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Original poster

Prostitutes - Are Women in Denial About Who Uses Them?

318 replies

CKDexterHaven · 25/08/2014 18:54

I've seen some threads on Mumsnet where a woman is concerned about her husband or partner going on an all-male trip to Thailand or Las Vegas or Prague or Amsterdam. As soon as someone raises the issue of prostitution they are shouted down and told they are jumping to conclusions. Is the issue of nice, middle-class husbands using prostitutes something to which women are willingly blind?

There are millions of prostituted women and girls in the world, and, of course, men and boys too. The slow advancements in women's lives in the developed world mean that women in their thousands are trafficked from East to Western Europe, from South to North America, from Africa to Southern Europe and from Asia to Australia and the rest of the world just to meet demand. It stands to reason that there must be a lot more clients than prostitutes. The ratio must be akin to hairdressers and their clients. So where are the men? And who are they?

I've read interviews with exited prostitutes who say most of their clients were 'normal', often married, middle-class men. I've heard prostitutes say the best time to work is not a Friday or Saturday night but first thing on a Monday morning when mid-life crisis guys who hate their jobs treat themselves before going back to work. But in my lifetime I've only ever met two men who've admitted to using prostitutes. One was very drunk and bragged to his friends, the other one was an 'edgy' mature student who thought it wasn't exploitative because the prostitute was older than him and, therefore, somehow in control of the situation. That's it, two men.

When I was growing up in the 80s and early 90s porn was sold in dodgy shops, stripping happened in sleazy men's clubs and prostitution was virtually invisible to anyone who didn't live in a red-light area. Even the most handmaideny of handmaidens I knew felt these things were degrading to men and women. Now that porn is a click away and lap-dancing clubs are in every town centre most women seem to have redefined these things as 'empowering' rather than confront the fact that men they know enjoy dehumanising women who need money. Prostitution is also a lot more visible and, although this has been redefined as an empowering career choice for women, women still seem sensitive to the idea of men they know using prostitutes. Why is this? Is it just the question of tangible cheating or are women not as ok with 'sex work' for women as they say they are?

OP posts:
GarlicAugustus · 27/08/2014 00:45

CKD: Why are you blaming women (the 1% in your post) for exploiting patriarchy, as they see it? All of us women do it one way and another - if you are a woman (sorry, I don't know,) don't you ever 'perform femininity' to get a result?

How is it the women who're "behaving like shit to other women", rather than the punters with wives, and the men who run the industries that lead men to expect whatever sex they desire?

DioneTheDiabolist · 27/08/2014 00:40

And so we've arrived. OP, you have made some good points on this thread, but it is clear from your OP and from your most recent points, that you are blaming women here. And you don't see sex workers as Real Women.

Original poster
CKDexterHaven · 27/08/2014 00:39

The basic premise of this thread is that the men who use prostitutes are 'normal' guys and probably we all know men who use prostitutes, but if a woman suggests this she gets vilified and shouted down. I think this thread has proved how badly women react to other women who say this. We're willing to see 'other' men as bad guys but if a woman suggests men we know might be the bad guys then other women round on her. This is partly how men get away all this kind of stuff.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 27/08/2014 00:25

I really, really hate going to bed on a lost temper. It pisses me right off.

Original poster
CKDexterHaven · 27/08/2014 00:23

Or put it another way, I think people like SolidGoldBrass are perpetuating Migsy's situation.

OP posts:
Original poster
CKDexterHaven · 27/08/2014 00:21

AnyFucker Don't you think that the tiny minority of prostitutes who have options and have made a choice and have exercised agency have looked at misogyny and the abuse of women and thought 'I'll exploit that for money'? That is a pretty despicable thing to do to other women and helps perpetuate a life of misery for the 99% of optionless prostitutes. If these women have exercised the agency they claim to have then they don't get a free pass to behave like shit to other women just because they are women themselves.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 27/08/2014 00:19

Do you have a filter at all, CK ? There is a self confessed prostitute actively posting on the thread. Reading between the lines (and remembering other threads, where incidentally she was treated with kindness and respect) she is in a fucking awful situation.

And you come out with a rant like that ? Whether it was directed at her, or another poster, it was simply an opportunity for you to spew forth what you have waiting to do since you started this thread.

I don't think you are what you say you are. I don't believe you.

Original poster
CKDexterHaven · 27/08/2014 00:16

I think Migsy seems to be in a bind and optionless and therefore not exercising agency so my post wasn't directed at her. It was directed at SolidGoldBrass who seems to be the prostitution-apologist on these threads.

OP posts:
Original poster
CKDexterHaven · 27/08/2014 00:13

I was responding to SolidGoldBrass who seems to think it's ok to make money from the sexual exploitation of women.

OP posts:
GarlicAugustus · 27/08/2014 00:10

screaming about how exchanging money for sex, or sex for money, is always a terrible thing which only happens between helpless victims and evil men.

SGB, you know better than to ridicule a big picture by reducing it to extremes, which haven't been voiced by any poster on either thread. What you did there is the same as people saying domestic abuse isn't a problem because women aren't timid victims and NAMALT.

The problem is a set of cultural values that lionise the penis and accept the commodification of other humans for its whims, as long as the penis owners pay the going rate. That can lead to some terrible things.

Migsy - you are part of the problem, though not the cause of it.

AnyFucker · 27/08/2014 00:09

CK, you are out of order. If you truly were a feminist you wouldn't attack another woman like you just have done. I don't think you like women very much at all, do you ?

capant · 27/08/2014 00:05

I wouldn't for a minute blame you migsymoo, it is the punters and pimps who are to blame.

migsymoo · 26/08/2014 23:59

I'm not collaborating with anyone about the abuse of women and children. Why do you think that I would be ok with that?! Just because I have sex for money doesn't mean I'm ok with violence of any sort.

Original poster
CKDexterHaven · 26/08/2014 23:51

Is there someone from the pimp lobby on these threads? Telling the fun-spoiling ugly, bitter feminists that they are the ones limiting women's freedom and not the men who conspire on a world-wide scale to prevent women from attaining financial independence and, thereby, ensuring that there will always be an underclass of women too poor to say 'no'?

If you are one of the very few women who chooses to make money from an industry founded on the misery of women and children then you are collaborating with rape culture and the abuse of women and children. If you truly have the agency you claim to have then I won't infantilise you by painting you as a victim but rather as a someone who benefits from misogyny and seeks to perpetuate it.

OP posts:
SolidGoldBrass · 26/08/2014 23:37

If freedom doesn't include the right to engage in sex work if you choose to do so, then it isn't freedom. No one should be forced into sex work. No one should be forced into any kind of work that we find distasteful, scary or dangerous. But just because some people find some other people's jobs distasteful or scary is no reason to prohibit people from choosing to do those jobs - or to prohibit people from choosing to pay others to do those jobs.
It's not helpful to people who want to stop doing sex work, or people who don't want to stop yet, or people who don't want to stop at all because they are in that minority of sex workers who find the job suits them or their circumstances - or because they are in that category of sex workers who see themselves as therapists and healers - to keep on screaming about how exchanging money for sex, or sex for money, is always a terrible thing which only happens between helpless victims and evil men.

migsymoo · 26/08/2014 23:24

It would just change the way the sex industry works. I can't see many men being arrested for paying for sex with an independent escort or at sex parties. I could see it totally shutting down the street and parlour scene.

Original poster
CKDexterHaven · 26/08/2014 23:19

Not many men seem to be convicted for seeking sex with a prostitute in this country. Do you think the adoption of the Swedish Model would change this and the threat of naming and shaming would drive down demand, or would we just readjust our values in the way we have with porn and lap-dancing clubs?

OP posts:
JustAboveTheDogPan · 26/08/2014 23:13

Ask - today you were reading about Rotherham, not Rochdale, and no it isn't 'bang up to date', so detail is important here.

I'd think it's quite easy to cherry pick anecdotes to support a position, we all do it, but I was being critical of the swathing judgements being offered. Though of course the ingrained mentality of police forces isn't in question - I'd suggest thought that those positions/views are shifting significantly, at least in the larger metropolitan forces.

migsymoo · 26/08/2014 23:11

Yeah of course they could have a wank but they don't have to. I'm not saying men are animals, im only going by what is said to me, unprompted by the men themselves. It's a convenience like fast food and they don't see the harm in it. They're not on a power trip, its just sex.

Original poster
CKDexterHaven · 26/08/2014 23:06

I'm not claiming that there are no decent men but rather that the majority of the men who use prostitutes are seen as respectable and decent. Is it any different from saying that most rapists aren't men hiding in bushes but people that are known to you and their respectability and normality is part of how they get away with it?

I'm sorry SolidGoldBrass thinks I am 'bitter' and 'prurient'. Wow, never heard that said about feminists before Wink. I guess it's because I'm not pro-sex work and am gender-critical but really, you might as well say ugly, old hag in your post. It may be news for you but some of us aren't competing to be head handmaiden and the cool feminist all the boys like. Some of us actually want to be free.

OP posts:
AskBasil · 26/08/2014 23:06

I just don't agree that men buy sex simply because they want a release, as if they don't know how to wank.

That is so simplistic and totally ignores power relations and the deep-rooted misogyny that enables the men who do "buy sex", to see other human beings as people they have the right to release themselves into.

If it were true, women would be "buying sex" at the same rate as men, unless you buy into the crap that we don't "have needs" like men do, we don't need a "release" like they do etc.

I find it incredibly contemptuous of men to talk about them as if they are some kind of dangerous explosive animals who need a release every now and then in case - what? They explode in the wrong place, in the wrong body, one they haven't bought or wooed the right to explode in?

And then I wonder why men are not outraged by this characterisation of them and why so few of them are willing to stand up and loudly refute this picture of them.

It's all a bit depressing really.

AskBasil · 26/08/2014 22:57

I'm not really sure what you're arguing Dogpan. I don't agree that my comment is specific to that teacher, as I said, it's not the first time I've heard it expressed and I don't think it's that uncommon as an attitude.

Are you arguing that the OP is wrong, that such an attitude is not very usual and that my example of the Sutcliffe case was specific to a crap police force at a certain point in their history? Because if so I disagree with you, I've just been watching the news about the Rochdale report and OMG that horrible attitude was alive and kicking and bang up to date and I don't think it's just because those police at that time were particularly awful and unconnected from the rest of their society - their attitudes come out of a generalised misogyny, they're not peculiar to Rochdale police any more than they were to the Yorkshire police in the eighties. I wish that wasn't the case, it would be great if it could be solved just by sorting out a crap police force. But police are drawn from general society and if they are full of racism, or misogyny or contempt for people with mental health problems or whatever other crap attitude, it is because they reflect the views of wider society, albeit the least enlightened part of that society by the looks of it. I just felt that the specific point about setting up an underclass of othered women, is a valid one which seemed to be dismissed almost out of hand. Although I take the point about the dangers of focusing on women's behaviour rather than men's - of course.

migsymoo · 26/08/2014 22:46

Consensual prostitution doesn't involve children. What happened in Rochdale has NOTHING to do with prostitution, that's abuse.

GarlicAugustus · 26/08/2014 22:41

How high d'you want the levels to be? 1,400 children over six years, in a smallish city in England. Multiply that for all the other cities. And they are not 'just' raped, they're tortured and sometimes killed.

This is where your simplicity falls down. "Men buy children because they want to and there are people selling them." It's simply not true. There are not that many men who hanker for the rape, humiliation & torture of children. It's something to do with power, and with power games between men using human beings as pawns.

SevenZarkSeven · 26/08/2014 22:29

That's the long and short of it Migsy.

I find thinking around all this other stuff very interesting too though.

And levels of prostitution vary between countries- finding out why that is assists with reducing it (which clearly is a good aim esp in countries with higher levels of children / desperate people / controlled people etc)