Does anyone know the article about "prostitute", "sex worker" etc not being the correct terminology

That's very important. The number of murdered women who are never even reported missing is completely missing from the statistics. With the Robert Picton case in Vancouver, the police disregarded reports of missing women made by prostituted women for years. It was only after on-going campaigning due to the high number of women going missing that the police took it seriously. That makes it quite clear the police are not likely to treat a report of a missing prostituted woman as a potential murder, even if it is reported.

It is very important to know that the majority of murders of the prostituted are and always have been unreported. This is because the sex trade has many ways of making these deaths disappear. Many of the prostituted women and girls that are killed are isolated from friends and families, which is enforce often by the sex trade by moving them round and lying to the prostituted women that no-one cares about them. This makes conditions that means if the prostituted are murdered, it will be easy to be of no importance. The murders of the prostituted is only reported when it sensational, which shows it is so normal that it is not news.
Listen to exited prostituted women, Hear that all of us knew of prostituted friends and acquaintances who just disappear - most of us had have known at least one to three prostituted friends who were murdered, and there was no investigation or report of their deaths. Listen to how with lived with constant threat of violent deaths - including suicide, deaths from injuries or illness, or murder - and then call a job like any other.

OldLadyKnowsBeelzebub wrote - "2 women a week are murdered by the men who are supposed to love and support them; that number hasn't changed since I worked with WA over 20 years ago, so either the stats haven't been updated or being in a relationship with a man is actually more dangerous than working as a prostitute."

Statistics show that it is NOT more dangerous for women in the entire UK population to be in a relationship with a man, compared to prostitution.

The UK Government has estimated that there are about 80,000 women in prostitution in the UK, and Kinnell (2001) found that at least 60 prostitutes had been murdered in a 10 year period. That is about 1 in 13,000, per year. In the same period, about 1,000 out of 30 million women, who were not in prostitution, were murdered (about 1 in 300,000, per year). Therefore, the risk of murder for women in prostitution is more than 20 times* greater than for the general population of women in the UK.

• 300,000 / 13,000 = 23

Thank you rmott for your work and moving writing. We are honoured to have your post on this board.

Thank you so much rmott, for your post and the important work you do.

Yes thank you rmott. Thank you for all the work you do in this area and your beautiful writing.

Thank you, rmott.

I have decided to write to make clear why the vast majority of exited prostituted folks hate the expression "sex worker", for much that has been written is untrue or deeply insulting to the prostituted class
I have been campaigning as an exited prostituted woman for about 10 years, and help to found Survivors United, an international campaigning group of people who survive the sex trade (with around 177 members). This group , and SPACE - another international group of survivors of the sex trade - all feel the term sex work is a completely unacceptable.
It need to understood that the term sex work or sex worker is the acceptable term of the sex trade profiteers, and was very likely invented by them to keep invisible the normal hate and violence in all aspects of the sex trade, including all forms of prostitution.
We want the term prostituted woman/man to be used, not to say prostitute. To say prostitute is lay the blame onto the women/man who is in the sex trade, and make invisible the agents of oppression that is the punters and sex trade profiteers.

It has been said on this thread that we should only use the term the individual prostituted women/man uses. That is only true, if you refuse to look with a clear eye at how the structure of prostitution is made.
The sex trade is extremely skilled at mental abuse, in breaking down the prostitution, and forcing the language of their oppression into them. The major reason that most of the prostituted will say they are sex workers, is because they have no other language that fits their reality.
It is natural when you embedded in prostitution, to block out as much of reality as possible. This means refusing to accept the normal violence, refusing to know how many of the prostituted just disappear - and letting in the lies and propaganda of the sex trade instead. To know the full reality of being prostituted is impossible to live with, especially when there appears to be no exit or hope.

Please think before you say the only real issue is that society stigmatises the prostituted. If there is stigma, it is nowhere as serious knowing at any time or any place a punter or sex trade profiteer will rape, beat, torture or murder the prostituted.
Most of so-called stigma is the lies poured into the prostituted by sex trade profiteers and punters. These lies will keep the prostituted as sub-human sexual goods, and say no-one outside the sex trade care if they are alive or dead. It is used to prevent the prostituted from seeking help or having self-esteem.
It is important to never to use terms like forced sex worker, or such like terms that promote these lies.

Another myth that has been express here, is that by some miracle prostitution can be made safer or at least safe enough to not look too deeply at the conditions, if it is placed indoors.
This is nonsense - it is an upside-down way of seeing vaw. When we look at male violence for non-prostituted women and girls, we know that most women are in danger indoors and with men that they know. But, we refuse to see that with prostituted women.
Instead we imagine that it can made safe to put the prostituted alone in a room with a punter who they very little about. I only did indoors prostitution - and I do not ever not being totally aware that any time and in place a punter could be as sadist as he wants, and there would no help or even interest in my welfare. I was nearly murdered at least four, I cannot know or count how many times I was raped, including many gang rapes, and was often sexually tortured. This was the norm for indoors prostitution - but the sex trade is very effective at making sure you do not look behind the closed doors of brothels, hotels, flats, rooms etc.
One terrible myth said here is that murders of the prostituted is rare. It is considered that the prostituted are likely to die a violent death about 40 times more than women of similar age or background. It is normal for the sex trade profiteers to make the prostituted disappear. The murders of the prostituted is so common, that it not worth reporting unless it is considered sensational, usually that means a serial murderer. But the common murders of the prostituted is made to unimportant.

It is also not true that most of the prostituted here did not enter the sex trade when they were adults. The normal age that prostituted women enter the sex trade is 12-15, for the sex trade in every country and culture is built on supplying young flesh. Most punters want as young as possible.

I could on and on and on - but I am tired.

Empire if you set out to disregard as many women as possible (e.g. if they did not go straight into prostitution following the abuse as OLKB suggests) and shut your eyes and close your ears to situations you want to avoid, you would say there is no correlation. If you base your views on privileged bloggers who say they have never met a trafficked or coerced woman in 20 years of prostitution or on your neighbour and her empowerfulised sexy-fun stripping, you can disregard the pile of research because... agenda

OLKB the correlation on DV amongst Sex Workers comes from a 2004 study of incarcerated street workers, so the chance of a bias result was pretty heavy given the sample as you pointed out was dodgy to start with. Given that the original assumption was biased it is easy to see why follow ups have continually focused on street worker and using that to generate end demand campaigns that are likely to cause more deaths and injuries in sex work as the sex workers will not have any real protection like being able to work together or even employ maids. As pointed out upthread there is no health and safety and can't be while the industry is illegal. Realistically so long as currency exists there will be supply and demand and the best protection for women in the industry is legislation. Police can then focus on those who are working illegally which will be your trafficked victims and victims of Child Abuse.

Realistic Zoning would also protect those of us that don't want it on streets in our neighbourhood.

But is the correlation "so strong"? The stats are very dodgy, and based mainly on women (usually involved in exit programmes) who have been/are streetworking. It is estimated (there are no reliable figures) that 8-12% of UK prostitutes are streetworkers, that means that about 90% of UK prostitutes are indoor workers, and very little research has been done with them.

Given that at least 25% of all women will be subject to sexual abuse at some point, it can be no big surprise that a large number of sex workers have previously experienced sexual abuse. According to WA stats, 2 women a week are murdered by the men who are supposed to love and support them; that number hasn't changed since I worked with WA over 20 years ago, so either the stats haven't been updated or being in a relationship with a man is actually more dangerous than working as a prostitute.

As noted upthread, lies, damned lies, and statistics.

And please, please, please can we ditch the "women and girls" bollox; girls do not "enter prostitution", they are victims of CSA.

Oh bugger, now I'll get slated for asking if someone is new to the FWR topics. Sigh.

Are you new to FWR, Phraeda ? The reason I ask that is because the majority of feminists on here do not support the sex industry at all and there have been countless long running arguments discussions about how generally damaging it is for both women, men and children. Most of them are a complete waste of time and achieve nothing but bad feeling all around.

In the light of recent threads about people feeling inhibited about posting here, I am trying to not contribute to thread derails, listen a bit more, stay more strictly on topic and not post knee jerk reactions to things I find uncomfortable. That does not mean I have changed my view in any way.

I agree that prostitution and stripping damaging, exploitatitve and degrading. I don't say this to shame women in prostitution or strippers so your statement about intent is wrong.

I object to "sex worker" but I don't object so strongly to the use of "sex industry" or "sex trade" because it is the women who are commoditised and sold in the industry and I don't feel it has the same colluding effect. Sheila Jeffreys wrote the Industrial Vagina and she certainly wasn't colluding.

Phaedra there are plenty of feminists on this board who are against prostitution and do not consider it a valid career choice nor empowering.

Phaedra says "degrading".

I said to all. I include the users in that whether or not they might think of themselves as such. It is an "industry " which dehumanises all involved.

The use of "industry" is colluding to make it sound better. I'm responding to this thread and the suggestions by some we should not use loaded or judgemental terminology. I disagree with that view.

Musing in response to your muses, Buffy... It's one thing to say "there's nothing to be ashamed of", but plenty of people disagree. I have heard of women being forced to move home because the neighbours found out and put dog shit through the door, shouted at their dc in the street that mummy's a whore. Losing "respectable" jobs for "bringing disrepute" upon their employers (because that really helps exiting the sex industry, huh?) Being abused in the streets, shops, on the school run, as well as in (inevitable?) emails, FB, Twitter. There's talk of being "reduced" to prostitution, in the post just after yours, Phaedra says "degrading". All of these things designed and intended to shame, because there is a stigma attached.

Where does this stigma come from? I think that could be a whole other thread on it's own, but a few ideas occur. Is it because women have been "reduced" to this because they're not the protected property of a man, so survival prostitution is the only option? Shame that they're somehow not "good enough" to have and keep their own man... Is it because a "willing" SW (who is not engaged in survival prostitution, although it pays the bills) is transgressive in her sexual behaviour; women are not supposed to be happily promiscuous, and to make a healthy profit from it upsets a patriarchal norm?

I don't know, but it's interesting to explore ideas.

The sex industry is wrong. Dressing it up with softer words doesn't make it less wrong.

"Feminists" trying to defend it as a valid career choice or, heaven help us" empowering" are at best misguided and at worst colluding with exploitation.

Prostitute and stripper are ugly words. Good- they relate to ugly concepts which are damaging , exploitative and degrading to all involved.