To think that you can absolutely buy consent

Lol you mean the protective clothing that means you don’t hit by bullets or fall off a mountain? Course.

What's that got to do with the question of consent?

No, other jobs you wear protective clothing.

As the brave and mighty Gisèle Pelicot says, the shame is theirs, not hers.

The interesting thing about the Nordic Model is that where its been introduced - punters are criminalised, not sex workers - it's been shown to reduce the level of misogyny in society overall. It moves the shame.

Damned right. Two entirely different circles.

I won't go to a business that is notorious for modern slavery, I won't buy my clothes from a shonky sweatshop retailer exploiting child labour and I WILL continue to write to my MP in support of the Nordic Model to empower women and penalise the men who exploit and damage them.

Every woman willingly engaged in the sex trade (which is a far lower number than Pretty Woman / Happy Hooker narratives like to claim) participates in damaging all other women as a sex class. Some women are prepared to go along with the narrative that it's fine and dandy for men to buy the right abuse women. This is seized on by the "sex work is work" rape apologists to show how great and empowering it is for women to be able to earn money from hapless men by being sexually assaulted for cash.

What happens when prostitution is legalised? The demand for it actually increases, the abuses increase and the trafficking increases. You can see it in Germany.

Aquiescence and coersion are not "consent" to sex.

I think consent can be bought, for all sorts of things.

I have friends who used the Adult Work site, to earn extra money, they had no partner, certainly no pimp, they picked and chose the jobs they wanted and had various other conditions as well as payment.

Several of them would not meet a punter for sex without first having done a video call with them - so no matter how much money they were willing to pay, if the sex worker did not like the look of them/did not want to have sex with them for some other reason, the sex would not happen. The others made it clear they could and would refuse the job on the day if they wanted to (and set themselves up so that this was possible).

This doesn't mean that doing this work was good for them - none of them do it now and I am fairly sure they'd all agree it wasn't good for their mental health at all.

Now thats obviously not always the case and the idea that every sex worker is consenting because they're being paid is clearly wrong.

I can think of a few other areas where people may appear to be consenting to something harmful and damaging, but there are other factors that mean that consent isn't really consent.

Children who learn to box and are offered boxing as a way out of an otherwise shitty life for example - are consenting to a high risk of brain damage. Is that really consent, given the options available to them and their level of understanding at the time, I don't think it is, but it is legal and those putting kids in that situation are generally applauded!

Going for a less obvious example - little children who learn gymnastics or ballet - both of these require training that will 100% damage them physical and irreparably if they continue it into adulthood and do it competitively/professionally and probably even if they don't get that far. If they do, most will suffer mental health issues, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, depression etc etc as a result of the training and discipline required and the generally toxic dance/gymnastics industry.

When did a parent last genuinely think about this and consider informed consent when sending their 3 year old to gymnastics or ballet class?

It's really not a simple topic.

What about professional fighters? Can they consent?

That's a warped framing. Men have a sex drive geared towards women. That is biological and inherent. It has nothing to do with some women selling sexual favours or not.

However, healthy men see women as more than just one specific function. In the eyes of men, women are sexual beings ('objects'? WTF?), but that doesn't mean they are only sex objects.

It's warped victimhood mentality some women have, that makes them think just because men would perhaps like to have sex with them, that means men see them as less than human.

"Consent cannot be bought" is a reasonable claim if it's being used as shorthand for "consent to sex cannot be validly bought", with supporting arguments for it.

It's an utterly useless and obviously wrong claim if offered as a supporting argument for the claim though. Because consent is validly bought to all sorts of things all day long, including unpleasant and harmful things. The valuable bit of the discussion is whether/why sex is different from most other things in that regard.

Yes, there are a lot of manual labourers who have to retire in their 60s because their bodies are knackered, night shift workers who've taken years off their lives etc.

I'm under no illusions about sex work and the majority of individuals who take part in it - I just think that if you carry the arguments over to other areas, it opens up interesting conversations about work/wealth/consent in society at large.

For example, there is at least the theory of "premium" sex work engaged in by willing and uninhibited young women for a high rate.

I'm not so sure there's an equivalent "premium" shelf stacker role where you do a small amount of shelf stacking in luxurious circumstances and get paid a lot for it. Maybe in drugs trade?

Sorry I don't mean you personally, I'm just musing on the wider issue (I also won't touch Shein with a bargepole).

If you see me doing that on a Shein thread, send help because I've been kidnapped.

And I think the Venn diagram of women supporting the Nordic model, wearing Shein with nails from a dodgy salon is probably close to two circles.

I don’t necessarily think it’s being compared to working in an office. What about if your job involves you to do things that would otherwise turn your stomach such as cleaning up the bodily waste of others? What if it carries a high chance of injury such as carrying bags for those climbing up Everest?
And what about being shot at at work? Being required to go into open fire from an enemy knowing that either you or your friends will likely get killed or maimed? Don’t pretend that sex work is the most dangerous or unpalatable work there is going.

I actually think it's an interesting point in terms of a wider discussion about whether consent can be bought and what our tolerance is for exploitation.

There is an unfathomable amount of exploitation and slavery going on which, in western societies, is apparently regarded as acceptable and it goes way beyond women who are being sexually exploited. You only have to look at the Shein threads on here, for example, to see that slavery and child labour is quite merrily handwaved away when there's a cheap dress in the offing, despite there being an abundance of affordable second hand clothes in the world.

If a woman can't consent to sexual activities if she's paid, does the enslaved child being paid 75p for a 60 hour week truly consent to make your t-shirt, and if not then why is one considered worse than the other?

Sadly a very big problem which I doubt we will see resolved in our lifetimes.

Sorry, but those posters who can’t see the difference between “sex work” and spending 7.5 hrs a day in office need to cop on to themselves.

Yeah I mean if women couldn’t possibly consent to intercourse with someone for money, how on earth could a man ever consent to potentially being killed at work?

By the same token, all men who work in the armed forces are making life more difficult for all men as a sex class.

I didn't engage with it because it's a silly question. I don't use them, I avoid 'using' trafficked people at all. I don't even eat chocolate that isn't fair trade.

But even if I did, trafficking is dreadful. Being trafficked and then repeatedly raped day-after=day is worse.

I notice no one owned up to using Vietnamese nail salons & the lack of consideration whilst using these whether the workers are trafficked & working without consent, coerced etc.. therefore you are complicit in the same behaviours as the men who use lap dancing clubs. But it’s ok cos it’s not sex just nails so it’s different. 🙄 anyway as an ex sex worker with real life experience, I think I’ve made my point.

Errr there are other jobs where you might have to clean stuff like that up. Some jobs are pretty degrading and nobody would do them for free. And most of the time with prostitution, it’s not going to be blood and feces and urine is it?
It’s weird that you can have so many women saying that they consent to sex work and aren’t coerced into it yet people refuse to believe it.

Prostitution is the only “job” that involves direct contact with saliva, semen, blood and potentially urine and feces

Exactly.

and you ignored the point about those choosing to consent are making life more difficult for all women as a sex class.

This whole thread be like
Op: some women, sometimes can consent to sex for money

But trafficked women! But who would consent to a dirty diseased penis in their vagina! But even the ones who think they are consenting can't be, they must be damaged or mentally ill! But working as a cleaner isn't the same as being penetrated!

I'm out....