Prostitution / Pornography/ Surrogacy.

Following on from *Pacyderm's post I save the wisdom (and the nonsense) of MN.

I can't give credit for who said this first as I didn't save the name.

Someone else on MN posited, rightly, that a service provider's value increases with experience. If your value decreases with experience, you are the product, not a sevice provider

Are you sure that's what was actually said? Because the overwhelming majority of people would be able to clearly see that paying a coerced person for sex is not OK. I don't know your son, but in all probability, he's a reasonable person and I'm sure he gets this.

And how can to tell who is coerced and who isn't?

This is a very negative stereotype of male sexuality which is often repeated, but I have yet to meet a man who actually thinks like this.*
Many wont say it, but the way they refer to women, and treat them suggests thats precisely how they think:

I'd smash that
I'd shag the arse off that
She can suck this...

All phrases you'll hear amongst men.

Patchyderm Nice point!!

Oh, also ask them why youth and inexperience are prized in the sex industry, the exact opposite of every other career path? Could it be that contrary to the myth, it is not "the oldest profession" or even a profession at all? I mean, it's not like you need to earn CPD points for renewing your practising certificate is it? Your average punter seems to like them young, not "experienced".

Have them watch Hot Girls Wanted on Netflix, Louis Therox's Louis and the Brothel and Twilight of the porn stars. It's hard to make the young and privileged see the world for what it is. The arrogance of youth instills such certainty in their world view. I don't think you can change that really, just encourage them to keep looking deeper.

Go find some pictures of random men from the internet. Dodgy, slightly greasy as well as clean cut, but unattractive ones. Just a random selection of normal guys - of varying ages. Print out and hand each a selection. If they want to feed their child, keep a roof over their head - or avoid being beaten up by their pimp, they need to take these guys' penises inside any orifice the guy chooses.

Break it down.

Part of their problem is they have zero idea of their privilege. Which is good, they've not been damaged by the world yet, or not in any serious way. They're thinking of one thing (onscreen pornstar - and the part they can see onscreen) and you're thinking of something else.

They also cannot understand fully enthusiastic consent. Partly because they've probably never been coerced into sex, never mind anything else. They don't have the life experience to understand, which is as it should be really, but their youth also makes them know it alls! Again not abnormal!

Netflix Hot Girls Wanted is good for shining a light behind online porn. As is its follow up, although I couldn't stomach it past the part where the pianist newbie essentially got raped under the guise of ethical and feminist porn. They'd need to understand enthusiastic consent though to get it. And why actual pain during sex isn't ok.

Overall we have a problem in a society that doesn't know what a pleasured woman is. It is very much not a woman who makes a man happy.

It’s probably not much of a surprise to notice that the Guardian can be uncritical in its reporting on this theme: www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/11/criminalisation-of-sex-work-normalises-violence-review-finds

This comment article asserts that ‘anti-prostitution feminists’ or ‘pro-criminalisation feminism’, ‘has zero interest in the safety or wellbeing of those who sell sex.’
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/02/brighton-university-freshers-fair-sex-workers-health-support-services

More here:
www.theguardian.com/society/prostitution

Thank you for posting the Leeds speech. It’s brilliant.

What dangerous complacent nonsense the whole ‘sex work’ euphemism is.
I find it especially offensive when people in nice safe warm professional, pensioned respected jobs where they need not fear rape or murder in their daily work (like academics working in universities) advocate against ‘sex being criminalised’ which they claim is what is endangering prostituted women’s lives and if the UK just decriminalised ‘sex’ (by which they actually mean prostitution) and everyone just repeated the mantra that ‘sex work was work’ then prostituted people would be safer. I’m sure that saying aloud that magical mantra has worked really well to protect the safety of children, women and men just out and about doing their normal old sex work job before.

If prostitution is just paid sex why aren’t these people all doing it themselves and recommending it to all their students as a nice easy career option? Why bother with all that marking and teaching or effort of studying? It’s just sex.. It’s just paid work...

Porn stars are safe????

What world do you live in?

I am implacably opposed to surrogacy for lots of reasons previously mentioned regarding exploitation of women but also I think the children are less often considered when it is discussed. Yet it is surely buying babies by another name.
Radio 4 pm on Friday had an interview with a woman who had been adopted and has tracked down her family and family history through DNA testing and Ancestry. Many adopted people long for a sense of where they have come from. How will these children of surrogates, perhaps the product of a donated egg, how will they feel when they find out the truth? Yes no doubt many families will be up front and honest but many won't and children will get a shock if they do DNA testing. Who knew that impoverished Nepalese women we're providing a baby market for gay Israelis before the earthquake and subsequent "rescue" mission by Israel to evacuate the babies leaving the mothers to take their chances? Imagine growing up and finding your father did that?

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001s09

Then there is the issue of oversight - of course lots of unsuitable people have babies the old fashioned way. That doesn't make it any better that men are able to bypass the normal adoption checks to obtain a baby.
There was a paedophile from Australia who obtained a baby from Thailand. I think it was that case that prompted the Thais to tighten up laws relating to international surrogacy but a poster on a different thread had evidence that it still goes on.

Your children may be interested in this article regarding the American celeb who was so disrespectful of the surrogate who provided the baby he bought.

www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/06/her-name-is-monroe-christine

DS - who is gay - didn't see that if prostitution was so desirable a job, then men would do it.

But men ARE doing it. About a third of sex workers are men, and their service is almost always for gay men (gay men enjoy having sex too it seems; shock horror). And then of course, you have all of the men who work in pornography too, but a lot of men have to do gay pornography because straight pornography is competitive.

He also didn't see that consent is not really consent if you are vulnerable or being groomed / exploited.

Are you sure that's what was actually said? Because the overwhelming majority of people would be able to clearly see that paying a coerced person for sex is not OK. I don't know your son, but in all probability, he's a reasonable person and I'm sure he gets this.

DD - no real life experience, didn't get that, as women, we are often seen as vessels for carrying / entering and that a penis in your mouth / cunt / bum

This is a very negative stereotype of male sexuality which is often repeated, but I have yet to meet a man who actually thinks like this.

Both of them insisted that porn is watched by lots of women and that porn star is a desirable job for some and that porn stars are safe.

All of these statements are correct.

That Leeds speech is great, especially the "if prostitution=sex work then rape=merely theft" idea.

The above is the argument against the kids saying 'but if a woman chooses to...'

The other argument is that whilst some are happy to legitimise prostitution, the mostly male tyrants running prostitution will gladly exploit the opportunity and in the process exploit countless women in the process, and those using prostitutes will either a) not give a damn or b) try to use the 'but she chooses freely' to legitimise their part in things, or c) naively actually believe they're not doing any harm.

It's a seedy, exploitative, life reducing and inhumane activity. Idiots want to glamourise it, and in the time it takes an opinionated arsehole teen to try and justify it, half a dozen women will have been sexually abused above an beyond anything they even agreed to in the 'transaction'.

The freedom of the individual to 'do as they please' is not truly a freedom for the collective.

The freedom that a woman exercises in choosing to be a prostitute (working on the assumption that in this individual case is 100% her own choice) still has a wider effect on society, which means other women can still suffer as a consequence.

How can a man differentiate between a woman who has consented freely and one who has not? (and that's in this hypothetical world of some women truly having freewill to make the choice).

Whilst some people might point to women who seemingly have a happy existence in the world of prostitution or pornography (high class escorts or big name porn stars), the overwhelming majority of participants are operating in less than salubrious conditions and funding addictions or operating as a last resort. Some are even doing it under physical duress.

Sure, it's someone's individual choice to drink and drive, but the consequences extend beyond their own choice. In the same way, for a woman who genuinely thinks 'I've got the body, I like sex, I'll charge for it' - her 'right' to make that choice still has consequences and she is effectively condoning the selling of sex for money.

Because a woman wants something, it doesn't mean society should accept it.

There is a similar conflict in BDSM where 'consenting' adults have agreed to certain acts being carried out, but the law has overruled the consent of the individuals in favour of protection for society. Quite where those boundaries are drawn is a huge topic for debate, but the principle remains, just because someone willingly makes a choice, it does not make it a valid choice for society to accept.

littlbrowndog your points about class and being clever are pertinent. I hadn't picked that up at first.

And I'm so bored of the "it's better than..." insert any supposedly "low" status job to sneer at. No it bloody isn't.

Many of the supposedly low status jobs are essential jobs which society needs to operate; many, whilst not being essential, make life better or smoother or easier for others. None of them are causing active harm to the workers or society as a whole.

Most of us would say me kids is idiots
How would I change their idiot minds

Or the ops so clever kids

Ffs
Pissed me right off with her clever kids like the rest o& our kids are dim lightbulbs

Yes vaginal sex presumably just isn't degrading and dirty enough these days. What a world.

Oh ta margeutri
Nice links

Yeps it’s only well off people who think it’s a great job
Like the clever kids from op
Ffs
It’s a desperate fucking horrible thing to have to do
And the6 always want suck dick or anal
That’s how it is

Ah the washing dishes analogy. I did every menial job there was when I was young- waitressed, cleaned toilets etc, for crap pay. My flatmate and I used to joke that we'd make far more money if we joined the girls who plied their trade in our street.

We didn't though. Because we had choices, and we knew well what a shit life those girls had. We knew them, and all of them came from backgrounds of foster care, abusive men, addiction.

I wonder with the internet and camgirls etc, is it easier to hide the ugly reality of prostitution these days, because young women seem really blithe about it. Back then (early 90s) it was more in your face, on the street, and hard to put a gloss on.