Sex: My British Job. Channel 4

"Sex starvation"? Behave, that doesn't even exist except as a misguided concept in someone's head.
We all have needs, women as well as men. As a woman, I have never felt the burning need to pay someone who doesn't want to fuck me, to fuck me.
I saw the documentary and was impressed that it was all about the women and the hardships that they faced. So glad it wasn't gratuitous, or made to seem "sexy". Nick Broomfield is a piece of work though; when that undercover journalist was saying she felt suicidal, I couldn't believe he encouraged her to go back in there.

Anyone who knows anything about the Samaritans Frodosmum knows they are non-judgemental i.e. they do not inflict their personal opinions on callers. They also know they never tell any caller what to do. But in their own lives Samaritans will have a cross section of personal opinions like anyone else.

Citing the Samaritans is a rubbish comparison.

why focus on them

Why ignore them? It is one of the most interesting parts of the discussion.

The Samaritans are a non-profit organisation. My point above was that if you had a client on the line who was suicidal because of sex starvation, 'FFS have a wank' (as suggested above) might not be the most sensitive advice.

With regards to female punters - is there a big population of women paying to have sex with male children?

No. There. Isn't.

The pretence that women's participation in paying for sex is anything like men's, is hollow. It is nonsense.

Female punters who are not with their male partner e.g. buying a woman for a threesome, are very rare. Some women copy what men do, thinking that is somehow empowerment. Still doesn't make it right.

Of course no one has a right to a relationship or children either, although some men think they do - mail order brides.

Amsterdam legalised prostitution. The police and Government are now saying it was a disaster. Underage children, trafficked women and violence all increased as a result. Legalisation has been tried in a number of places, it never works.

Has anyone heard of the Nordic Model? This is where you decriminalise those in prostitution, but criminalise the punters. And give help to those in prostitution to help them out of it. There is a UK group lobbying for our Government to adopt this model.

No matter what the circumstances, Frodosmum, nobody has an absolute right to a sex life or a sexual experience.

I hope that you realise that this applies to other things in life. For example, nobody has an absolute right to relationships or an absolute right to have children. These also require the active consent of a second party, but you don’t hear a lot about that.

If you mean the Monday night C4 documentary, I did see it.

Frodo - have you actually seen the documentary in question? I suggest you watch it (since it's what the thread's actually about) before tossing the insults out.

No matter what the circumstances, Frodosmum, nobody has an absolute right to a sex life or a sexual experience.

I am aware that this follows logically from the fact that a sexual experience, like getting a job, requires the consent of a second party. However, the pleasure obviously taken in this statement smacks of dour, sunless, Scandinavian Presbyterianism. This is why male journalists of a certain age think that feminism is only an anti-sex movement.

People also have the right not to encounter unnecessary interference in their sex lives. This is usually the ‘res’ in sexually contentious matters.

It's the only argument that gets political traction.

That means nothing in terms of substantive argument or the justice of the case.

Or an ego trip.

I don’t buy the ‘ego trip’ theory. From what I have seen and heard, particularly via the TV programmes, of the experience the punter gets, that does not really make sense.

and frodos lesbians

For reference, my understanding is that the female punters are not all gay: some are bisexual/bi-curious. Come to think about it, I suspect that this also applies to some male clients of gay male prostitutes.

Female punters are relevant because the nature of the phenomenon is not fully understood or agreed upon.

FFS just have a wank

I would hate to see you working the Samaritans suicide helpline when male clients come on: ‘Think what you have to live for: work, masturbation and death’.

Not directly related to the OP but I was flicking through our local paper yesterday and came across an advert for an "escort" service, they apparently specialise in visiting truckers in their lorries, just how fucking desperate do you have to be as a woman that you would put yourself at such risk by going to a lorry parked up in a layby somewhere?

It really shocked me and when I read it out to DH he couldn't believe it was legal to advertise such a "service" .

Or an ego trip.

No matter what the circumstances, Frodosmum, nobody has an absolute right to a sex life or a sexual experience.

Frodosmum, the assumption that women can get sex without putting forth much effort is irrelevant, as is the assumption that the sexual experience is what is being paid for. Part of the experience of paying a prostitute for sex is the little glow the buyer gets from knowing that money can buy something most people wouldn't freely give the average punter just for the asking, right after walking in off the street. It's the instant gratification regardless of the real desire or lack thereof of the victim that is being bought, the sense of having the power to do that to another person just by dint of having whatever it costs in your wallet, when you feel like your ego trip.

Mostly male, not necessarily ‘overwhelmingly’. Would it matter if it were 49%/51%?

How can this possibly be a ‘derail’? Are you saying that female clients of prostitutes ‘get a pass’ because of their gender? That would be simple reverse sexism. On the last-but-one Channel 4 programme on prostitution, a disabled male client was described by a hardline feminist academic as ‘still engaging in abusive behaviour’ while losing his virginity in a brothel and that disability was not an excuse. Disabled and female clients paying for sex may both be in a minority, but if the principle is valid it must hold for any client, male or female.

Not everything which does not fit your agenda has to be a ‘derail’. The documentary unveiled a fair number of unsavoury issues.

Frodomum - "Women do it too" is a massive derail. Statistically, punters are overwhelmingly male.

That's what I mean - where they exist it is concentrated on, for the wow factor, iykwim.

One of the heterosexual women paying a man for sex on that Channel 4 documentary on 30+ virgins was a 40-year-old female Christian virgin who wanted her first time to be with somebody who knew what he was doing.