Sex: My British Job. Channel 4

Another couple of points; on the same basis as "punters are criminalised", so are street-working prostitutes, under our current laws. This leaves the most vulnerable women unprotected, and unable to protect themselves. (Compare 7 dead women in Glasgow, a "zero tolerance" zone, with no dead women in Edinburgh, when it experimented with RLD and licensed brothels)

And yes, brothel-working is by far the safest way to perform sexwork, as agreed by the UN, which advocates decriminalisation. Most punters are naice men but if you get one who isn't, it's A Good Thing to have Other People around, y'know?

When you look at the WA stats that say 2 women (you know, Real Women, not whores) a week are murdered by their supposed loved-one, whoring looks positively safe.

Quite honestly I don't give a 4X for academic studies or statistics - I make my view from what I've experienced (and that does NOT exclude the women depicted in the programme).
Criminalise the punter and what will happen? The one thing it will not do is deter those who cause the most damage. Make it illegal and all you will do is dry up the income source from those very 'naice' men all us happy hookers entertain. It will NOT restrain those who do not give a 4X about the laws of our land.......whether those laws relate to prostitution, rape, GBH, theft or any other crime you care to name.

Couldn't find a pimp-lobby c&p answer to Buffy's question wino? It's amazing how short and ahem to the point your answers are when they are the product of your own "thinking".

An all new low, intellectually, though. It may surprise you to know that gravity is not studied by pro-gravity lobbyists selecting study participants and asking them how gravity affects them.

I suppose if you view women in prostitution as interchangeable fuck units, it must be difficult to get your head around the problems with your "evidence".

others say things like well they had been giving it away for free why not charge for it
I heard that a few times - from survivors of childhood sexual abuse and rape How callous to include that as a good reason.

So the sex industry pay shills Grennie? I'm not surprised...

No need to be rude just because you can't understand. Gravity has nothing to do with this topic - you are just confused. No shame in it

Buffy
What a laod of post-modern crap-do you really think there is no external reality or is it all socially constructed? Is gravity a social contruct? Get real

Belle Du Jour says herself that the whole time she was in the sex industry, she never met another woman being prostituted. She worked alone. So forgive me if I don't think she has a clue what she is talking about.

And, of course, your next paper you c&p will cite that actually, despite abolitionists whinging on, 99% of prostitutes really do fit this profile.

Now shut up feminists and let me fuck'em in peace. They love it.

Any other views wino? Good a good apple cake recipe? Enjoying the new series of Homeland? Happy with your kids school? MIL getting on your nerves?
Never see you round the site. How strange.

Well a quick answer then to the answer I posted above when I said “Prostitution is not suited to everybody by any means “(post Mon 07-Oct-13 15:42:01)-a similar point has been made repeatedly by Brooke Magnanti (aka Belle de Jour) prompting a lot of response along the lines “what sort of people are suited to prostitution?”. I am sure you could also find answers on the SAAFE website. ( and coincidentally this was posted by an ex-escort on the same topic maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/it-takes-all-kinds/)

The people who do best (that is avoid burnout) are those who start prostitution relatively late (around the mid twenties) are introduced into it by their friends (female) who are already working in the industry, have a professional attitude to their work and are in a relatively supportive environment-so for instance if they are working in a brothel where the management is supportive as are their colleagues. This is really not much different from any work place environment where colleagues are congenial and the management good (see Vanvassenbeek I 2005 Burnout Among Female Indoor SexWorkers Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 34, No. 6, December 2005, pp. 627–639 DOI: 10.1007/s10508-005-7912-y)

Other personal characteristics that seem helpful is if the woman is assertive and has good negotiation skills-a disproportionate number of sex workers also have a background in the caring industry (nursing etc-and interestingly still work in the caring professions and do prostitution for extra income) which suggests those sort of skills are helpful as is an ability to listen and be empathetic (many prostitutes describe their roles as more of a therapist than as a pure sex worker). Many prostitutes describe putting on a new persona along with sexy clothes and make-up and an assumed name in the work environment. They like the acting-of being someone else and this also helps delineate their work from their home life.

An open attitude to sex is of course vital-many prostitutes seem to have been sexually active with a number of partners before entering prostitution-a high proportion cite sexual curiosity as a reason for starting in prostitution-others say things like well they had been giving it away for free why not charge for it.

All these characteristics do not make someone prostitute, many who have the above characteristics will not choose this path-but the above characteristics seem to suit the role.

I think wino must be looking for something to copy and paste re what sort of people are suited to prostitution as I asked the question two days ago, repeated it yesterday and now Grennie has repeated it too.

Come on wino: you seem to be such an 'expert' on all things prostitute you must know.

I wonder how much the sex industry pay shills?

wino oh dear, you've made a boo boo.

A census is a complete enumeration of an entire population. This is completely different from a sample, whether purposive or random. Here's a little cartoon to explain to you what the difference is:

www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/a3121120.nsf/home/statistical+language+-+census+and+sample

I'm wondering if what you are calling a census is what the New Zealand government refers to as an estimation. Oh look, here they are talking about the difficulty of obtaining an accurate estimation of the numbers of workers in the sex industry:

www.justice.govt.nz/policy/commercial-property-and-regulatory/prostitution/prostitution-law-review-committee/publications/impact-health-safety/2.-estimation-of-numbers

Try word searching "census". (Hint: it's not there.)

whenthered has already commented on your NZ study extensively. I'll remind you she informed you earlier that all women who could not answer questions without an interpreter were excluded from the survey. Therefore most (if not all) of the women in prostitution in the C4 programme would have been excluded anyway.

I'm also interested in your answer to Grennie's question.

wino - what sort of people does prostitution suit?

flora you do talk bollocks. Purposive sampling in the cases quoted (the Danish and NZ studies) was done after a census of prostitutes which established the numbers working on the street (done by sampling on several occasions, using data from outreach organisations, and the police and using capture recapture methods to establish the number in the category of street workers).

The numbers of brothel and escort agency and private workers by using advertisements over a considerable period de-duplicating the phone numbers, establishing the addresses visiting the brothels and establishing the number of brothel workers and the numbers behind each number working in flats. That establishes the number of brothel worker, similarly for those working in flats and in escort agencies. that establishes two other categories . Male sex workers were also sampled in a similar way. That enables one to arrive at the best estimate of the scale of prostitution and the proportion in each category. Full details are given in the respective reports

It was whenthered who said purposive sampling "is the researcher choosing the sample based on who the researcher thinks would be appropriate for the survey." Well no-the categories are the type of sex work, street, brothel private which are categories established by the census. In the Danish study the researchers who questioned the sexworkers were not related to any sexwork organisation. In Nz they were-this is Community based participatory research and was felt necessary to gain the confidence of the sex workers. I don't know where Grennie gets the idea the questions were asked in front of "their pimps" it does not appear in the methods section-if she has this information she should share it..

The use of sexworkers as co-researchers with academics had no apparent influence on the results as the Danish and NZ results are pretty similar.

wino "I have spent my entire professional life dealing with issues of evidence, of proof and using statistics so won’t take lessons from you who does not understand purposive sampling will not read anything she claims is unrepresentative yet then cites the “survivor” Rebecca Mott as an example of how prostitution really is"

Based on your posts on the IM threads, I find this statement highly implausible unless your professional life has been as a pimp-lobby shill, which would then make complete sense. You never did address the issues with purposive sampling raised by Buffy (I think) in the other thread nor acknowledge the difficulties of purposive sampling techniques where the participants in a study are selected by pro-prostitution lobbyists / sex workers.

You're right that you won't convince most of us to change our views on prostitution. The fact that all you can come up with is "faith based" when your "evidence" is challenged is a testament to the shallowness of your understanding of the topic you discuss.

^Yes that would be interesting to hear...

Wino: would you be kind enough to answer the question I asked yesterday following your statement that

Prostitution is not suited to everybody by any means.

What sort of people does prostitution suit do you think?