Teen vogue - sex work is work.

See, as a young person I struggle with this. On the one hand sex trafficking is alive and well. On the other you have plenty of young university students who have more than enough to live on who go into escorting or find a sugar daddy to fund a luxurious lifestyle. I am inclined to think that it is work, just very dangerous and unpleasant work with a large slave trafficking component. I appreciate the rape argument but most people do things they don’t want to for work. I struggle to see above board sex work any differently.

Excellent point SchnitzelvonKrumm, so that makes another area where SWIW falls flat then.

And thank you LassofFyvie for the explanation. It reminded me of a chat I recently had with someone very knowledgeable in this area who had submitted evidence to the consultation arguing against SWIW and for the Nordic model.

I've actually yet to meet anyone who's worked with trafficked women or full time prostitutes, who has seen the damage it does and who still bleats sex work is work. And even though I've only known one prostitute personally, it was enough to learn about the horrors of the job.

Prostitution is a demand-driven business that relies on female impoverishment to supply the labour.

The more it is promoted, the more the demand, the greater supply of labor required, the more female impoverishment must be increased.

Anyone who supports prostitution as work like any other is supporting increased global female impoverishment. That, or trafficking, because those “willing” girls and women have to come from somewhere.

Amnesty International themselves promulgated prostitution as a solution to female impoverishment. Instead of the real solutions we already know work: reproductive rights, childcare, education, physical safety, fair divorce rights, fair pension rights, fair lending, equal pay, safe housing, safe public transportation.

The stuff even an anti-socialist state like the US used to at least talk about providing. Stuff that actually IS empowering.

But if I am writing a film about Nelson Mandela, I am allowed to hire a black actor and exclude white ones, or exclude women actors. I think also you can hire women and exclude men to do intimate jobs like waxing and such and be within the law.

You have to be able to show that it is really relevant to the job in some way, but it's allowed even for protected categories. In some cases it even seems like it is becoming questionable not to - you really can't hire a white man to play Nelson Mandela, even if he is the spitting image when made up, it would be considered very offensive.

I think there is room in equalities rules to make distinctions where they are seen as relevant, you can hire an actor based in part on age, appearance, ethnicity, and so on. That's an area where you sometimes hear complaints about lack of jobs for minority actors, I can't quite imagine that about prostitution

The consensus on whether a business can legally only hire only attractive people is, yes it can as being unattractive is not a protected characteristic. That is why certain restaurants and shops are staffed by slim, pretty people.

If brothels were legal the owners therefore should not , under current legislation, discriminate against employee applicants on grounds of religion (although presumably they would not apply in the first place) race, age or disability. Obviously the effects of age and disability may well mean in the eyes of the pimp the applicant fails the attractiveness test.

On not hiring men- if brothels were legal it would simply come down to what the punters want. Customers of legitimate businesses such as hairdressers are permitted to select who they want to do their hair, so I don't see why punters would not be able to select Georgina rather than George. If George is rarely, if ever selected by punters, George would face a redundancy situation.

I'm not shocked about Teen Vogue however, it seems about their usual level.

I think there is room in equalities rules to make distinctions where they are seen as relevant, you can hire an actor based in part on age, appearance, ethnicity, and so on. That's an area where you sometimes hear complaints about lack of jobs for minority actors, I can't quite imagine that about prostitution.

Good point about why no-one says "child labour is work", "sweatshop labour is work."

I don't really think that is true, I think those things are treated as work in settings where they happen. I think in places where children work, they really are working, in places where you have sweatshops, or people working in horrible unsafe conditions, they really are working. It's unhealthy work, often exploitative work, and if it happens in many countries it's illegal work.

I think its much clearer to say, I don't think those things should be legal, or legitimate, or accepted forms of work that we allow in our society or consider it acceptable to participate in.

Reported 👆

Shovelling fries in McDonalds is better than giving blow jobs to strange men 3 times your age.

Teen Vogue is fucked up.

Great posts Charlie and fermats

Sex work is work what a load o f crap

Will ther3 be bursaries and apprenticeships for these young girls that want to take up the so called work

Where do those writers and ppl that call being prostitued get off on this

Same as Drug dealing is work. Can't belive that was in there for teens.

You can't refuse treatment from a nurse because they're black or gay, for example, so wouldn't it be illegal for a brothel owner to discriminate by hiring an 18 year old Asian woman rather than a 50 year old white man, or for a punter to insist on being serviced by the former rather than the latter?

There was a half- baked, independent consultation run by a Scottish MSP (Jean something or other (Urquhart??) former SNP, but then sitting as an independent) on whether prostitution should be legalised/ decriminalised.

It included consideration of whether equalities legislation would need to be disapplied if brothels were made legal.

This was maybe 4 years ago. It wasn't an official government consultation. It was very pro "prostitution is just a job" and I hope it has been lost down the back of a radiator.

On the question of hiring, the pimp might possibly make a case under existing legislation for discriminating against employing fat, old and ugly women and men. There is a valid business reason. (Well obviously there isn't - that comment is purely theoretical, if one treats a brothel as a valid business) The prostitute couldn't for servicing the punters. The consultation recognised these issues and asked for comment.

There was a motion at an SNP conference 2 (?)years ago that Scotland should introduce the Nordic Model but that has definitely been lost down back of radiator.

Charlie I've never seen this discussed but surely equalities legislation would apply too? You can't refuse treatment from a nurse because they're black or gay, for example, so wouldn't it be illegal for a brothel owner to discriminate by hiring an 18 year old Asian woman rather than a 50 year old white man, or for a punter to insist on being serviced by the former rather than the latter?

If sex work was indeed work like any other, the industry would have to be regulated. According to this excellent rebuttal to this claim, the following three areas are of interest:

-worker safety
-sexual harassment
-civil rights

The first would require your average prostitute to basically wear a hazmat suit (think about the extremely high prevalence of STDs present in the eyes of porn performers and prostitutes). Because what justification can there be for deciding that prostitutes do not deserve to be protected from blood borne pathogens and other potentially hazardous and infectious materials?

Secondly, all workers have the right to be protected from all forms of sexual harassment. Applying the law to prostitution as just another job, would mean applying the rules governing a workers right to be protected from all forms of sexual harassment. This includes protection from the worker's managers (ie pimps and traffickers), colleagues and clients. The latter of course poses difficulties, because if sex is the commercial commodity, how do you separate unwanted sexual conduct from that which is wanted. And if it is - As expected - simply impossible to protect prostitutes from sexual harassment at work, are we once again, as with the health and safety regulations going to make an exception for prostitutes? One that excludes them from the legal protection all other workers enjoy? With what justification? That they agree to it? That they exempt themselves? Then what other employers are going to pressure their staff to sign wavers, declaring they are foregoing the right to expect protection from sexual harassment? Bar managers? Gym trainers? Police officers?

And lastly, the human rights aspect is always looking at the prostitutes but what about the clients? Refusing service to someone in a protected category is unlawful discrimination. So the independent prostitute who has her own rules and preferences, who for instance does not want to have a 67-year-old or a woman or a Catholic priest as a client is illegally discriminating against these people.

And what about contract law? She enters into a contract with a client but changes her mind (for whatever reason). Can the client sue her for breach of contract? What if she just suddenly could not face having one more client that day because the previous punter had hurt or disgusted or upset her too much. Can the law force her to provide a service to this client?

And what other jobs might then include a job responsibility of providing sex to clients from their employees? Or can receiving benefits mean that your job centre worker can sanction you for not accepting prostitution?

They really haven't thought this through at all. Sex work is work is nothing more than a rallying cry for those who condone, support and promote the exploitation of women and girls for the benefit of men.

Here is the link to the article. It's written from a US perspective, but the same principles apply in the UK.

Fermats bloody good posts, thank you.

“I find it interesting that as a medical doctor, I exchange payment in the form of money with people to provide them with advice and treatment for organ-related problems; medicine for organ performance, lifestyle advice for organ problems, and treatment of organ infection. Isn't this basically being an organ donor?”

no, no it isn’t.

Good point about why no-one says "child labour is work", "sweatshop labour is work."

I always say this on these threads, but the crucial thing is to keep turning attention from the women and back onto the "invisible men" who use them.

Who benefits from the happy hooker narrative? It sure as hell isn't teenage girls, who ought to be being encouraged to become engineers, writers, lawyers, medical professionals, architects, business women, scientists, charity workers, craftswomen, fashion designers, plumbers, chefs, electricians.

Not being encouraged to aspire to becoming receptacles for men's masturbatory fantasies.

coral13
Yes it does include escorts etc but it also includes anything remotely "sexy" including glamour modelling and strippers/dancers
Oh well then, that's fine for teens and pre-teens good to know.

Yes it's good people aren't having any of it.
Has anyone read the article, I'm not even half way through and was given this little gem:
I find it interesting that as a medical doctor, I exchange payment in the form of money with people to provide them with advice and treatment for sex-related problems; therapy for sexual performance, counseling and therapy for relationship problems, and treatment of sexually transmitted infection. Isn't this basically sex work?
Isn't this basically sex work? No, no it's not. You're a doctor a real medical one, what are you on about.

Its BS, there might be the odd one who wants to do it but you don't know. More likely by a large margin is they are there due to being trafficked, drug addiction, grooming, poverty and other shit that life has thrown at them. The same goes for porn also, its vile and leaves a trail of misery, sex work is modern slavery.

I don’t even get this as a mantra. Do people honestly think that those who object to prostitution do so because we think it’s too easy to count as work?

Sweatshop work is work.
Zero-hours contract work is work.
Child labour work is work.
Forced labour in the fishing industry is work.
Asbestos mining work is work...

@coral13 I was a glamour model. I worked for a big publisher and was still groomed to do harder porn.

Yes the comments are having none of it. I've just forwarded it to the parents of my 2 god daughters and they are appalled. Delighted to say that is 2 fewer customers. Hope that lowering your circulation is what you were trying to achieve TeenVogue.