Why is the BBC Promoting Sex Work?

@VibrationNation There were some really interesting threads a while back with numerous sex workers offering their various perspectives. The lasting and stand out comments for me were from sex workers saying that the vast, vast majority of their colleagues had developed the ability to disassociate (an extremely powerful psychological defense mechanism) from the work they did as a consequence of their own early childhood sex abuse. They used either dissociation or drugs to alleviate the psychological distress associated with working as a sex worker

That’s interesting as in the over 500 threads on Mumsnet where prostitution has been a topic and where over 200 current and ex-prostitutes contribute the word dissociation is mentioned only three times.

So I am surprised you can find threads where it is mentioned as a feature of the overwhelming number of prostitutes. Perhaps you could point us to these threads?

Butters123 believes it was wrong for governments to prohibit black slavery

What is it with you and your bad faith arguments. Do you really think your position is so weak that you have to fabricate what the other person thinks? Very sad

"Sexual slavery is already illegal. If that is what is actually happening then the powers already exist to deal with it. "

So government should not concern itself with keeping people safe from institutionalized harms and also the government is totally responsible for keeping people safe from institutionalized harms.

Butters123 believes it was wrong for governments to prohibit black slavery when a rational, regulated system of indentured servitude of darkskinned people (and a few whataboutery whites too) should have been implemented instead.

You ‘don’t agree with any of it’ to a list that includes women selling sex as they are trafficked and addicted to drugs? You don’t agree that happens at all?

And what are my personal feelings about sex? How could you possibly know or comment?

Also keep mentioning Sweden as an example of the Nordic model not working. But no examples of what happens with the decrim model, such as the increase in trafficking in Germany post 2002.

Ipswich strategy has also been very successful in stopping women, including hundreds of teenagers, not selling sex.

Yy @VibrationNation

I dissociate from time to time, due to my own mental health problems (the lasting result of sexual and physical abuse suffered in childhood. Surprise surprise.) It's terrifying and i can't imagine having a job where i do that every single time in order to endure it. It's a shortcut to ever deepening psychological problems.

Madame Bovary, I never claimed to be a libertarian

Why so coy? You have repeatedly argued on behalf of 'individual freedom' and how the state should 'keep its nose out.' Do you think the state should rifle through people's wallets? To fund unnecesary pharmaceutical and surgical treatments? If you do, you do not believe in the 'individual freedoms' you have vociferously defended. In the context of 'sex work.'

Their = there

There were some really interesting threads a while back with numerous sex workers offering their various perspectives.

The lasting and stand out comments for me were from sex workers saying that the vast, vast majority of their colleagues had developed the ability to disassociate (an extremely powerful psychological defense mechanism) from the work they did as a consequence of their own early childhood sex abuse. They used either dissociation or drugs to alleviate the psychological distress associated with working as a sex worker.

Anything that relies on women having to be broken down psychologically from a very early age to make the work they do acceptable to themselves is not something the BBC should be promoting.

But while the woke stasi are busy telling themselves and anyone who will listen to them, that their is “nothing to see here”with regards to many pervasively abusive and predatory human behaviours, all anyone else can do is keep shining the light back on these behaviours and calling them out.

Why is this site toxic?

@SophocIestheFox It’s always easy to pick out selective quotes from prostitutes to bolster one point of view or another. So from the report I originally cited and you picked quotes you missed
…Abolitionists using my story to score political points instead of listening to me explaining how and why decriminalisation would make me safer
Or the point (p14) of the report We should also note that there were a cluster of responses which strongly rejected and problematised the notion that those involved in selling sex have necessarily experienced any ‘disadvantage’ or ‘adverse early experience’. This group often stressed the pleasures, financial freedom, and satisfaction that sex work afforded them. It is important therefore to underline that the experiences outlined above do not define every individual experience
So for instance from Mumsnet Tue 18-Mar-14 13:37:18 here
The constant digs at those working in the sex industry is as soul destroying as the implication of being used, that we were all abused and the rest of the stereotypical assumptions made
And 11-Oct-16 16:37:55 here
I’m a prostitute, and honest to God I’m absolutely fucking sick of being told that I’m being abused in my work or that I must have some kind of childhood trauma in my background. It’s just so insulting to see these kinds of broad-brush assumptions over and over and over again
And here
Fri 06-Mar-15 09:44:47 Anyway, I will sum up thusly: when I hear "facts" bandied about about prostitution, I am often shocked and think "What the fuck are they talking about? That's not my experience and I don't know anybody who has that experience." When I read "90% of prostitutes are trafficked, pimped, and abused" it literally sounds as bizarre as something like, "90% of the women on mumsnet are alcoholics.

So the “cluster of respondents” are pissed off with half-truths promulgated by abolitionists which do not match their experiences is why they “strongly reject” such stories

Perhaps you should look at the number of AMA threads on Mumsnet where prostitutes talk about their work.

There are some who have a good or ok time in prostitution others who have an awful time and others whose experience is between those extremes. Without a proper representative survey one cannot be sure of the proportion that fall into each group

Madame Bovary, I never claimed to be a libertarian. Some of my views might be considered libertarian by some (I would say they are liberal myself) but I never follow any one political creed to the exclusion of common sense.

My opinions are based on observation, historical and of the world around me. The evidence of the failure of American Prohibition and the war of drugs is overwhelming. That doesn't mean I'm unaware of the dangers of alcohol and drugs, merely that I think banning them makes things worse not better. I believe the same thing applies to the sex industry. There evidence is abundant there also.

"But Butters will continue to insist it’s a free choice and not exploiting of the women’s bodies at all."

Sexual slavery is already illegal. If that is what is actually happening then the powers already exist to deal with it.

This has nothing to do with women who choose to work in the sex industry being stopped from doing so unless you believe that no woman ever chooses to sell sex. If that is the case I would suggest you look at sex worker sites to get a more informed and balanced view.

Few sex workers would come onto a site this toxic for long (there was one earlier in the thread who already seemed to be fed up) so you need to look elsewhere for first hand accounts of sex work in all its forms and advocacy for sex workers rights.

and that the state should, by and large, keep its big fat nose out of people's bedrooms as much as possible

You have argued from a libertarian position that behaviour which may be inimical or even lethally dangerous should not be made illegal by the state. You have argued that heroin should be legal. Along with more exotic beliefs, Libertarians believe in a small state as opposed to a burgeoning welfare state and individual responsibility, rather than state directed attempts to impose unachievable goals like 'equality.' A 'night watchman' state is the paradigm. As a Libertarian, I assume you are opposed to wealth redistribution via taxation? You believe in low taxation because the state should keep its big nose out of people's wallets, right? As a Libertarian, I assume you have many criticisms of the NHS paradigm? Example? Should 'trans' people be able to stick the bill for their pharmaceutical and surgical attempts to transform into the opposite sex onto the hefty burden of UK taxpayers? As a Libertarian, what is your take on state funded unnecessary medical interventions?

"So are you saying that (a) the harms to society don’t exist or are minimal, (b) that things that some people consider harms are not actually harms and those people just need to change their mindset/die out or (c) that the harms exist but are acceptable collateral damage?"

I don't think that a man hiring an escort, watching porn or going to a strip club has any serious detrimental effect on society. The one most likely to engender a poor attitude to women and/or sex in some men is porn and that is the hardest of all to deal with in the internet age. Porn is here to stay, watched by increasing numbers of women and any attempt to stem the flood is doomed. And obviously not all porn is the same.

I don't believe that the fact that some women sell sexual services means that all women are somehow demeaned or endangered as a result.

I don't believe that no abuses exist within various parts of the sex industry, legal or illegal, but I don't believe those abuses are unique to it or justify trying to eradicate it. I believe such attempts will fail as they have always done and make things worse. The evidence in the US and Sweden is not encouraging. The abuse of power within the police is one of the worst things illegal sex workers have to deal with.

Interesting stats in this excerpt from Hansard - Northumbrian police visiting brothers in their areas where 70-80% of the women were Romanian. All these Eastern European women ‘choosing’ to sell sex. They need to sleep with about 13 men a day to make the money their pimps require. Even in the first flush of a passionate relationship, I’d find 13 times too much. But Butters will continue to insist it’s a free choice and not exploiting of the women’s bodies at all.

Just a ‘service’

hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-07-04/debates/50911795-3525-4F4A-B047-EF87047B5176/CommercialSexualExploitation

It’s completely disingenuous

"Of course prostitution increases the risk of male violence to all women, that's already been born out in practice many many times."

You make a lot of ridiculously over the top statements which are all unsubstantiated. What hard evidence do you have to back up any of it?

Yours comes across more as a fanatically held religious conviction rather than a political argument.

As to all the nonsense about slavery....God grant me patience.

Sex workers are not slaves. They choose to sell some form of sexual service or product. If they didn't they would not be sex workers but sex slaves. But then you like to pretend there's little difference.

This is a feminist site, it centres women. That doesn’t mean the people in here to not care about the effects on men. Why do you think it would?

As I'm neither a buyer or seller of sexual services it was never about me. I believe individuals should be allowed to buy and sell sex and that the state should, by and large, keep its big fat nose out of people's bedrooms as much as possible.

So are you saying that (a) the harms to society don’t exist or are minimal, (b) that things that some people consider harms are not actually harms and those people just need to change their mindset/die out or (c) that the harms exist but are acceptable collateral damage?

I am genuinely interested in your view and am glad you are engaging.

"So you don’t actually know/understand the arguments?"

On the contrary, I know all the arguments, that women are forced into by traffickers, poverty, abuse, addiction; that buying sex is a commodification of women's bodies and has a detrimental effect on the whole of society and all women; that sex isn't something to be traded in a decent society etc. etc.

I just don't agree with any of it and believe that the anti-sex work crowd come to the conclusions that agree with their personal feelings about sex and apply it to all women (they don't care about the men).

"I haven’t seen a single poster here argue that prostitution is icky, or take any kind of authoritarian stand, butter."

If you wish to ban selling sex that is an authoritarian stance. And the objections to selling sex largely arise from an emotional response rather than a logical one. Disgust is the prime motivating factor as it is in most legislation aimed at regulating sexual practices. In some cases, such as paedophilia, that's a good thing. In other instances, such as homosexuality, it's less justifiable.

"On the contrary, it seems to be only you who believes that humans can be compelled to behave morally only by state intervention."

I'm not sure I said that exactly.

"I myself believe that discarding the commodification of women’s bodies happens as part of discarding patriarchal structures and thinking, not by more man-made laws. And the mechanism for that to happen is feminism, for my money."

Feminism is too vague. Pro sex work feminism is hardly in your corner.

How far would you go in eradicating (by some means or other) the 'commodification' of women's (still no interest in the men) bodies? Would you ban all porn, strip clubs, web cams, glamour/nude modelling, lingerie models etc? Or is it just actual sex you object to?

Using over emotional and inaccurate language doesn't strengthen your argument which boils down to, "I think it's icky so every woman must and we should ban it because of that."

So you don’t actually know/understand the arguments?

"so I guess you will be sunbathing in the park, having a house party and driving to the beach this weekend - because your liberty is paramount. And fuck everyone else."

I said in most cases, not all cases. There are important exceptions. I just don't consider sex work to be one of them.

" I believe individuals should not be legally allowed to buy and sell sex. Because sometimes, Butters, it’s not just about you."

As I'm neither a buyer or seller of sexual services it was never about me. I believe individuals should be allowed to buy and sell sex and that the state should, by and large, keep its big fat nose out of people's bedrooms as much as possible.

Yes, ruffle, I’m now trying to remember that quotation about the law allowing rich and poor alike to be free to starve under bridges.

It's insulting to talk about liberty as a justification for prostititution even as men around world rob women and children of their right to live lives free of unnecessary pain, humiliation and suffering. Where's their liberty?

Are you a libertarian

Compared to most posters I'm a libertarian. I mentioned Ben Shapiro early on- now he really is a libertarian. He's not a feminist but he gets the societal damage point re prostitution etc.