Is prostitution rape?

Ok, let's consider the prostitues who are not: trafficked, beholden to pimps, addicted to drugs, victims of domestic or sexual abuse or have poor mental health. Leaving aside the fact that their risk of being raped, attacked, robbed and even killed is much higher than most, one could say they do a job like most of us are obliged to do. The logical extension of this argument is that we should consider prostitution to be a job like any other and therefore posts should be advertised in job centres and the job itself discussed in schools and so in as a viable profession. Happy with that?

Do we not need to make a distinction here, between street prostitutes and the escort prostitutes? I.e is it not true that those on the working from street level are more likely to be drug dependent, poor, been abused etc than the higher end escorts who tend to be more educated, do this because they enjoy sex? Or is that way off base?

Let's talk about the punters. Do you think they pay for high end escorts because they want to help a woman make money with her enjoyment of sex?

And let's talk about how men who literally paid to have their wishes catered to are not likely to focus on a woman's pleasure in bed.

Yes, sure, women are different and not having to live in the streets makes you somewhat safer. (Though I cannot fathom how you think that they are less likely to have been sexually abused by a man as child. Middle class men do sexually abuse - or do you think all survivors of sexual abuse will inevitably become homeless, regardless their family background?)

Am late back to the thread but wanted to say Giles I appreciate your posts

Talking my way out of that one was probably the second most terrifying incident of the type in my life.

Would you tell us how you did it? Because that's really amazing, I wouldn't have had any idea how to talk my way out of that kind of dangerous situation with a violent man.

I made bad choices and did stupid things and got myself into stupid situations no one really to blame but myself on that. Stupidly I figured it was probably safer to have the sex and stay over and get back in the morning than try and get back half cut in the middle of the night.

But you said you didn't expect them to want sex. So what did you expect?
Did you expect them to drive you home after "meeting the dog", or make sure you get home safely in any other way, or to let you stay the night on the couch - and if yes, then why do you not blame them for demanding sex with the implicit threat that they would not care about your safety if you didn't put out?

Do you think they actually would have said "Ok, you can sleep on the couch, then"/"I'll drive you home" if you had told them you don't want to have sex with them? And that the only reason you were coerced into sex you didn't want was because of your own assumptions?

Do we not need to make a distinction here, between street prostitutes and the escort prostitutes? I.e is it not true that those on the working from street level are more likely to be drug dependent, poor, been abused etc than the higher end escorts who tend to be more educated, do this because they enjoy sex? Or is that way off base??

Yes, Xeno. And because abusive men don't come conveniently tattooed with the mark of Cain on their forehead, sometimes you get the situation of one of my other near-misses, where a friend's boyfriend that we all had down as "good guy, gentle giant" type, offered to walk me home so I accepted without so much as a second thought.

He ended up in my kitchen at 2.00am describing how he'd been physically abusive to my friend because she was a strong woman and he'd had to "break her spirit", but was now tiring of the relationship, and would I like to be his next girlfriend? Talking my way out of that one was probably the second most terrifying incident of the type in my life.

SelmaAndJubjub wrote - "it potentially blurs legal lines at a time when rape convictions are already appallingly low."

I think that highlighting forced "consent" as rape in prostitution helps to make rape of prostitutes less acceptable. I think it would also help women who are not prostitutes, because it would, for example, fight against the madonna/whore rape myth. I think this would improve conviction rates for rapists who have raped any woman or girl.

Exactly prickly

And you also have the decision even before that when a guy you've been chatting to offers to walk you home... is that some company on a walk home or "I'll walk you home because then I can fuck you"?

And if you hesitate over the decision, the slightly jokey "I only offered to walk you home, what do you think I'm going to do to do you?" question.

All of which is massively off-topic for the thread, but might make an interesting new thread.

SelmaAndJubjub wrote - "describing all prostitution as rape further removes agency from women who already tend to have very little power, as it denies that any of them can be making a free choice even those who say they are. Though the intention is benign, yet another example of telling women that they don't know their own minds."

I disagree that it is telling women that they do not know their own minds. I think it is telling a prostitute that there is a bigger picture because her perception of herself is not the whole story. Her choices feed back into society (like the choices of other people).

When a prostitute believes she is making a free choice about prostitution, she is basing her belief or opinion on what she believes is all the relevant information and she is likely to subjectively believe that this information is accurate, even if it is not actually objectively accurate. I think that a prostitute is making her choice more along the lines of good faith (towards herself) rather than free choice.

Giles but you were abused...or I don't understand. Either they harassed you so much that you felt the easy option was saying yes, or they didn't and I don't get what you are talking about.

I think that you aren't getting it, MrG, because it's not a situation that pops up in your life. You've never ended up (through one of those situations where the social pressure to be polite and just go along with having a cup of coffee or whatever the pretext was) alone in a room with a much larger, stronger individual who clearly wants to have sex with you. And you don't know much about him. (I'm speaking from experience here). Do you (a) walk out, which involves walking past him, with the attendant risk of aggravated rape, i.e. rape with a side order of a beating up, or do you (b) lie back and think of England? It's a fucking terrifying situation to be in (I was 18 at the time). In my case, I did the calculation and reckoned that this particular bloke was probably mostly talk, and I could walk past him.

I happened to be right. Sheer dumb luck. One of my closest friends did the same calculation at the same age, and ended up being violently raped, then disbelieved by her mother (because date rape wasn't a thing), then in hospital for a suicide attempt. Again, sheer dumb luck. The friend I mentioned upthread went for the shut your eyes and think of England approach, and has gone through life telling herself that the sex, if not exactly consensual, wasn't exactly non-consensual either. That level of cognitive dissonance is hard to sustain though, and flows over into all sorts of other areas - she also spent 20 years in an abusive marriage, for similar reasons I suspect.

That one naive mistake - thinking "coffee" really means coffee - leads you into a terrifying situation which feels like Russian roulette. Maybe they'll back off and you'll walk out unharmed. Maybe you'll get raped, with an added beating for good measure. Perhaps it's safer not to pull the trigger at all and persuade yourself that the ensuing sex is "just bad sex." Who knows? You're not in the head of the bloke opposite you, you just know he could turn extremely nasty on you, he might not, and the odds feel about 50-50.

So yes, your I don't get what your talking about sums it up rather nicely. You obviously have no idea of what it feels like to be a woman in this sort of situation.

And obviously thought I'd be in more danger walking home drunk in the middle of the night than I would having sex them falling asleep and then just partingbways in the morning when I could actually see where i was or get a bus

I wasn't harassed or abused just drunk

And incredibly stupid.

And by the time of sobered up a little and finally twigged that "going back for a smoke" or ""meeting the dog" didn't really mean going back for a smoke. At which point I felt at the time it was too late to back out.

Dervel yes I can, but you didn't answer my question. You are still complicit.

Giles but you were abused...or I don't understand. Either they harassed you so much that you felt the easy option was saying yes, or they didn't and I don't get what you are talking about.

Thanks prickly

It's ok I mean I'm ok I think a little more of myself these days. Not much but some.

I made bad choices and did stupid things and got myself into stupid situations no one really to blame but myself on that. Stupidly I figured it was probably safer to have the sex and stay over and get back in the morning than try and get back half cut in the middle of the night.

Sorry for misunderstanding xen

I am so sorry Giles, I absolutely wasn't referencing you in my comment, as Prickly correctly surmised, it was about our "new" friends and the conflicted punter on the thread.

And for you too, giles. What a fucked-up world we live in where women are conditioned to think so little of themselves that saying "no" seems rude.

She'd had over a hundred partners by the age of 21, and said often she slept with men simply because it was less effort than saying no

Yes i white often felt the same. I had some weird idea that given they had bought me drinks or paid for taxi to their house or he'll even been nice to me/about me that somehow it would be off to say no now. And that it would take far longer for them to "get the hint" I wasn't up for it by pretending to be asleep or not responding much than it would to just get it over with.

No abuse on my side though.

Im.sorry about your friend. How awful for her

I can't consider myself abused as that's disrespectful to those who genuinely have been

As others have said though. It is not so much about the (mostly) women, and their choices, it is about the (mostly) men and their choice to buy a woman.

No it makes sense, Giles. I remember comparing notes on our respective sexual histories with someone very close to me. She'd had over a hundred partners by the age of 21, and said often she slept with men simply because it was less effort than saying no. Not so very different (barring the money) from what happened to you. I think (though I never got to the bottom of it) that she'd been sexually abused as a child, which had totally screwed with her sense of boundaries and sense of self-worth.

I remember a poster on here (WombOfOnesOwn?) saying that she'd heard "sex pozzie feminists" defend prostitution by saying "well, it's only getting paid for something you'd be doing anyway if you like shagging a different bloke each weekend..." and commenting that this was exactly the language her pimp had used to groom her into prostitution at the age of 13/14. It's worrying that the rhetoric the "sex-pozzie" end of "feminism" uses to defend the sex industry is exactly the same language the pimps use to groom vulnerable girls into it.

I hope not. I'm just trying to be honest here.

I can't consider myself abused as that's disrespectful to those who genuinely have been.

In fact in many ways I found it kind of easier. No effort really involved. No lying. They wanted sex i gave it. Was pretty simple. No one telling me they loved me.no one ignoring my texts or calls. No buying me drinks so they can sleep with me.

It was almost refreshing to not have the bull shit in a way.

Sorry that's probably a really odd way of looking at it

I don't think it's you they were talking about, Giles, more some of our "newly registered" friends on this thread.

And what number do you think that amounts to. Those who have not been abused trafficked etc. The last figures for child abuse alone that I saw were in the 90 % bracket.

I am certainly not a punter nor was I a "happy hooker"

Apologies of that's how I came across I was just trying to give my experience