What is the moral difference between sex work and other forms of work?

Thank you for the kind words. It's a grim subject to engage with and dealing with these posters who pop up every now and then with little more than the testicles of objectivity to back themselves up can be frustrating. But we're just the mummies, what do we know, right?

20mum just when you think you've reached the pit of this miserable topic, new depths become apparent.

Bbc radio 4 this morning featured women using their bodies to produce children who produce money for sex. One in the Philippines was involved in a business opportunity including two of her own infants.
Neither prostitutes nor porn satisfy a finite market and thus " prevent men being forced to rape" (as has been argued) The appetite grows by what it feeds upon. Men who didn't think of things, think. Men who thought, but didn't act, act.

Men can now have children sexually abused directly under their own instruction, filmed live. Younger children are the most in demand. Babies of two and three months have been discovered 'selling sex', in Phillipines police raids.

It is illegal for mothers to be openly complicit, but legal to produce a steady supply of babies and ostensibly take no part in what happens to them next. Surrogacy, fostering, orphanages, adoption, or child'care' agreements are all legal routes for women to use their own reproductive systems for tax free profit .

BTW I have noticed this with your posts before-accusing someone who does not agree with you of “not understanding”-whereas you superior Flora obviously do

Have you any idea how stalker ish that sounds.

Can we have a doorstep clap for all the women kindly and patiently explaining things to staggeringly condescending fuckwits with delusions of intelligence? Thanks for your work Flora.

Also I have to say that "not all prostitutes are raped and traumatised, only the most vulnerable ones" is not a terrific argument from the point of view of anyone who prioritises the wellbeing and safety of vulnerable people over the earning capacity of comfortably-off people.

And "prostitution doesn't necessarily cause PTSD because lots of women are severely traumatised before they even enter prostitution" is likewise not as convincing a pro-prostitution argument as its proponents seem to believe.

Oh dear, someone has been spending time with the advanced search function.

I think I said (several years ago?) that I don't click on links that don't show the URLs because they often lead to punter/pimp organisations and I don't want my IP address coming up as a referral from MN.

I have read many surveys on various aspects of prostitution including some of those you've linked. Surveys which use survey monkey, call outs for online participation or pro-prostitution (or abolitionist) organisations to find survey participants are fundamentally flawed if they are trying to claim representation. If you want to do some meta-analysis on the studies to make a claim that they are triangulated, I'm all ears. You might even get a publication out of it.

Since you've spent some time reading my posts on prostitution, you may have noticed that I have rarely put forward any studies to support my viewpoints (although equally likely, based on your posts, you may not have noticed). Contrary to your evidence-free statement that I only say they are problematic because they don't "jive" with my opinions, I think there are problems with many or most surveys that purport to be representative of the views of women in prostitution, regardless of the outcome, because they are all subject to the difficulties of representing a largely hidden population. The participants skew largely to those who have access to the internet or have interactions with the organisations involved in the studies (whether abolitionist or pro pimp/punter).

A notable exception to the research carried out by groups with an agenda, is this research by an academic at the LSE on legalisation of prostitution and trafficking:

www.lse.ac.uk/geographyAndEnvironment/whosWho/profiles/neumayer/pdf/Article-for-World-Development-prostitution-anonymous-REVISED.pdf

This research concludes that legalising prostitution leads to a rise in trafficking and doesn't rely on finding and representing hidden populations. This is one of the most impressive pieces of research I have seen around prostitution as it is measured and is careful in what steps it recommends. Almost all the research carried out around prostitution is done by campaign groups. Even where an NGO or government body is involved, the research is often carried out by a campaign group.

As for the parliamentary enquiries, are those the ones chaired by Keith Vaz, who was caught up in a prostitution sting himself (as a punter)?

I've already said why I don't think research purporting to be representative of women in prostitution is particularly valuable for the general topic (did you miss that bit?). The voices of women in prostitution absolutely should be part of any policy decision (and the evidence from Rachel Moran and Mia de Faoite at the NI enquiry was very powerful) but aside from the difficulties of proving that any particular voices are representative, there are other factors that are also important such as the effects on women as a class, the effects on BAME women who are subject to the effects of racialised prostitution whether they are in prostitution or not and the effects on the broader community.

This might be my third time asking you what assertion you are making for which you think these studies provide evidence? You're so caught up in trying / failing to make your evidence seem credible and reliable that you're missing out on what it is you're actually trying to prove.

Yes, @FloraFox, your last sentence is all that needs accepting.

@FloraFox I know being engaged in an argument can be draining and frustrating, but thanks for the explanation and info. It’s helpful to those of us following in the gallery! I think you are right.

There is evidence and there is good evidence. Multiple shoddy surveys which use the same problematic methods do not become good evidence because they are repeated. Given your reliance on wikipedia to make your point, I CBA engaging in a discussion with you about whether these methodologies are sufficiently different to provide reliable triangulation.

At the end of the day, this is not an issue that lends itself to being determined by data, it too easily becomes policy-based evidence.

What is the acceptable number of women who have been raped or seriously assaulted / engaged in prostitution under the age of 18 / were in care / experienced sexual abuse during childhood / suffer from PTSD or have been tortured / would like to exit but can't? How many women need to suffer so that men can use them for sex?

Prostitution is inherently abusive and perpetuates women's position in society as sex objects for men's use while negating women's sexuality.

Florafox You clearly don't understand the concept of triangulation
OK lets try another tack-go to Wikipedia, look up Triangulation (Social Sciences) here. The first para. reads
In the social sciences, triangulation refers to the application and combination of several research methods in the study of the same phenomenon. By combining multiple observers, theories, methods, and empirical materials, researchers hope to overcome the weakness or intrinsic biases and the problems that come from single method, single-observer, and single-theory studies

Then go down a bit where it mentions four basic types of triangulation
a)Data triangulation: involves time, space, and persons
b)Investigator triangulation: involves multiple researchers in an investigation.
c)Theory triangulation: involves using more than one theoretical scheme in the interpretation of the phenomenon.
d) Methodological triangulation: involves using more than one method to gather data, such as interviews, observations, questionnaires, and documents

I think the literature and the research I have cited in this thread pretty much covers all of the above

Multiple studies, each of which claims not to be representative …..that is not what the authors said-and you know that.

If you do a sampling of a population whose characteristics you wish to determine all you can say for definite is that the characteristics of the sample I drew were such-and-such-but if I had drawn a large enough sample I might begin to think this might be the characteristic of the population. To take the particular example of the Jenkins thesis she is not claiming it is representative of all prostitutes (as she only sampled those she could reach via the internet), she is being very cautious-she is even not claiming that it is representative those who advertise on the internet.

Now not claiming that it is representative is not the same as being unrepresentative she is being very cautious. And you are deliberately twisting the words here

However her work (despite being international and dating from 2009) agrees well (both qualitatively and quantitatively) with other work on internet prostitutes in the UK (from2017) here and here. (fulfilling criteria a,b&d for triangulation-see above)

Furthermore this work triangulates both qualitatively and quantitatively with that I mentioned from Denmark 2011 (where researchers visited brothels, parlours counted and interviewed those working the streets, and also that from New Zealand (where a very high proportion of the total number of prostitutes (street and indoors) in New Zealand were surveyed) (so fulfilling criteria a,b&d)

So you can see how a picture can be built of how prostitution operates via triangulating different pieces of work-so Flora- in what way don't I clearly understand the concept of triangulation?

you haven't answered my other question about what assertion you are making for which you think these studies provide evidence?

Well let’s start with one of yours (for which the research produces counter-evidence) from the thread Women who sell or exchange sex and coronavirus
FloraFox Wed 25-Mar-20 16:37:02
exponential: Also most sex workers are (like all workers) somewhere in the middle

Flora: This is a pimp/punter lobby trope for which there is no evidence.-

so I produced evidence

And then there are a whole lot of abolitionist myths which the data shows are lies or half truths.

1. More than half of women in prostitution in the UK have been raped and/or seriously assaulted and at least 75% have been physically assaulted at the hands of pimps and punters
2. 75% of UK prostitutes entered prostitution under the age of 18 or the average age of starting is 12, or 14
3. 70% spent time in care and 45% report experiencing sexual abuse during their childhoods
4. 68% of women in prostitution meet the criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the same range as torture victims
5. that 9 out of 10 women in prostitution would like to exit if they could

Should be enough

My fishing analogy was to try to explain the idea of triangulation to Flora-that if several indepenent studies turn up the same sort of result you can be reasnably certain it is correct.

You clearly don't understand the concept of triangulation. If the studies turn up the same sort of result because the researchers follow the same method, there is no triangulation. Multiple studies, each of which claims not to be representative, does not provide triangulation simply by repeating the outcomes.

In any event, you haven't answered my other question about what assertion you are making for which you think these studies provide evidence?

"The claim of “68% have PTSD”...extended the study five countries...finding 67% with PTSD...again found 68% had PTSD . (I must say to get precisely the same result as sample size increases and different populations are included strikes me as statistically implausible-it’s not the speed of light (which is a universal constant) that is being measured, maybe its coincidence, maybe the authors are getting sloppy or maybe something else is going on)"

You're intentionally lying about the research results.

For anyone who doesn't want to pay the USD 44.00 for one day's access to the paper, here are the prostitution PTSD results from research in nine countries.

PTSD Diagnosis according to DSM-IV by country

Canada 74%
Columbia 86%
Germany 60%
Mexico 54%
South Africa 75%
Thailand 58%
Turkey 66%
USA 69%
Zambia 71%

Average = 68%

msflibble 20mum Thelnebriati Isn’t it strange when someone produces research that does not confirm the abolitionist picture of all prostitutes are victims, vulnerable, trafficked and exploited there cries of “not representative” goes up but when a claim such as Prostituted women have a rate of PTSD that is double that of war veterans, at 68% goes up-not a peep, abolitionists lap it up.

The claim of “68% have PTSD” originates from Melissa Farley (as Thelnebriati ) notes, the original sample (N=136) were street prostitutes in San Francisco then she extended the study five countries (N=475) [[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228535864_Prostitution_in_Five_Countries_Violence_and_Post-Traumatic_Stress_Disorder here]] finding 67% with PTSD and then further extended to nine countries (N=854) here and again found 68% had PTSD . (I must say to get precisely the same result as sample size increases and different populations are included strikes me as statistically implausible-it’s not the speed of light (which is a universal constant) that is being measured, maybe its coincidence, maybe the authors are getting sloppy or maybe something else is going on)

The prostitutes sampled in those studies were very disadvantaged (drugs, child abuse poverty)-so it cannot be claimed that there that their PTSD is due to sex-for-money unless you have a control group of equally disadvantaged people who do not prostitute-also not controlled is the fact that mental illness could be a pre-existing condition. For instance several prostitutes contributing to threads on SAAFE have illnesses such as anxiety and panic and cannot hold down a full time job but can manage prostitution which can offer relatively large rewards for time worked’

There have been countless studies on PTSD and prostitution-almost all lacking controls- and no one has observed the levels of PTSD that Farley does.

In 2001 a study The Mental and Physical Health of Female Sex Workers: A Comparative Study ', here concluded No evidence was found that sex work and increased adult psychiatric morbidity are inevitably associated, although there may be subgroups of workers with particular problems. The illegal and stigmatized nature of sex work are likely to make usual public health strategies more difficult to apply, considerations which should give concern from a preventive health standpoint

In 2002 Motivation and mental health of sex workers here a study used basically the same questionnaire as Farley to interview 55 brothel workers from the former Soviet Union working as indoor prostitutes in Israel, 17% of the women showed signs of PTSD, which meet Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria compared to 11.8% in a U.S. primary care study. So while there was evidence of PTSD it was not as high as in the Farley study-but there was no really suitable control group.

In another study published in 2008 The health of female sex workers from three industry sectors in Queensland, Australia [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=The+health+of+female+sex+workers+from+three+industry+sectors+in+Queensland%2C here]] concludes Much of the increased levels of poor mental health among illegal sex workers were associated with more negative experiences before, and subsequent to entering the sex industry. These patterns were not seen among women from the legal industry sectors. This research suggests that illegal, street-based sex workers, from whom many previous results have been derived, may show patterns of disadvantage, and health outcomes not seen in sex workers from other industry sectors

In 2010 a study The mental health of female sex workers
here of 193 sex workers in Zurich showed that PTSD very variable from nothing for those working privately and who are of European origin to a lot-those indoors who are non-European.

A report into the Sex industry in NSW Australia in 2012 The sex industry in New South Wales here reported (p 26) On the whole respondents appear to be well adjusted and comfortable with their occupation, however 10% had high scores on the Kessler-6 psychological distress scale that indicates that they were likely to have a serious mental illness .This was consistent across all states, and is about twice the rate for similar aged women in the general population. These women are likely to have other stressors in their lives such as stigma, drug use, homelessness, social and financial constraints. Health and outreach service providers need to be mindful of this minority and be able to make appropriate referrals when they suspect a sex worker is seriously at risk

I could go on boring you-but the upshot is that of PTSD amongst sex workers reported by Farley is far higher than those reported by other researchers. A clue as to why this might be so is that Farley’s studies were based on the most disadvantaged sex workers frequently those in street work.

What a fuller analysis of the literature shows that levels of PTSD are more related to experience before entering sex work or drug addiction during sex work especially for those working on the street. Much of the research concludes that those prostituting indoors have levels of mental health which is similar to demographically matched control samples.

For an interesting discussion of these issues see Reviewing the occupational risks of sex workers in comparison to other risky professions www2.le.ac.uk/departments/criminology/people/teela-sanders/BriefingPaperSexWorkandMentalHealth.pdf here]]

So the conclusion Farley wants you to take away-that prostitution itself is a major source of PTSD is simply not supported by the evidence

I dont understand your comment-I cited many studies which included street work (which is for instance illegal in Queensland and semi legal in Denmark), and the studies in NSW included unregistered massage parlours which are also illegal
Your allegory is wrong then, because fish in the sea are for one salt water fish, and two captured in a different way. Not to even go with tropical seas and the fish in them.
I was only ever a prostitute in the UK so I cannot comment on Queensland or Denmark, and what the fuck is semi legal? Things in legal terms are legal or illegal, there is no grey area. Murder is murder, the person is still dead, burglary is burglary, a person is still deprived of things. No matter why someone is murdered or burgled.

I'm still friends with some prostitutes and can categorically say they have never been interviewed by anyone, and if anyone did try then their pimps would either not allow it or they would be under threat to make it sound like a walk in the park.

When your definition of fish is "soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc" the research is junk.

Bananabixfloof I dont understand your comment-I cited many studies which included street work (which is for instance illegal in Queensland and semi legal in Denmark), and the studies in NSW included unregistered massage parlours which are also illegal.

Overall the studies-especially the Danish and Queensland ones covered pretty much the whole gamut of where prostituion operates.

My fishing analogy was to try to explain the idea of triangulation to Flora-that if several indepenent studies turn up the same sort of result you can be reasnably certain it is correct.

Now of course the results from multiple sampling in different populations (or even resampling the same population) will not be precisely the same (due to natural variation, sampling error etc) but if they are pretty much the same it gives confidence.

If they are precisely the same usually I smell a rat-as in the work from Farley

But your hypothetical fishermen didnt try catching fish in the river, because that takes a whole different set of equipment and requires a different mindset.

So the prostitutes that work outside, in "legal" areas are not even represented.

Florafox are you arguing that a collection of studies each of which states they are not representative become representative if they all "triangulate"? That is not what I said-let’s try an example and see if it makes it clearer.

Suppose I wanted to know the composition of fish in the sea (which type or size etc). So I catch 500 fish and I can see what size and type they are. All I can be certain of is that in the 500 fish I caught they were this and that type-I don’t know if that is the true population structure of all the fish in the sea, I cannot claim that the 500 fish is a representative sample but is probably a better sample than if I caught 5 fish.

Suppose independently and at another time someone and another place someone else caught 600 fish-they too can only strictly claim that in their sample this was the composition-they too don’t know if their sample is representative of the population as a whole. But suppose the composition of their sample was much the same as mine-one can be more confident about the structure of the population in the sea.

Suppose several independent fishermen at different times and different places repeated the exercise-some catching fewer and some more fish. Now it’s unlikely that all the samples will have exactly the same composition-but if the composition of each of the independent catches was similar (triangulation) one can be much more certain that you know the structure of the population in the sea.

So while none of the individual samples can be claim to be representative (although they may be) but by having similar results in different independent catches (each of which cannot claim to be truly representative) one can be more and more certain what the “true” composition is.

So to get back to prostitution-yes-if several independent pices of work none of which individually can make the claim to be representative come up with similar results it probably is representative when trianglated

Two studies quote that;

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1481550/

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9698636/

Thanks for that statistic msflibble. As you say, it tells all. Could you give a reference please.?

Prostituted women have a rate of PTSD that is double that of war veterans, at 68%.
This tells me all I need to know, frankly.

exponential are you arguing that a collection of studies each of which states they are not representative become representative if they all "triangulate"?

If the value of these studies is not that they are representative, what is the value you are presenting?

FloraFox predictable response from an abolitionist. Any survey that does not confirm their preformed prejudice they label as “unrepresentative” and so they ignore it.

If you had actually read Jenkin’s thesis you would have noted (p 81she says… where the target population is difficult to access, research is rarely able to achieve representativeness in any case and p 88 … the research is exploratory in nature, and I am not ensuring or implying representativeness in any way

As you know it is probably impossible to get a representative sample of a hidden population such as women and men who are prostitutes.
Most studies that are independent from abolitionist ideology will recognize their limitations in this respect and will not pretend their results to represent all sex workers; rather, they give a glimpse of what certain sex workers—those who participated in the study—experience both within and outside their work.

The problem you have Flora is that Jenkins’s research has been confirmed many times over and triangulates well with other independent research from around the world-and not just with prostitutes working via the internet.

So in the UK we have On Our Own Terms : The Working Conditions of Internet-Based Sex Workers in the UK N= 240 later expanded to N=641 here funded by the pimp-punters Wellcome trust and The Economic and Social Research Council, then we have USA
Sexual Attitudes and Experiences of 100 Internet Based Independent Sexual Service Providers here,

Canada Représentations personnelles et expérience émotionnelle de la sexualité chez des femmes offrant des services d ' escorte here then we have surveys of sexworkers operating independently in brothels and on the street from Denmark N= 328 from the pimp punter organisation Danish National Centre for Social Research
here from New Zealand N=759 Report of the Prostitution Law Review Committee on the Operation of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 here from Queensland, Australia, Predicting the Job Satisfaction of Female Sex Workers in Queensland, Australia N=247 here which found Overall, most sex workers reported positive job satisfaction. Satisfaction was higher in women working legally and was comparable with women from the general population

I think that is probably enough to go on with. You see Flora all these studies triangulate very well with the data from the Jenkins thesis. Oh I am sure you will try and bleat “not representative” you should read this

“ What is a representative sex worker ?” here which starts Faced with a sex worker who defies the abolitionist stereotype of a person physically or economically coerced into prostitution, who thinks their job is ok and isn’t desperate to leave it (but could if s/he wanted to), and who argues that the solution to the negative aspects of sex work is decriminalisation and enforceable rights, the inevitable response is: You’re not representative and then goes on But the ones you call “particularly vulnerable” are the majority. The “less vulnerable ones” are (drum roll) not representative Precisely-that is your get out- ignore the facts why don’t you.

There are some resources that only dedicated pro-pimp/punter hobbyists like to cite and Suzanne Jenkins' Ph.D. paper is right up there.

The Suzanne Jenkins study was written as a PhD thesis. Suzanne Jenkins now seems to be an investigator for the health ombudsman, a worthwhile role but not exactly a thought leader. She doesn't seem to have published anything else on this topic, that I can find on the internet.

This article in the New Statesman questioned Brooke Magnanti's reliance on the study:

www.newstatesman.com/blogs/helen-lewis/2012/04/how-belle-de-jour-got-her-figures-wrong

Interestingly, Ms Jenkins seems to have commented BTL on that article:

"Just for clarity, as author of the study under discussion, I certainly don't claim my sample to be representative of the population, the sex-working population, or even escorts advertising on the internet. I would add that although I aimed to study 'escorts, many men, and women, work in more than one way/place simultaneously. e.g., many escorts work some of their week in a parlour, many started as street walkers or parlour workers before going independent. I personally interviewed over 100 sex workers and their experiences were wide-ranging - but that doesn’t mean others didn’t experienced sex work differently. Also, the question about plans to leave escort work were one of large bank of questions, and respondents were able to add explanatory data to their response, so some clarification of their meanings were elicited. Having said all that, my intention is not to promote sex work or to condemn it – it more about how the law infantilises and pathologises women and how in the name of protecting women it can place them in a more vulnerable position."

This is the only public statement I can find from Ms Jenkins.

Her belief that the law infantilises women is a subjective, political belief. She states herself that she does not believe her sample to be representative. I don't see that her paper adds anything of value to the discussion.

It is interesting as it was the first very large scale survey of those prostitutes working via the internet

Those in hunslet will be underwhelmed by this. Seeing as they "work" out in the open, year round. Also the women who live in hunslet and are harrassed by punters who think they are prostitutes or are assaulted and raped by men.