Empowered by 'sex work'

If I were to have a choice between prostitution and flipping burgers at MacDonalds/wiping arses for minimum wage in a care home, I'd choose prostitution."

It's also so insulting to these workers, especially care workers who do an essential and very important job. And indeed the clients and customers of these workers. The clients of care workers have no choice in having to use these services. Macdonald's customers aren't harming the counter- staff- to compare these groups with punters is vile.

Yes, it's telling that the ivory tower sex pozzies' idea of "demeaning" is so classist.

I wouldn't feel remotely demeaned by wiping the arse of someone who needed help, nor of flipping a burger.
That someone feels these are comparable to being used as a wank-bag and would prefer the latter is ridiculous. I'd love to see them try each 'job' for a day and then confim their assertations. Yeah right.

I'm extremely germ phobic and so the thought of wiping arses for a living stresses me out, but I'd still pick that over prostitution because a. less dehumanizing, less dangerous, altogether less unpleasant and b. all things considered the germ phobia aspect would be even worse in prostitution.

Flipping burgers is just tedious and poorly paid. Comes with very low chance of rape, murder, and contracting STIs as a result of one's job.

Empowerment isn't usually linked with a job where you have such a high risk of being assaulted or murdered by your customers either. I don't think violent men distinguish between the empowered "sex worker" and the exploited prostituted woman.

Yeah the empowering people believers

Bet the empowering people ain’t got their mums their daughters theirs sons their dads their aunties their uncles doing sex with strangers to be empowered

Funny that or not so much

It's the best that The Likes Of Them can aspire too, I suppose to speakers often do make exceptions for themselves and women of their own class or educational level.

Yes, this is true. Whenever I hear comfortably middle class (not a criticism - I'm middle class myself - just an observation) women in the groves of academe they always couch their views in the subjunctive: "If I were to have a choice between prostitution and flipping burgers at MacDonalds/wiping arses for minimum wage in a care home, I'd choose prostitution."

Firstly, the women saying that are only saying it safe in the knowledge that they personally will never have to do any of the above. And secondly, would they fuck. They're actually lying.

It's the best that The Likes Of Them can aspire too, I suppose to speakers often do make exceptions for themselves and women of their own class or educational level.

That's true littlbrowndog. Velveteen, what particular set of circumstances for example would make prostitution empowering for you personally? Is it something you would do?

Yeah kittens but the people that write that stuff won’t be the women that are doing that stuff that is for sure

You won’t see them doing the fiver blow job

When people say that's empowering I read it as them saying that's the best women can aspire to. Which would be depressing if true, but luckily it's not, so the next logical thought is, why is this person trying to make me think that it is? How do they benefit from that?

I dunno if I would feel3 empowered by sucking a strangers dick for a fiver tbh

I don’t think anyone would

If all sex is a fun leisure activity then why would anybody need to do it for money? You don't normally require to be paid to enjoy yourself

I agree. I found Goosefoot's argument that if one has no moral or ethical objection to concensual casual sex then the next logical step must be that prostitution is acceptable entirely illogical and unconvincing.

An aside - having actually read pieces by ex- groupies I don't think the reasons young women seek out musicians is anything to do with prestige or getting a backstage pass.

Indeed Barbara. I was just going to ask, can anybody think of any powerful prostituted women. Powerful in the same way men are powerful. The only high profile women in prostitution I can think of off the top of my head are Brooke Magnanti and Cynthia Payne. One was famous for keeping a brothel, and the other was famous for writing about being paid by men for sexual services, including being urinated on. I wouldn't call either of them powerful.

What kind of power do women achieve through prostitution

Yup, funny isn't it? When people talk of power in the context of men, they talk about bankers, politicians, judges, CEOs.

Of course women can do these things too, but somehow "power" for women also encompasses sucking men's dicks for money. Funny, that.

I'm gradually beginning to think that all unequal sexual encounters (and especially prostitution) are grooming and rape.

What kind of power do women achieve through prostitution Velveteen?

The things is that it can be empowering in a very limited set of circumstances but usually is the exact opposite. Perhaps the argument that sex work should only be allowed when it empowers women and not under any other circumstances. The majority of sex work would fall short if that requirement but women who do choose to undertake sex work wouldn’t loose agency.

If all sex is a fun leisure activity then why would anybody need to do it for money? You don't normally require to be paid to enjoy yourself.

Maybe giving a blowjob to the next guy that comes along whoever he may be is nothing like a fun leisure activity for a woman. It's people's misogyny and lack of empathy for women that makes people believe that prostitution is a fine activity for a woman. Her feelings about the sex she is having and the man who is using her are ignored completely. I don't think it's that much of a mystery as to why people would support it.

I'm finding the conversation on the "Prostitution and rape: how men frame it" thread to be a fantastically in-depth examination of the logic behind consent and how men have defined sexual consent to nullify objections their abuses.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3726374-Prosittution-and-rape-how-men-frame-womens-experiences

There's also the fact that some of this stuff doesn't in any way reflect how the majority of people live or experience sex and relationships. How many people are either in the Rolling Stones or having orgies with them, really?

I don't really think this matters, at least, not in the way you are suggesting. It may be that the fact that most people don't go on living that way should clue them in that there is a reason for that.

But many many remain attached to the sex positive approach of the sexual revolution. It's the same thinking that makes them think drag story-time is a good idea, or kids with kinky fetishes at Pride, or similar things. They are committed to the idea that people can consent to any sexual activity, even if it is physically damaging or mentally unhealthy for them.

That reflects what they think sex is, what it's for, and a view that give a lot of weight to individual agency. It's pretty logical that if you think that a person can validly choose to have sex that is psychologically self-destructive, or go to a BDSM festival where they have physically damaging sex, you also think they can also validly choose to do it for money. And a question that someone like that is likely to ask is, if we are saying people can't validly make that last choice, can they make the others, and how do we draw a line around individual agency?

Honestly I think you have misinterpreted what @goosefoot has been saying. She is against prostitution.

It's the usual, here. They aren't actually interested in thinking through the logic of a particular position, or how to explain it more effectivly to anyone like the OP wants, or trying to figure out what the difference in POV is that means so many people since the 60s suddenly think sex work is empowering and should be made legal, or in any kind of in depth discussion about what makes consent valid and what the implications of really restricting that might be.

They are just interested in calling other people prostitution apologists, having people completely accepting what they say is correct, and saying anyone who disagrees with them hates women.

And who does that remind you of...

Saw this article on the BBC and thought I'd link it here. Apologies if it's already been posted.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/VSUj7yai4n/debranding-my-body

I was thinking some more about this.
If all the women who would otherwise be homeless or unable to eat or feed the kids were out on the streets visibly suffering (and I'm not for a second advocating they should be doing this) rather than turning to prostitution in desperation, would people actually care and think differently?
And as for the 'but it keeps rape down' argument - whether this is accurate or not is saying that it is valid to use some women's bodies as cannon-fodder to protect other women.

Also funny how it's only women of child bearing age it supposedly ''empowers''.