Guardian article on sex workers and disabled people

LRD my mum works in a similar industry but she gets to see the 'international' side of this sought of thing! I challenge anyone to hear some of these daily stories (often including children, boys and girls) and think that feeding these industries in any form is not harmful. Some stories have made me physically sick and when you know what these people go through, paying for anything with even the slightest chance of being related to abuse (current, previous and potential) can never be justified for a gratification which is NOT a human right when taken before somebody elses!

Hullmum - Xenia is real, but I just ignore her.

Hullmum Ha ha I've often found her opinions a bit basic compared to all her 'success'. At least I'm not alone in thinking she is not real! If you are I apologise for any offence caused but I can't believe your not Wayne from Croydon

episode - interesting you say that. My brother used to work with homeless people and asylum seekers, and occasionally therefore with prostitutes (although he wasn't supposed to as he didn't have the training, which made it pretty horrific for him and probably wasn't ideal for them at all, but that's another story). He is a pretty open-eyed person and as you can imagine you don't get the lovely fluffy side of life on a job like that, but he found pimps far the scariest and creepiest people he had to deal with.

I agree with you that this is the issue, you cannot know. And I think that this is something that almost certainly won't ever change. I do believe (possibly this sounds old-fashioned or plain naive) that sex is fundamentally something that you cannot commercialize without hurting people.

Xenia, I'm very tired, so correct me if I have misunderstood but are you comparing married women who have less money than their partners to prostitutes? You do realize that a married woman has no legal binding obligation to fuck anyone, don't you? Or is this just the last straw in your trolling? is it time to admit your plumber named Wayne from Croydon?

An important aspect of LRD's arguement is the actual context in which sexual services are accessed (including porn for instance). Since there are no checks you can undertake to ascertain how somebody has become a sex worker (previous sexual abuse, often child, relationship abuse/dv, poverty, drug addiction, trafficking) then unfortunately you are condoning abuse in an industry which makes no secret of its ugly side! My sister works with prostitutes and only ONCE has she EVER met somebody who said it was a concious choice she made as she wanted to put her son through private school, not state and her decent and stable job would not pay for that! NEVER has she met somebody who enjoyed it. She works closely with police and in some areas prostitution is made up of 80% once trafficked women! The 'facts' are there and whilst I can see why anybody would naturally want a sex life I can personally not condone paying for it when you can NEVER know what your paying for and quite often who your actually paying! Having sex with volunteers is of no issue to me but something about that rings odd and I hope it's not some sought of reverse exploitation! Hopefully these are just nice people but I wonder what the response would be if a regular man offered these services to single mothers for example?

I agree, it's definitely a capitalism issue, at least partly.

I agree, gosh.

I really tire of the prostitution is similar to care work argument (I've seen it used a lot elsewhere) as I find it demeaning. Care work is attending to people's needs without which people would not be able to live. It seems to be ok to compare virtually any job that mainly women do to prostitution, yet people never seem to mention miners and plumbers in these comparisons.

I also think it helps to normalise prostitution, because if prostitution is just like cleaning, care work etc, then why don't women choose prostitution if it is so much better paid? There is also the fact of prostitution having far higher rates of PTSD and assault for those who work in it. Some might argue that legalisation would alleviate this, but I think that ignores the violence and contempt inherent in a man thinking he has the right to use someone's body in that way. You only have to look at punternet to see that.

On the sex deficit I agree that a lot of women like sex and plenty want more sex than their husbands provide however on the whole in just about all cultures and perhaps caused by the conditioning of girls or mothers being tired, more men than women want more sex. Men often pay for sex and women rarely do so and that is not just because men control their wife's sexuality and women have less money than men to pay to buy it in.

Now there may be a way to change things so that there is just as much demand from women as men but it does not seem to be changing any time soon. Many women marry men who are good providers. They may feel it is about love but the reality is that he also had a car and house and he will be a good provider who will keep them. There is a commercial transaction in there.

This is the point at which everyone on the thread, despite their own stance, tells cuckoo that level of vitriol and aggression is jarring and unwelcome

Off you hop, little bird.

It bemuses you, cuckoo, because it's not true. You've made that up, haven't you?

It doesn't tend to speak well for your position (whatever that may be, other than having cracks at feminism) if you have to make up stories in order to find something to disagree with.

LRD and spero perhaps for the first time in the history of these debates you have arrived at the central point of departure between the both sides, thank you both. The barrier is fundamental as it would always have been, however actually exploring what the barrier to agreement is, has often been made impossible by blanket assertions from both camps.

I am not saying before anyone jumps on it that a great truth or secrete has been uncovered all I am saying is that for a change calmly and with tolerance both sides come to the point of knowing what they disagree about.

Cuckoo, why are being so antagonistic ?

You seem unhappy the conversation has reached a conciliatory tone.

It bemuses me, LRD, that you would wish to wipe out all prostitution but happily allow degraded and underpaid cleaners and sweat shop workers to continue under some of their horrific circumstances.

Just because the penis is the ultimate weapon of destruction for you feminists does not mean that female autonomy can not be exercised within the sex industry.

I think we have adopted different positions after a genuine examination of our views and the evidence - and that is perfectly legitimate. As long as people continue to examine their views then disagreement is healthy - it pushes us to carefully define and consider our arguments which is never a bad thing.

I have certainly had to think about my arguments more fully, so that's been good for me. I don't think his has led me to any fundamental shift but hopefully I can also now appreciate more fully the nuance of the opposing stance.

Yes, I can see this is why we can't agree. I don't think you're being obtuse and I don't think (I hope) I'm not either.

I would much rather go after those men, too (obviously, I hope). I just have to address the 'happy hooker' side of it because it completely bemuses me that it is brought up time and again.

Linus, what is your take on Operation Parameter I and II as mentioned by OldLady? Oh, and, I was giving an example of the kind of patronising tone you had used, which is why I didn't use quotation marks.

Fucker, when I suggested sex was freely available to the able-bodied surely you understood that I meant able-bodied people who want sex are not thwarted by a disability which the rest of society would see as off-limits in a sexual context.

I think this is the one bridge we will never cross. I simply don't accept that one woman exercising her autonomy is allowing others to say well then, my trafficking and raping of this 14 year old is ok.

Well, I am sure some would say it it that doesn't make it true nor would anyone with half a brain cell agree that it was ok.

Prostitutes are not safe on this country because a lot are vulnerable and desparate and have little choice but to work in dangerous and isolated areas. Again, I simply do not see why a woman who had the economic power to work in safe and comfortable environment (say a therapists office?) could ever be held up as someone encouraging or legitimising dangerous and lonely street work.

That is why I think we can't agree. I am not trying to be deliberately obtuse for the fun of it. I really, really don't see why a woman can't make a choice because some men behave in inhuman ways. I would rather go after those men.

Ok, look, you say 'something potentially nasty', right?

Then you talk about 'a woman who decides to engage in a commercial transaction that she feels safe with'.

Sure, those two things are not the same - but only because you've only focussed on one side of the issue. Which is precisely what I have the problem with.

Yes, if you ignore the women who are not feeling safe, then prostitution may well seem fine. Just as my other examples feel fine for someone who feels safe and happy.

But the point is that the experience of the person who feels safe and happy doesn't really help the person who feels upset, threatened, or abused, does it? The person who gets a warm glow from being cat-called, and who insists on telling the person who feels threatened and upset by it about that, is only being smug and insensitive. They're not cancelling each other out.

I do think that supporting one kind of prostitution supports all kinds. Sorry, but I do. We do not currently have an extensive system for making sure prostituted women are safe and healthy and happy, do we? So there is no possible way anyone can currently be confident they're with someone who is happy with what is going on, let alone consenting.

It's not like you're going to find a woman who says 'shit, I've just been trafficked across from Romania, someone has threatened my children if I don't pretend to be consenting and happy, but, hey, I'll spill my honest-truth story to the nearest punter', are you?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic with that (I know I come across as sarcastic sometimes when I'm not) - but I do think it's the basic important point.

All that happens when someone promotes one niche area of prostitution as safe or valuable or pleasant, is that unscrupulous people will make their brand of abuse look as much like that as possible, and people who don't care to enquire too much will happily give up their minor qualms and go ahead with abusing women.

Sorry LRD, I don't think your examples stand up. You are talking about someone doing something potentially nasty to someone else - surprise sex- or someone being subject to possibly unwanted and certainly unrequested attention - cat calling. It is irrelevant how I feel about these things as to the impact on the woman subjected to them who does not want to be.

That is not the scenario for a woman who decides to engage in a commercial transaction, that she feels safe with.

I do not see why this is necessarily or automatically 'propping up' or condoning the rape, exploitation or trafficking of other women.

Isn't the answer to go after those who do rape, traffick etc. I agree with SGB - protect people from dangers rather than prevent people exercising autonomy.

That's pretty misogynistic though, isn't it? The Catherine Hakim stuff about 'sexual capital'.

Most women I know enjoy sex, and I think this is because women generally enjoy sex just as much as men. Most married women I know enjoy sex with their husbands. They don't sit on the bed making 1950s big eyes and hoping it'll all be over soon so they can go out and spend the pin money. Isn't it a little insulting to suggest that's what it's about?

There is an argument that allowing women to be paid for sex and exploit their sexuality to generate work more widely is a more honest transaction than the 4 in 5 women who live off male earnings in marriage perhaps. If you take away the ability to sell the sexual services and require that instead they must provide them for nothing in return for a man deigning to marry them in a way you deprive women of one of their assets. In some cases it is their most valuable asset - their sexual capital.

(This argument, btw, reminds me of the same arguments about 'but how dare you be mean about men who cat-call women, I love it so I don't give a shit that you feel threatened' ... 'you're all mean to criticize men who enjoy surprise sex, I love doing it and I'm not a rapist so you have no right to feel raped' etc. etc.

I do not understand why it is so important for the people to bang on about how perfectly A-OK they are with something demonstrably misogynistic and crappy, as if that somehow cancels out other people being really not ok with it.)