To think that you can absolutely buy consent

Let me guess, I bet a lot of you that are so against sex work due to reasons of trafficking, go get your nails done at one of the Vietnamese nail salons, or your husbands or sons go to the wall in Turkish barber shops. Most workers are trafficked or the shops are fronts for money laundering. But that’s ok cos it’s not sex work?!

How does the punter know FOR A FACT that the prostitute isn't trafficked?? She sure as hell isn't going to tell them she's trafficked.
Also, what kind of man will have sex with someone knowing full well the woman is only doing it because they are getting paid?

I was a happy stripper (not a fully nude club & no touching but I also did work in other clubs that were) & so were a lot of my friends. In fact I look back on the whole time (5yrs) with fondness. Quite a few of my friends still do it & if I needed some extra cash, I’d go back. I’m just too tired & perimenopausal tbh to deal with the late nights now!. I was actually on a good wage for most of my time I worked as a stripper but started initially as was short of cash & needed a 2nd job after a breakup. I thought if I could just make an extra £500 a month… well I was good at it & was making £2500 a month working an average of 7 nights a month. So I carried on long after I didn’t need the money. It was fun, I loved seeing my friends, it was like a girly night, gossiping before the customers came in. I did consent. I generally enjoyed the customers. I had a regular who was a bit handsy but I always handled it & told him off. Must of the time we took the piss out of our customers. We saw them as money only. Most just wanted therapy!
There was a time the council tried to shut our club down with all the reason mumsnetters come up with. Us girls were furious. I did it as a side hustle on top of my regular job, for others it was their main job & fitted around the kids, degrees etc. it was like our consent was being taken away to do the job we loved by people who had no clue & had not thought to ask us, the girls doing the job, what we thought. I’m not saying that there isn’t a seedier side of the industry, or that sex trafficking doesn’t exist but that’s not true of all sex work & quite frankly I get irritated by the view that all sex work is bad & non consensual.

I think I would argue that there are vanishingly few situations that anyone gives truly free consent to anything-it suggests a decision and choice is made free of all outside influences, without power imbalance and is not transactional. That isn't how life is.

I don't think "true" consent can be bought for sex, because the power is with the buyer and is clearly transactional. That is before you consider the obvious potential for abuse, coercion and exploitation.

However, I do accept that there will be some people engage in sex work by their own choice and under their own control. Their motivation is money and are prepared to have sex to get it. I would still argue this is not consent in the true sense of the word. They aren't re enacting Pretty Woman.

https://nordicmodelnow.org/

It never ceases to amaze me how many people just solemnly repeat this claim, even though it's so easily proven false. People only consent to work because they need the money, especially low wage work. Does that make it coerced or slavery?

The thing is if someone pays for sex then they have no idea and no real way of knowing if the person is freely consenting or not, so someone who does that doesn't care about consent.

Sexual consent is emotive and can have very serious legal ramifications, as we witnessed during the height of the Me Too movement.

It seemed that the consensus at that time was - if you were a woman and had had sex with a man you wouldn’t have, given the option, you were on the same footing as women who were actually threatened and intimidated into having sex.

There is a world of difference between agreeing to have sex with a man who is blocking your exit, towering over you and forcing himself upon you in a way where you feel the safest option is to have sex as a means of appeasement to allow you to leave as quickly as possible without physical violence or worse - which is co-erced consent and therefore nullified, and consenting to sleep with a powerful or influencial man you are not physically attracted to bc he has the influence to positively affect your career and future prospects - this is more transactional consent, which might not necessarily be ‘enthusiastically’ given, but is nevertheless consent as the woman is set to gain something she wants by it.

This is also different to having sex with someone who threatens to do the reverse and actually damage your career etc, which is blackmail and a criminal offence.

I doubt many women here support Onlyfans on escorting (both of which are sex work). You're strawmanning, women aren't a monolith.

Ikwym, but I think this logic is a bit dangerous.

Using this logic, couldn't you potentially say that women with an abuse history can't consent to sex even if no money is involved?

I just don't think consent is ever free and enthusiastic…

It doesn’t have to be enthusiastic. I think posters are muddying what the definition of consent actually is here. It is an agreement.

If it is coerced through threat of violence or some other damaging element like blackmail, or is acquired by deceit, that obviously negates it, but agreeing to do something you’d rather not do or that is unpleasant is still legally giving your consent.

There seems to be this paradox on here where women are saying no sexual worker can give their consent bc it’s so degrading and they must have been coerced into it, then on the other hand throwing their full support behind women having the power to exercise autonomy over their own body and take part in Only Fans or escort work, or wearing sexually provocative barely/there clothing to promote products or just for their own self esteem…. Are these women also not actually giving their consent?

I despise the idea that 'sex work is work.' But by your logic, other dangerous jobs like building work, oil rigs, the military can't be consented to either.

No need to be insulting.

Thought experiment: all soldiers decide to refuse to work unless they are paid in sex. Now what?

I think the idea that we can't, as a matter of principle, consent to things with a monetary motive, is bollocks.

And actually it's obviously bollocks, we all consent to do things for money all the time, that we would not do for free. That sometimes, we dislike, that may be very dangerous or have long term serious consequences.

I think a much stronger argument is that it is not good for society to allow sex for money transactions, just like we don't allow people to sell kidneys.

We could also make a strong argument, imo, that because sex can result in children, that is something that can't and shouldn't really be accommodated for within a commercial transaction - it's a bad basis for parenthood.

I interpret it as once money are involved, we can't trust the consenting words to mean the actual free consent.

If someone only gives "consent" because they need the money, it's coercion and not true consent.

Consent has to be given freely without any other attachments so no it cannot be bought as there is a condition to the consent so it is purchasing a service. They may be buying a service or act, but no, you cannot buy consent from another person.

In regards to those who marry for money or have partners to fund their lives that is not consent, that is a transactional relationship.

For those saying it’s a job like any other unappealing job, please read this article. No other job takes place inside the human body, none carries the same health (physical and mental) risks. Sex work is not work. It isn’t enlightened and forward thinking to say sex work is work, and is often said by middle class women who essentially think there should be a group of women who bear the brunt of men’s most unsavoury behaviour to spare the rest of us. The same women often support surrogacy, both times advocating for women to do things they would never do themselves or want for their mothers, children or friends. https://x.com/ellyarrow/status/1457104863377207300?s=46&t=rE8L_qvxLTDSTkXQVZ12fA

Not all are doing it under duress. There is no denying that there is a lot of sexual exploitation going on. However, there are also women who are not desperate for the money who are already wealthy and/or could make money in other ways but they choose to do sex work. Everyone has different morals, just because you would be appaled at the thought of sex for money doesn't mean every woman feels that way.
I personally find sex work immoral, I wouldn't have any associations with a man who used sex workers but I don't agree that sex work can't be consensual.

No one is saying its the same.
PP is saying that just as you can buy someone's willingness to clean your house by offering money, you can buy someone's willingness to have sex for money.

Now how does that mean having sex for money has to be 'the same' as cleaning a house?

TF? Cleaning someone's house is the same as letting some pervert stick his diseased dick inside you for money? How, exactly?

Seriously? Having preferences and boundaries is the same as accepting money for sex? What?

Yes, you are a man.

And probably a punter.

The Nordic model comprises the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden).[1] This includes a comprehensive welfare state and multi-level collective bargaining[2] based on the economic foundations of social corporatism,[3][4] and a commitment to private ownership within a market-based mixed economy[5] – with Norway being a partial exception due to a large number of state-owned enterprises and state ownership in publicly listed firms.[6]