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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Guardian article on sex workers and disabled people

408 replies

fllowtheyellowbrickroad · 11/04/2013 21:43

m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/10/sex-workers-disabled-people

Has this already been done? Will put together something literate soon. An currently choking and splitting too much.

OP posts:
LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 12:11

'That's basically saying that a woman who chooses to do something you wouldn't want to do is incapable of knowing her own mind, and that therefore you want to make her act as you would rather than as she chooses.'

No, it really, really isn't.

This is a really common response which I think people make purely because they like how it sounds, as if it's terribly cool and laissez-faire to be supportive of women being abused. It isn't.

I know you don't think all prostitution is abusive. I am even willing to believe there are women out there who are joyful and fulfilled or even just plain workaday fine, with selling sex. However, there are demonstrably also many women who are not. I fail to see how legitimizing the whole industry helps them.

It isn't that I think those joyful and/or fine, happy women are poor shrinking violets whom I don't trust to know their own minds. It's that I really can't bring myself to care that they are joyful and happy while they're propping up an industry in which many women are abused.

SolidGoldBrass · 15/04/2013 11:59

I have a real problem with the statement that being paid for sexual activity makes it impossible to consent. That's basically saying that a woman who chooses to do something you wouldn't want to do is incapable of knowing her own mind, and that therefore you want to make her act as you would rather than as she chooses.

It's a fairly fundamental human right to choose to sell your labour/your skills for a fair price. Exchanging sexual acts for cash is selling your labour and your skills, not your body. The person who pays you has no rights over anything you do once the agreed time is up, the customer doesn't get to take the seller home in a bag after the money has changed hands, any more than the client of a builder/hairdresser/accountant gets to keep the supplier in a box after paying for the service agreed.

Some jobs are more dangerous than others, and the healthy response to this is to insist that safeguards are in place as much as possible, not to insist that the job not be done. Some jobs involve bodily contact with other human beings eg physiotherapy, medical professional, care worker. If you are a care worker looking after a patient who can't attend to his/her own toilet needs, then your job may involve touching his/her genitals and anus. Not everyone would choose to do such a job, and most people would say that if you find the idea of doing that disgusting or distressing, you should seek another job. It's worth considering, at least briefly, that care work is badly paid on the whole, and mostly done by women, and often done out of economic desperation.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 11:05

Yep, it is.

Spero · 15/04/2013 10:53

Thank you for being worried! But as I regularly venture on similar sites nothing really shocks me any more. Although it does make me sad particularly as i have a daughter. The amount of hatred out there for women, particularly women over 40 is disturbing.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 10:43

I don't think engagement in discussions is forced on anyone, no.

I thought, since you were complaining about the thread on the other site, you might be feeling down about it. It is a fairly nasty, misogynistic thread on that site. However, god knows, if you're absolutely fine and just complaining without wanting anyone to reply in any way whatsoever, that is fine too.

Spero · 15/04/2013 10:39

If I am fed up with a discussion I will just leave it and go and watch a bit of Buffy instead.

I have found this thread very interesting, not just because of the topic but also as an illustration of this rather odd mumsnet thing that engagement in discussions is somehow forced upon people - for eg LL getting ticked off for mentioning posters by name and therefore pressurising them to respond? I really don't get that. Is this common response on other sites?

But possibly an interesting topic for whole other thread....

I do bloody wish however I had had the Internet whilst growing up. It would have made sharing experiences, getting advice etc so much easier.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 09:58

Fair enough, I got the impression you were a bit fed up and I don't think any of us has a responsibility to engage. Not saying you shouldn't if you fancy it.

Spero · 15/04/2013 09:53

But I don't want to ignore people just because they have different views to me. I am genuinely interested in how those views come about and how they are sustained. Never before in the history of human endeavour have we had this opportunity to be exposed so widely and so quickly to others experiences.

I think it is such a shame it often degenerates into swapping stereotypes.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 09:15

Ignore them, might as well.

Spero · 15/04/2013 09:10

Just skimmed through the comments on that punternet thread and it rather depressingly confirms what I believe about a lot of internet discussions - most people are simply enjoying writing up their own prejudice without any real attempt to engage or expand their argument.

What a waste of the internet.

Had they bothered to read I think they could have acknowledged the basis of a real discussion had happened here, but o no it is much more fun to simply trot out tired out tropes about frustrated mumsnetters.

One person appears to have attempted to point this out to them, but they do not appear to be able to process that comment.

vera99 · 15/04/2013 08:47

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet for breaking our Talk Guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

LinusVanPelt · 15/04/2013 01:11

That post is addressed to Cuckoo , of course. Though I really don't know why I'm bothering.

LinusVanPelt · 15/04/2013 01:10

BTW, It's odd that you took umbrage on Spero's behalf and found my tone patronising toward her, when she did not appear to have anything like that reaction. Because I guess she read what I actually said, and didn't imagine "can you see?"s and "dear"s where there were none.

Your reaction is completely bizarre.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 01:10

I've met both prostitutes and disabled people.

What rubbish you are talking.

Much of my ideas about all this come from listening to prostituted women. And the people I know who're disabled would be disgusted by what you seem to imagine they want.

LinusVanPelt · 15/04/2013 01:08

I don't know why you decided to put quotes around the first part of that post addressed to me, Cuckoo, seeing as you were not quoting me, but just making shit up that you imagined I'd said.

And no, I don't have someone else to do my cleaning and ironing.

And no, I don't want to volunteer my sexual services.

What the Fuck?

CuckooBird · 15/04/2013 01:06

OldLady, thank fuck for a voice of reason. The wimmin on here are bloody obsessed with trafficking and yet they've never met a prostitute (or been disabled) in their lives.

CuckooBird · 15/04/2013 00:59

Goodnight, Spero, I'm off to bed, too. Can't take any more of this disingenuity disguised as feminism.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 00:57

Um ... I clean, I iron. I've occasionally been paid to do it.

We're not all as privileged as you obviously are.

If you read the thread, you will find that people have already addressed the issue of whether or not it's crucial to change society so that disabled people have more options than recourse to prostitutes.

You'll find the answer was 'yes', it is crucial.

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 15/04/2013 00:55

You were right enough with "Some people do not regard prostitution as sex without consent", AF, just as you were right enough with your correction.

For all of those repeating claims that any given prostitute is "very likely" to be trafficked, can you give us a link, please? Because Operations Pentameter I and II found very little evidence of this, despite raiding every known brothel in the UK.

CuckooBird · 15/04/2013 00:54

Linus, I took umbrage at the patronising tone of your post to Spero: 'See? Look, here are the ways in which some women are exploited. Can you see how this may be harmful, dear? She is only doing this to pay her rent' This post-feminist obsession with stamping out exploitation drives me nuts. Do you have a cleaner? A lady who does your ironing? Ever paid anyone to look after your kids?: all of them women forced into slavery by white, middle-class women.

For some disabled people, the only way to explore their sexual identity/get their rocks off, whatever, is to pay for it. It is liberal bullshittery to pretend otherwise. So..are you - this champion of eradicating prostitution - prepared to rescue exploited sex workers and volunteer your sexual services to disabled men? No..I thought not.

AnyFucker · 15/04/2013 00:50

It's quite basic stuff, that people feel should be waived if someone has a disability ?

Really.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 00:45

'How is it that seeking sex is ok but having it is not? So we can find it, we know where it is and we know who will supply it, we just cannot have it? weird!'

Erm, because the first bit is where you seek consent. And the second bit is dependent on getting consent.

It's like, the first one ... isn't rape ... and the second one is ... um ... rape unless you get consent?

Crikey, do I really have to explain this?

No, you cannot 'just have it'.

AnyFucker · 15/04/2013 00:43

sorry, I should have said some people do not view prostitution as sex with consent

AnyFucker · 15/04/2013 00:42

Sex is not "freely available" to anyone, unless you feel it is your right to take it without consent

Some people do not regard prostitution as sex without consent

Opposers of prostitution feel this way, it's not a new concept

Leithlurker · 15/04/2013 00:42

I am afraid it is a devisive issue as feminist and disability rights activist have diffrent ideaologies on this and other issues. It is always my hope that by recognising that this conflict exists, and that it is never a question of one set of rights trumping another, that we reach compromise. We need each other far more now than we ever did, the society that both groups want is not that different, but any hope of ever getting the society that we both need and want is being ripped away from us by capitalism and conservatism, and the patriarchy, and a disabelist mindset.

How is it that seeking sex is ok but having it is not? So we can find it, we know where it is and we know who will supply it, we just cannot have it? weird!

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