is there and 'official' feminist view on prostitution? and what is it?

Yes. If you don't believe me why don't you try asking someone who works as an escort (see the twitter links posted earlier) and see what she says?

Already have, and no, it was never ever ok. I wonder whose imagination these halcyon escorts come from?

And if a client proceeds to force her into sex without her consent we know what will happen... (he goes to prison for rape)

1 rape conviction out of how many complaints? Out of how many rapes? Of how many women? In which areas of prostitution? 1 woman in Bristol... how many from Soho? Glasgow? Edinburgh? Even you have to see that your argument is rubbish....

You conflate your illusion of high class escorts with the reality for the vast majority of prostituted women.

You fail to see the damage that commodifying sex has on women as a class. Or you simply don't care.

As Anyfucker said, and as has been asked of the pro lobby ad nauseam, what about men's choices in this? What does it say about men as a class that they are happy to pay a woman who doesn't fancy or even like them to allow them to use them as a wank sock?

Anyway... the evolution strawman has been stuffed, so I'm out, there's no point in debating serious subjects with someone who is completely unable to do so.

I could play bingo myself-

"Consent cannot possibly be given if money is accepted"- check

"It must be rape/coercion if the worker does not fancy the client"- check

"Women (or women's bodies) are being bought/sold"- check

"Would you do it/would you like a family member of yours to do it"- check

Please say "evolution", poker face, then I can call House.

Slightly off-topic but it is interesting to note in that Maggie McNeill article sex for payment has been observed in chimps.

Not only chimps, but also in penguins. Males have been offering rocks (vital for building nests) to females in exchange for sex-

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/60302.stm

Slavery and trafficking is already illegal in the UK, and the police do try and look for victims and trafficking. This summer the Edinburgh saunas were all raided and more recently flats in Soho were raided (but we haven't had any follow-up to tell us how many victims they have rescued).

You might have heard of operations Pentameter 1 and 2? They were massive 6-month UK-wide investigations to try and find victims. They were failures.

www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails

As per usual, and how all these threads go, is that people fall into the trap of looking at it from the prostituted women's POV... their choices, their impact their rights

I don't take their agency away but my own spotlight is on the men that use them

their choices their impact their rights

it puts a whole different slant on it folks, if your bottom line is that men do not have the right to pay women to ignore the fact they are not sexually attracted to them

"Or are you seriously suggesting that if they refused to have sex after the man has paid for their 'time and companionship' that that would be ok?"

Yes. If you don't believe me why don't you try asking someone who works as an escort (see the twitter links posted earlier) and see what she says?

And if a client proceeds to force her into sex without her consent we know what will happen... (he goes to prison for rape)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-25404711

Buffy - It sounds like what you really want outlawed is slavery and forced prostitution, not prostitution in general (which includes willing prostitutes).

While I think the OP is both clueless and goading, there are one or two points worth addressing:

'Choice' for people who are poor, in the current climate of austerity/war on the poor etc. There are a lot of jobs which are poorly paid/dangerous/make use of trafficked people/may conflict with some individuals' ethics. I think it's unhelpful to single out and stigmatize sex work so much more than (eg) casual agricultural or construction work. or debt collecting for payday loan companies.

'buying' women. A person who pays for sexual acts to be performed by another is buying the sex worker's time and services. After the services have been performed and paid for, the participants in the transaction go their separate ways with no obligation on either side. Unlike a lot of low-paying corporations, a sex worker's clients have (and expect) no claim on what the sex worker does outside of the paid-for time. Sex workers' clients do not reserve the right to police their social media, forbid them to unionize, insist on drink or drugs tests or order them to attend church services or lose their jobs.

'Choosing sex work harms other women: There is a feminist viewpoint that only women are constantly told to put themselves last and consider Everyone Else In The Entire World before their own needs. Women are not a homogenous group. A woman choosing to embrace or reject sex work is no more to blame for what happens to other women who choose differently than a woman who chooses to embrace or reject motherhood, or employment, or religion, or body modification, or marriage.

To be more precise, prostitutes rent the use of their orifices (and breasts etc). If they were told sell certain body parts, the buyer would presumably take them with him.

Anyone else following the conversation on catounbound? Really interesting stuff. And not too much frothing.

Escorts don't sell their "bodily orifices", they sell their time and companionship.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha etc. etc.

Can just hear it can't you: "Come in, sit down love and I'll make us a nice cup of tea and we can talk about your mum's arthritis and what's on this week at the local Odeon."

Escorts don't sell their "bodily orifices", they sell their time and companionship.

Do be serious! They sell their orifices to men who believe they are entitled to buy them. Or are you seriously suggesting that if they refused to have sex after the man has paid for their 'time and companionship' that that would be ok?

This bingo card is getting quite full now.

Shouldn't it be up to the individual selling sex to decide what "consent" is for herself instead of telling her she isn't able to give "consent" and what she is doing is wrong?

Not in a legal, moral or ethical sense, no. In any of those senses, unless the prostituted woman can honestly say that she would have have consented to the sexual act taking place with that particular man, without money having changed hands, then no, real, actual and legal consent cannot have taken place. HTH.

The other strawman that the pro lobby brings up is the concept of 'high-class' escorts. What percentage of prostituted women are these 'high-class' ones? How many of them have been raped? What percentage are 'less than high class'? Where do they work? What do they earn?

These men will clutch at any straw in order to retain their entitlement to women's bodies.

Escorts don't sell their "bodily orifices", they sell their time and companionship.

"Would you consider selling your orifices for money the same as working at mcdonalds?"

I don't know what burger-flippers earn at Mickey-Ds but they for a rough guess they would probably have to work about 20 hours to earn what a typical escort earns in 1 hour.

"why can a woman not choose to sell sexual favors, but CAN have her fetus terminated?"

Personally I believe abortion should be legal (if done within a set time-limit so the fetus is not too developed) and that a woman should not have to give a reason for having an abortion, but that's for another thread. I don't think it's relevant to sex work at all.

How much would you sell your bodily orifices for, pokerface? Is £100 an hour enough for you?

If you were skint, would you rent out your arsehole for other men's sexual gratification, I wonder?

Also - would like to have to have a stab at the questions posed to the OP upthread? (OP seems to have gone a bit shy).

So why don't these women claim welfare instead then, or find a low paying job?

Escorts earn anything from £100 an hour up to several hundred pounds an hour. A lot more than what welfare pays.

"Mostly because consent within sex is necessary and lack of consent within the act sexual congress is called rape. Rape is a crime. Consent cannot be bought if it is to be considered not to be coerced. Coerced consent is no consent at all when considered ethically."

Noone here is denying rape is a crime. Sex workers do have a right to not give consent and they do have a right to end the appointment with the client without giving a refund for remaining time. If the client continues to then force sex on her then that is rape.

Fortunately, the courts now acknowledge sex workers have a right to give/not give consent and that it is possible for them to be victims of rape. A man has recently been jailed for raping a sex worker.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-25404711

"consent which is paid for is not true consent"

Shouldn't it be up to the individual selling sex to decide what "consent" is for herself instead of telling her she isn't able to give "consent" and what she is doing is wrong?

Completely free capitalism would, for example, lead to children being employed for various tasks because they are smaller and cheaper.

Society deems that unacceptable so it doesn't happen any more.

You don't have to be anti-capitalist to consider that capitalism needs some restrictions. I don't think there's a single western government that doesn't apply some - the minimum wage cited above is another example.

Are you studying currently, OP? What subjects?