Liberal feminists/sex work is work proponents....

Obviously this sex work is work scenario applies to only those women aged 18 and over, women being adult human females. I say women because, let's face it, sex work doesn't apply to men, adult human males.

Obviously given the nature of this work both client and worker would be tested for STDs. Safeguarding is also an issue as is a proper union, like everyone else. Though there are some places of work where this doesn't matter.

stories.swns.com/news/care-home-brought-prostitutes-sex-elderly-residents-30713/

Of course sex work is seen as a 'caring role' so is obviously for women.

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/27/most-sex-workers-jobs-health-education-charities-survey

great post UnicornFarmer

this bit especially made sense to me

If it's just like any other job then where would the incentive be to help people out of it?

yes. help to get women out of prostitution will melt away if sex work is work

Including commie Labour types, who would be up in arms at the abuse suffered by other types of workers if they were expected to work in such unsafe conditions, with such a high risk of infection / mortality, and for such small pay (far more prostitutes are getting a tenner for a blow job in a car than £1000 for two hours in a hotel)

Oh my god this is so true!

I believe a woman who chooses to be a sex worker (and there are a lot of us) should not be stigmatized socially

This issue of stigma is very much linked to the horrible patriarchal norm of blaming victims of specifically male abuses of power.

Victims of child sex abuse, rape, domestic violence and sexual exploitation are stigmatised as 'soiled' or 'damaged' in a way that victims of robbery, burglary or GBH are not. Because of this completely unjust but pervasive transfer of blame and shame from male perpetrator to (usually) female victim, the victims have to be referred to as 'survivors' to retain dignity and evade shame. No one refers to 'survivors' of robbery or physical assault.

So it is with prostitution. Let's refer to the sexual abused and exploited (usually) women in prostitution as 'workers' to afford them dignity and evade the shame and stigma of being victims of male power abuse.

The stigma of prostitution is not an issue of 'workers' rights, it falls into victim blaming. Challenging that stigma can only happen by acknowledging the patriachal context and challenging the pattern of blaming victims in such a way that allows males to abuse with impunity.

I don't really want to say too much as it may out me but I have worked in the sex industry for a long time (8 years). At the moment I am trying to wind it down and only do minor porn work. But previously I was earning the majority of my income from (in order) solo cams, chat line, visits, cams with others and live shows with other girls. My personal visits provided a fetish service that doesn't involve fucking however I know some clients did use other girls for that.

I have to say I am enraged by people claiming it is just another job. Others involved should know better than that. It is not. It is "Just work" to me and all the other women I personally knew with exception of some cam-only workers who think its a laugh. But to say they considered it the same as accountancy or cleaning? Of course not. I certainly do not.

All of my acquaintances started because they needed money. Even the ones who like the job started because of the money. And most if them quit or are planning to when they've saved enough. Girls who worked in brothels ALL had stories about aggressive and/or disgusting men. I've personally been locked in a guys house and one decided to strangle me with tights on and off for 10 minutes because I wouldn't 'upgrade'. He thought it was hilarious.

Talking to these men online/phone was certainly enlightening. They don't see you as a full human. They just do not. Not the really shitty ones who like awful degrading things, not the ones who used me specifally because I look very young and liked to elaborate on that, not even the ones who wanted to send gifts and worship me and "rescue " me. You are a thing. To wank over or in. That's all. It's completely not OK to pretend it's just like another job. I've had other jobs I disliked more but I think this was the worst overall.
I started because I was desperate for money while waiting for JSA. So no I wasn't enslaved or trafficked but I cant say i just decided on that career path because strange men masturbating over me is somehow empowering. Spoiler; it isnt and its wrecked my view of my body and of rekationships with men. I can't trust ANY of them now. If it's just like any other job then where would the incentive be to help people out of it? I see no specific support for people wanting to get out of stressful ,low paid work like retail...

So basicly, these sex positive "sex work is work" types can just do one. You could support women - support ME - without normalising men's shitty behaviour and warped attitudes towards women's bodies. I don't want prostitution criminalized but brothels should not be the norm. None of this should be the norm.

Either "sex work" is work - in which case it falls in with legislation about taxation, national insurance, health and safety at work and welfare requirements - or it is not work.
And this is why it's so important to look at Germany. A tiny proportion of prostituted women are registered and paying tax etc. The sources vary but it looks like less than 5%. What has happened is that brothel owners have continued to push the boundaries of what is acceptable (flat rate all you can fuck deals), demand has shot up, and there seems to be no reduction in harm to women at all. In fact, it could be worse, but now the police are unable to gain access to the brothels at all.
Emotion aside - their deregulation and legalisation of the sex trade has not achieved what they intended it to at all, and logically speaking should be rescinded. Logically speaking.

Funny how no-one who is pro-sex work can really answer the question, isn't it? Including commie Labour types, who would be up in arms at the abuse suffered by other types of workers if they were expected to work in such unsafe conditions, with such a high risk of infection / mortality, and for such small pay (far more prostitutes are getting a tenner for a blow job in a car than £1000 for two hours in a hotel)

Oops apologies meant Baroness Hales!

See Baroness Hines speech:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3483431-Baroness-Hales-Womens-Rights-speech-published-by-The-Supreme-Court-Evening-Standard-Systemic-failures-in-sex-attack-and-rape-cases-most-senior-judge-warns

I'm not dividing the world of work into Sex Work versus All Other Work. It doesn't work that way. I wouldn't force anyone to to do work that involved unwanted intimacy of any sort.

You can't have it both ways. The entire point of the thread, as ever, has escaped you.

Either "sex work" is work - in which case it falls in with legislation about taxation, national insurance, health and safety at work and welfare requirements - or it is not work.

Which is it?

Can you answer the question? Because it is the entire point of the thread, after all.

I don't know if you've heard of it, but there's this thing in the UK's representative democracy called the rule of law. If "sex work" is work, it must comply with the rule of law, just as everything else must.

Is "sex work" work? Yes or no?

I know a few prostitutes through work (I don't work with sex workers specifically so I'm not seeing the worst side automatically) and they are all very much not 'happy hookers' and none of them would be doing the job if they could get the same money just as quickly by flipping burgers.

Something came to mind as well, if sex work is just work then surely there's no problem with it also being part of another job rather than it just being a sole job on its own? So if you're a massage therapist in a spa why shouldn't you be asked to offer services previously only offered in 'massage parlours' and fired if you refuse? If you're a salesperson currently expected to take clients to dinner to maintain/close sales why shouldn't that expand to sex with them being part of your job role?

Vixxxy Your MIL sounds very self-aware. I do hope she can kick the habit.

Vixxxy
Thanks for sharing her story. It's important to keep picking apart the Happy Hooker myths.

Your mother in law was a prostitute

Well yes, and thats what she says she was too. I just figured that when people call it that, thats what they meant. Maybe they mean something else..have never thought to ask and just kind of assumed til today.

Either way, if this is what people mean when they use that terminology, it certainly is not a bed of roses for the women involved in that either, regardless of what they may claim while still on the merry go round.

My mother in law was what I expect people mean by 'high class escort'

I don't really know what people mean by "high class escort". It isn't a phrase I would use. It's all the same whatever weasel words are used to prettify it. Your mother in law was a prostitute and prostitution ruined her life. It's not nice and calling it high class escorting changes nothing.

My mother in law was what I expect people mean by 'high class escort'. Does this basically mean extremely well paid, not streetwalking but via agencies, high end hotels not travellodges and such? She says she was on up to a grand a night depending on the client, apparently averaged a few hundred for a couple of hours but once got 4k for a full weekend. But she also claims she was naive in entering the industry and believed the hype of 'women can be paid huge amounts for simply going on dates, they don't even have to have sex!' but quickly learnt differently. She turned to drugs to get her through the work. Then it became a bit of a catch 22. Wanted to give up the work, but needed it to finance the habit, had the habit because of the work, and back around again, drugs getting harder and harder each time. Some rehab stints in between but ultimately back to the drugs. She did eventually manage to leave, but not without a huge amount of shit being thrown at her both from ex clients hunting her down and the 'agency' hounding her. She still has a drug problem to this day, as eventually she had ended up on heroin, and now, even 10 years later shes still on methadone and doesn't realistically ever see an end to it. She still occasionally goes 'off the rails' on a drugs binge for whatever reason (she says she started to use drugs as a coping strategy and this still goes through her head today, so even seemingly small things can set her off) and speaks very scathingly..and very honestly about her time as an escort. She also says while she was trapped in the circle, she would have claimed that it was all great, and basically lied about how horrendous it was, in order to make people think it was still a choice, when it wasn't, not really.

Nordic Model Now website has a section which provides powerful testimony from women who are, or have been, in prostitution:

nordicmodelnow.org/testimonial/

I know a lot of sexworkers, they all have drug and addiction problems, bad health, most got into it because they ran away from a bad home and they say on the surface they love their free life but their lives are clearly a dumpster fire.

That spiegel article is really depressing.

The bottom line is that too many men seem to see women as not really human, a set of holes for fucking, or they have this weird virgin/whore thing going on. A sub set do just hate women and enjoy upsetting /hurting them. While society is like this, prostitution cannot be 'just a job'. Very few people feel these kind of feelings about hairdressers or bricklayers or accountants. When it comes to men and women and sex, too many men are fucjed up. When men have sorted their shit out, maybe we can talk.

m.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-trafficking-persists-despite-legality-of-prostitution-in-germany-a-902533-2.html
Afterwards, customers wrote in Internet chat rooms about the supposedly unsatisfactory service, complaining that the women were no longer as fit for use after a few hours.
One of these links mentioned that around 7% of men in England use prostituted women regularly but this goes up to 30% in Spain, 70% in Thailand and 80% of German men have been in a brothel. German 16 year old boys leaving school visit a brothel to celebrate.

www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-01-29/mega-brothel-inside-a-german-sex-palace/

www.feministcurrent.com/2016/05/09/legalization-has-turned-germany-into-the-bordello-of-europe-we-should-be-ashamed/

nordicmodelnow.org/2018/07/01/working-as-a-receptionist-in-a-legal-brothel-prostitution-is-anything-but-a-normal-job/

if 'sex work' should be treated differently to other work NonExistentFox, why is that?

I'm not dividing the world of work into Sex Work versus All Other Work. It doesn't work that way. I wouldn't force anyone to to do work that involved unwanted intimacy of any sort.

One of the problems is that roles that are seen as womens work are too low paid.

inews.co.uk/news/childcare-jobs-underpaid-education-epi-report/

In between PJ's postings there are some useful links etc which are relevent to this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463636-prostitution-pornography-surrogacy

Oh I see.

I remember seeing him on a thread about prostiution a few months ago. When someone asked why he had resurrected a thread that was over a year old, he said "A friend told me about it." One minute he told us he had no friends and the next he was casually chatting to friends about zombie threads on the Feminism page of a parenting site.

As you do.