Is prostitution rape?

Trafficked women are easy to spot.
If you're in the industry you can spot it a mile off.
Most of the men that visit working girls are regulars, they aren't stupid.
It's normal for people that have never had any experience within the industry to assume that it's full of trafficked vulnerable women, but it is a very small part of it. These kind of operations normally operate independently. Men that visit vulnerable women like this usually do so because it's much cheaper, and they get off on it.

lotsofconfuse

What a load of shit

Interesting, lotsof.

Glad that physical strength can prevent you from being trafficked.

How many prostitutes die in the U.K. every year?

So people who don't even know your real name know you aren't trafficked and lick that up from a short "interaction"

Really?

Of course they know! Try trafficking some of the women I've met in my career! They'd slit your throat! Some of the strongest women I met were in my working career.

Question is though dust do the clients know you aren't trafficked.

I wasn't trafficked either but I can't say that the clients knew or even cared. So those are the people we slept eitg. People who didn't care about where we were from or our situations. Did they "get lucky" in receiving escorts who are their by "choice" or did they somehow ensure that they didn't get a trafficked person. Would they still go ahead if they knew someone was..

Oh good god no. If you're trafficked you are not a prostitue, you are a sex slave. And THAT is rape. I'm a former sex worker, for most of my adult life. And no, it's not.and believe me, we know the fucking difference

*times not years

I wasn't left to feel worthless, it was one of the greatest years of my life! Financial freedom, my own boss, loved every minute! I wasn't exploited or manipulated.
I only gave it up because I started a family, and I'd go back to it.

From what I've seen the prostitute's who love their work and don't feel exploited are imo often those who haven't yet been made 'worthless' through their 'work'. Those who are still young and fresh and not yet victims of violent men

Or maybe they were already feeling pretty worthless and were in the situation they were in (turning to prostitution) as a result of men. Not necessarily violence but just how men in general or maybe just the people around them had made them feel.

I used to work in the industry.
I am very aware.
I don't need to read this thread to educate myself ffs lol!

From what I've seen the prostitute's who love their work and don't feel exploited are imo often those who haven't yet been made 'worthless' through their 'work'

I agree that those who claim to love their work are a tiny and unrepresentative minority. But it doesn't follow from that that everyone else is being raped. And I worry that calling all prostitution rape will make it even harder for prostitutes who are raped under the current UK legal definitions to get justice.

That's why I think it makes more sense to think of prostitution as modern slavery than as rape. Most workers in all forms of modern slavery have 'chosen' the work in the sense of knowing what it involves and having 'volunteered' to do (not true of all victims, of course). Yet the nature of the work is so exploitative that society does not recognise this consent as off-setting the adverse effect of the work, so treats workers as victims and their 'employers' as criminals. The consent becomes irrelevant, even if fully informed and freely given. And that it is a crucial difference from rape which - under the law - can only occur if there is not consent.

From what I've seen the prostitute's who love their work and don't feel exploited are imo often those who haven't yet been made 'worthless' through their 'work'. Those who are still young and fresh and not yet victims of violent men. Same way the porn industry uses up women, young girls feeling excited and empowered by it, until they become the woman who has to film with three dicks up her ass for anyone to give her a job. Maybe some women get out all this before they become used up and being paid virtually nothing for perverts to assualt their bodies, but many do not and when they finally escape at rock bottom they paint a very dark picture. Many women deny they are being victimised in other ways, victims of DV deny it ok ften due to fear and social conditioning, but that doesn't make them any less victims or their abusers any less guilty. It's the same thing imo

As a current escort, nothing pisses me off more than the insinuation that, because I’m being paid for my services, my clients are raping me.
I consent to having sex with my clients – end of. I’m not being coerced, I’m not being manipulated or forced. I do it because I want to.
It’s infantilising and downright insulting to tell women like me that our consent is not true consent because it doesn’t fit in with your own ‘acceptable’ reasons for giving consent to sex.

I’ve been raped and sexually assaulted in my personal life (i.e. not by clients) and the suggestion that the consensual sex I have with my clients is anywhere close to what I experienced when my consent wasn’t given honestly turns my stomach.

If someone holds a pistol to your head and forces you to give him all your money, would you feel offended if the police wanted to persecute him for robbery because you "made a choice" to give him the money rather than be shot?

I am against prostitution and in favour of the criminalisation of punters. However the robbed-at-gunpoint analogy does not work for all prostitution. Some women are literally or metaphorically forced into it at gunpoint. However, in some cases, they tell us that they are making a choice to be a prostitute. We might lament the lack of alternative options open to them and the normalisation of selling sex as a commodity, but I am still not convinced that we have the right to tell them that they do not know their own minds.

And it doesn't make sense to say this is about men, not women, as rape as a crime only exists if the woman does not consent.

To stress, I am not defending prostitution - I want to see it stamped out. I think it's wrong to pay someone for sex and I would like to see it criminalised. I'm just not convinced that calling all prostitution rape is the right way to go about it.

Oh, I remember your thread Beach - it was very interesting and I'd love to re-read it if you can find it.

"I've had plenty of shit sex being paid for having said shit sex didn't seem so bad at the time." Giles. That is indeed shit all round. Hope things are better now.

So many heterosexual interactions get pretty close to rape, which is why it is so easy to get away with rape with a 'reasonable belief' plea. Porn segregates the sexes with the majority of filmed porn aimed at men, and written erotica at women.

As long as sex is something men do to women, and the entire language reinforces the primacy of male pleasure everything will be perpetually out of whack. Personally I think it is a bit of a stretch to say all paid for sex violates consent, simply because any prostitute can refuse sex with any particular man for whatever reason although I am given to understand they get stick when they do so on racial grounds.

However just because it is consent doesn't mean there isn't a shit tone of ethical problems surrounding the practice. I also don't buy the notion that men are being exploited here. I'm a man and haven't had sex in nearly 5 years and whilst I have a relatively high libido you just tie a knot in it and get on with your day. I literally don't buy that male sexuality turns us all into slavering monsters, to become so is a choice not an inevitability.

Speaking from the other side here (brief time spent in the escorting world)

I do feel it's an Insult to women who have been through hell and back to start thinking of myself as having been assaulted in some way. I would not have done it by choice. I felt at the time I did not have the means to be able to pay off the credit card (first and last time I will ever get myself Into that position for a guy) any other way (minimum wage earner back when it was barely above 4 pound fifty an hour ) and it was too good an opportunity to miss out on.

I do wonder myself lucky with the clients I got it could have been worse. I've had plenty of shit sex being paid for having said shit sex didn't seem so bad at the time.

I would not actively chose to do it. I didn't want to do it but I chose to go through with it any way.

The clients were good to me I guess. I never really thought about the consent vs payment issue at the time

Prostitution shows the very concept of "consent" to be flawed.

Consent is used as a get out of jail free card for the men and the societies they live in who think that there should be a class of girls and women available to men to have sex on.

Consent is a deeply problematic concept as currently understood and used. I started a thread on the subject once I'll see if I can find it.

I think Xenophile and Vestal have nailed it: it's about the men's attitudes. We know that some prostitutes choose their work, we know that many others are trafficked into it - and we know from the Invisible Men Project and sites like Pnet that most of the clients do not care which category the women they use fall into. That makes those men rapists. (There may of course be men who go around with their dogged-eared copy of "The Ethical Pnter" tucked under their arm, but not many I suspect).

It is also interesting to listen to the voices of prostitutes themselves. Some claim to love their work. Some claim it is just a job like any other. Some (mostly those who've exited) say it was a life of abuse and rape.

I've seen some very interesting comments from the middle group. For instance, on the occasional "I'm broke and desperate and thinking of prostitution" threads that pop up on chat (mostly started by hairy handed trolls I suspect), there are a few women who will come and talk frankly about their experiences. One comment in particular has always stuck in my mind: a prostitute who asked the OP "Can you imagine going into your local pub and giving a BJ to every man in there? The old ones, the smelly ones, the ones with personal hygiene problems, the ones with massive personality defects... Because if you can't answer 'yes' to that question, it is not the life for you."

It's always stuck in my mind as the perfect riposte to the "happy hooker, they love their jobs, the johns are the ones who're really exploited" crapola that gets spouted on these threads. Hardly any women genuinely would give a BJ to every man in the room. Those that would - well, I find myself wondering what was done to them in childhood that they could dissocciate to that degree. I can't buy the idea that it's like collecting refuse or cleaning toilets. It really isn't.

Most prostitites/escorts live very comfortably, and if anything it's the other way around. Men being exploited

How on earth can anyone describe men as the exploited party when they pay a prostituted woman for sex? Do you understand what exploited means?

Having sex with someone who you know isn't enjoying it seems awfully close to rape to me.

This.

I don't want anything to do with men who would do this, and criminalizing punters seems like a splendid idea to reduce the number of men like this one might have the displeasure to meet in daily life.

"If a woman's body is a thing to be sold, then rape is just akin to theft.
And that's the very attitude that is the reason why rape convictions are so appallingly low"

This.

Yes and no. It depends on the circumstances, I've worked in the sex industry (in nz where it's more regulated- people have gone to court over not following the legislation, and that's the male users as well) and for me and a number of people ive worked with the answers no, but in other parts most definitely yes

Most prostitites/escorts live very comfortably, and if anything it's the other way around. Men being exploited!

Do you also feel exploited by the fact that you could, theoretically, spend 100 000 $ for a piece of toast that allegedly has the likeness of the Virgin Mary burnt into it?

(Just talking about those "poor" men being able to waste money here; I don't mean to imply that people who spend tons of money on things they don't need are anything like punters)