill and have no other way to make money so I'll have sex with you if you pay me' that isn't consent because it isn't a true choice. You might as well hold a gun to someone's head and say 'let me fuck you' and say it isn't rape because they technically agreed. Take away the incentive, whether it's money or a gun, and it's pretty damned unlikely she'd have made the same 'choice'.

Even in the incredibly rare cases that you might find someone with zero money worries that enjoys being a prostitute, that can pick and choose their clients, feels completely safe in refusing to sleep with certain prospective clients, and could stop with no negative repercussions at all, it's still buying into the notion that you can rent someone's body as a commodity for your own use, and contributing to an industry is which directly results in the trafficking, rape, and death of many, many women and children. So regardless of whether a man determines he has definitely found himself a totally happy, willing, untrafficked woman to pay for sex, he's creating demand. That demand will result in someone dying. His hands aren't clean at all.

Urgh OP, seriously?

provided you are sure the person you are having sex with is not being trafficked Please tell me how you can be sure of this?

Also search for PTSD in prostitutes and read some experiences prostitutes have and the studies that have shown prostitutes have higher rates of PTSD than soldiers.

OK, but, they ARE consenting. They are getting paid for it, and they are choosing to provide that service?

Without the money, would she consent? This is what men need to ask themselves every single time they consider paying for sex. Would he have this woman’s consent if he wasn’t giving her money? If the answer is no then she is being coerced.

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

How naive.

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

For some women it is the only option. Chaotic lives, few or no qualifications, inability to navigate the increasingly complex benefits system, addiction, debt, a need for quick cash to keep financially afloat.

No woman ever wakes up and thinks "I know, I'll have sex with a load of men that I'm not at all physically attracted to in order to get myself some pocket money". They are there because they don't have an option.

Would you like to have sex with upwards of a dozen men every night? I guess you'd be fairly sore after the first three or four and probably numb by the time you get to number eight or nine. Some of those men will think that handing over cash gives them carte blanche to do what they like so you'll likely get a fair bit of "whoops, wrong hole!" after they claim they 'slipped'. You'll get a few who will give you a little smack or two if you were to complain about it. Let's not forget also the men who kill prostitutes and the media will always report it as "prostitute murdered" rather than "woman murdered" because as far as the world is concerned a prostitute is not a proper woman, she's just a collection of holes and utterly defined by her profession.

If you want to know what men think of the women they buy then google UKPunting where these "gentlemen" review the women they've bought.

it is never the only option.

And that is simply not true.

I watched a documentary a few years back about 5 or 6 women in this country who were prostitutes. All of them fell into prostitution after leaving prison. Most had grown up in care or in homes where they were abused and/or neglected. They’d left school with little to no qualifications and so the only work that was open to them was that which required little educational attainment, usually care work or cleaning. As soon as a DBS was sought or they were asked for references, it was found that they had criminal records. Most of them had children that they wanted to be reunited with but needed to be able to afford a home and to support them. All of these women were desperate to earn an honest wage and hoped that sex work was temporary but it was the only paid employment they could get. At the time, they were only getting Job Seekers Allowance but couldn’t get any other job. Two of them started jobs then were let go of whilst on probation once it became clear that they had been in prison or formerly used drugs. They were really trapped. The ones under 25 got a little more support from various government schemes but during this time they were expected to work full time for free whilst desperately trying to get their own kids out of foster care and a roof over their heads. The ones aged 30 to 40 had next to no support except each other.

So it’s really not as simple as “there is always another option”.

Money doesn’t buy consent. It buys a service. That service does not imply consent. Consent has to be freely given.

Buying a woman to have sex with is disgusting and immoral.

Op i agree with you. Obviously it isn’t as cut and dried as that, there are always men who will abuse women and women who are in danger, but this isn’t always the case.
Out of interest, how many of those who disagree feel the same about other types of sex work (strippers, lap dancers, phone operators)?

But let's be honest...you're prob one of these men arent you...

If you think there's nothing wrong with it, I presume you would be absolutely fine with your daughter/sister/mother doing it? Or that you would do it yourself?

In a world where being asked to handle raw meat without proper hygiene is considered an unsafe working practice, I find it exceptionally odd that some people think it's perfectly fine for two strangers to have intimate bodily contact, with the potential for one of those people to be seriously hurt (physically or psychologically), made seriously ill or killed.

Even if you don't have the basic human empathy to see that a person paying another person to use their vagina is just entirely fucked up, surely you can see that that practice just isn't safe and that no matter what amount of money is exchanged, the risk isn't worth it?

Its wrong to buy use of anyone's body. Man or woman.

Any man who rents the vagina of a woman who is extremely likely to have gone into this work due to drug dependency, childhood sexual abuse and/or other adverse early life experiences is abhorrent.

You are woefully misinformed and I really don’t understand why you started a thread about this when you are convinced you’re not being unfair

I am sure there may be some women who do willing enter the sex industry but I have no idea how you can be sure they are willing.
I suppose if it was made a legal profession and taken off the streets then some level of control could be expected. But I am equally sure even if it was free will it would be a very desperate woman who chose to do it.

Here's the superb post on 'choice' by thecatfromjapan

We've gone completely mad over the 'magic' of the word 'choice'.

'Choice' isn't an either/or: in capitalism, it's a sliding scale. 'Choice' is shaded by compulsion and coercion more times than not - explicit, overt, implicit, hidden, fiscal, societal ...

'It was her choice' is one of the most vacuous phrases to be wheeled out in contemporary politics. It's intended as a hammer to bring thinking on a political issue to a close, to assert finality and closure forcefully.

But it's meaningless.

If you truly believe in politics - in the idea that distributions of power are available to analysis and critique, and the implicit, concomitant, belief that such distributions are neither natural nor immutable, and if you further believe in progressive politics (the belief that power distributions can and must change) - it is crazy to foreclose analysis of power distributions through an absolute, non-nuanced ascription of full (not partial, not lacking) 'choice' whenever instances of analysis of people's actions under capitalism/patriarchy/whatever arise.

It's a full-stop in thinking.

If a right-wing authoritarian demanded that we never examine the unfair conditions under which the majority of people labour and live in current society, we'd refuse.

I do not understand, for the life of me, why the Left go happily into alliance with authoritarians and libertarians and ascribe a similar force around the use of the word 'choice'.

So ... on Monday, I will get up and go to work in a job I hate.

Sure, it's a 'choice' - but a limited, circumscribed 'choice'.

It is compelled, and my agency enacted within circumscribed limits.

And, yes, it's a nuanced thing - with many others having worse and better choices.

Why have we given up the idea of nuance and things not being either/or?

It's a completely dysfunctional tendency in modern politics.

Well, well, well. Your first post on MN. Who knew?

'First lets be clear men and women both use male and female prositutes'

I'd be interested to learn what the numbers are for men who pay for sex Vs women who pay for sex.

Just so that we are clear.

First lets be clear men and women both use male and female prositutes

Where are all these brothels then full of trafficked men for women to buy? Must have missed that.

Wealthy/comfortably off women do not become prostitutes. Women who kids themselves they are “empowered” by it etc are kidding themselves i’m afraid.

You cant buy consent.

You have this rose tinted idea of poor inexperienced men who just wanna learn how to get good for a girl friend.

What you really get is men who feel entitled to a womans body. Who use prostitutes because they think so little of them that they can make them do all the humiliating painfull disgusting degrading things that someone they arent paying and are supposed to pretend they care about, wont do.

They dont care if they are pimped/trafficked/addicted to drugs etc they dont even care about their jobs either. They are lawyers and cops and everything in between. Power hungry slime balls.

So yes it is a big deal.

First lets be clear men and women both use male and female prositutes. I personally do have a problem with it. But I do not necesserily see a prostitute as hard done by. (But it depends on there situation are they doing it for drugs? Do they have a pimp? Do they walk the streets or in a brothel ect.)

Also look into the ‘legal red light district’ I think it’s in Liverpool but I could be wrong. Rapes increased, women reported being offered money for men to ‘have time’ with their children, women were assaulted and harassed.

Here is a very short article about some of the issues, there are many more and much longer ones too including some written by residents who live nearby www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/uk/993530/leeds-news-red-light-district-prostitute-prostitution-sex-drugs/amp