To think that it IS inconsistent to judge men who buy sex but not women who sell it (excluding women who are trafficked/traumatised/acting from financial necessity)?

To you. Not to those choosing to go into the industry themselves.

Because it’s the women who are in danger in this situation (9 times out of 10). Targeting them would drive them further underground and increase the danger.

If rates of sexual violence were the same, if the sex industry were a billion pound industry fuelled by 50% male/female customers, if men experienced the same levels of harassment and assault and objectification from women, it would be equal.

As long as both adults are consenting then what is the problem?

I think the woman's frame of mind / mindset should be added to your list of situations when selling sex is understandable. I'm not saying that the women who choose to independently [no pimp, no brothel] sell sex have mental health issues, I'm talking about how they might have been conditioned to view sex work.

Think about the number of children who access online porn, how many are pressured into exchanging pictures and films of themselves. I can see children who have been involved in this might easily become untroubled by making money from it.

Even young adults are swayed by what their peers do and might see sex work as almost normal or certainly not a big deal. Especially if their peers are earning well from it.

I think there might be some women who go into sex work who are fully aware of the exploitation and violence that is rife in that industry but see it as a business that will suit them. Perhaps these are the women who might be judged as being no different to the men who buy sex. Or perhaps, even as few in number as they are, they are taking some of the power away from the men who buy sex. And men are never going to stop wanting to buy sex, so maybe what they are doing is a good thing.

It's been SBs in the UK I've spoken to. Some were students doing it for a limited period of time while studying. They actually felt fellow students working minimum wage jobs and other low paid jobs were foolish and wasting their time. They see themselves as being very wise and business savvy. They're not stupid or vulnerable.

Those who aren't students were strategically on point. I found speakiing with them very enlightening and the women I spoke to are not vulnerable. They're not doing it because they can't get any other job.

We do need to acknowledge that whilst some are vulnerable, this is definitely not the case with others. It's an informed choice.

Don't use a predictive text machine to inform your views on whether women should be allowed to choose what to do with their own genitalia. That's daft.

So, basically, you mean women who actively choose to do something with their bodies?

We all sell ourselves one way or another. ,

I judge the men more, because they’re not asking for a full mental health report, evidence that the woman isn’t trafficked and proof of financial stability before they pay to fuck her, are they?

They couldn’t care less about the backstory. She’s just a body.

Maybe the only way (hypothetically) to find out if these choices are freely made is to eradicate violence, misogyny sexual entitlement and objectification etc, give women equal opportunities to succeed in a non-patriarchal society. THEN we would be on an equal footing and choices made to sell sex would be made without male coercion or fear of domestic violence etc etc. That would give us the answer about whether SW have true agency. Not holding my breath!

I'm with you on this OP.

These days a lot of women are finding the industry lucrative. They aren't in the categories you mentioned and they feel very empowered doing it.

Women who are sugar babies are doing it voluntarily. I've had conversations/interviews with some SBs and they express feeling empowered and independent.
They don't judge the men who they interact with.

I've heard women who do Only Fans raving about it and being grateful it exists, because it enables them to make £££ and makes them confident.

I agree @stickydough these choices shouldnt be taken out of context. Take Bonnie Blue - she may appear to have agency, but even if (and it's unlikely imo) she hasn't been emotionally, physically or sexually traumatised, she's living in a society that increasingly objectifies women, violence against WAG is super high, where men act in more sexually entitled ways than previously, and a society that has been pornified. Women arent equal economically and the final wammy is that now women are told that selling sex is 'empowering '. Its a patriarchal manipulation, encouraging women to internalise misogyny.

I judge the men because I doubt they know (or care) if the women they are paying for sex with are trafficked/coerced/vulnerable/desperate. Do you think they ask/demand proof of the sex worker’s positive mental health state prior to the sexual act; how would that even work 🤔

They like to think that the women are fucking them because they want to, or believe they’re such studs and incredible in bed etc 🙄 and don’t want to admit to themselves that the woman 99% of the time ISN’T there through choice and literally just there for the cash.

So, going back to the other post that you refer to in your OP, the basically “nice” man who used the sexual services of the “willing escort” is truly unlikely to have only ever slept with one prostitute. He deliberately chose a sex worker as he had a kink that he wished to partake in, which (presumably) his dates/gfs/wife/partner wouldn’t willingly do. These kinks are basically an addiction, and if he’s not getting that addiction fed in one place, he’ll get it from another.

And with the higher majority of sex workers NOT actively choosing it as a career, it’s likely that he HAS paid for sex with a vulnerable/trafficked/coerced woman, don’t you think?

I'm sorry but I absolutely abhor what Bonnie Blue does. I can't that excuse that in any way. There is selling sex and there is what she does: encourage the degradation of women.

I.actually agree with OP's stance.

Ah, here we go. We've had 'prostituted women', and a reference to a long debunked piece of crappy research whose sample was very carefully selected by a rabid anti-prostitution campaigner to be sure she got the result she wanted. And so it begins.

@Carla786 You made it clear that you are talking specifically about women who have freely chosen to engage in sex work, and whether Mumsnet likes it or not there are plenty of them. Two of my closest friends are sex workers, I've met hundreds of others and I'm a former sex worker - I was a stripper for years and also did some adult modelling and webcamming when it was just starting to take off.

All of us are independent, capable adults who decided we wanted to do a lot less work for a lot more money, and I doubt either any of us or the thousands of others doing likewise give a tin shit about the views of some judgemental random on the internet. If any person wants to sell a legal service at a price, time and location decided by us and to a person we're happy to sell it to, that is fuck all to do with anybody else. I don't approve of punching people in the head for a living, so I'm not a boxer.

Apparently Mumsnet can recognise that there are workers in agriculture, manufacturing, hospitality and so on who are not trafficked and vulnerable despite the number who are, but the legitimate, legal sex industry within which many people have worked safely and happily or their own volition for years doesn't exist (and obviously they're all broken or damaged in some way that no other workers are by virtue of their job alone; give me fucking strength).

I'll bow out now before the usual abolitionist shills arrive with the 'buying women's bodies' horseshit. I often wonder where they think our bodies are being kept after all these sales have taken place. And maybe have a think about why sex workers don't support the Nordic model.