Seeking other academics concerned by student sex work

Bloody hell that Student Room thread. Sudden mention of how great it is to have a pimp or 'Master' because he'll look after you.

This is being aggressively promoted within the same movement that wants to make it unacceptable to talk about sex specific issues. And happily, this is one where I can say that women and transwomen both suffer, except that the impact on women is worse due to additional sex-specific risks - physically weaker, pregnancy, more vulnerable to disease. It is not my son who will be asked to 'consider sex work' at university.

I'd agree that this is something where the generally negative trend towards heavy parental involvement in university issues could actually be helpful.

Signed

Signed. Bump

Nordic Model Now! has set up a petition calling on them to revoke the toolkit and return to the drawing board.

PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE THIS PETITION. We believe that only the pressure of public opinion is likely to get them to change their minds, so please encourage everyone you know to sign and share it too. Thank you!

www.change.org/p/university-of-leicester-revoke-the-university-of-leicester-student-sex-work-policy-and-toolkits

The resource for academics instructed us not to assume the student wanted to leave. There was no advice regarding what to do if they wanted to :(

I might be missing something here but isn't sex work prostitution (I.e., illegal) or is sex work something else?

I understand that people in the sex industry would want to promote this, but it beggars belief that some people actually believe this. I'm not sure what it's a sign of - a lack of imagination, I.Q or both.

say that universities should support students to balance studies with their sex work

I feel that the world has been turned upside down sometimes. I'm only a Millennial but I could not have imagined seeing this when I was at uni. It would have been seen as worrying, insulting, highly regressive and a massive commentary on what women have to, or are pressured to do to support themselves. Mind you, there was a trend for Burlesque at the time, which didn't earn most women who did it any money, and that could be argued as being nothing more than middle class stripping.

Interesting how prostitution is justified with the remark “you all watch porn, how can you say sex work is wrong?”.
More and more, I think Andrea Dworkin was right when she said “porn is the theory, rape is the practice”, and if prostitution is paid rape ...

I'm not an academic, I'm a student but I totally agree with you. My university is also pushing the sex workers support. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for supporting people with their mental health etc. But normalising sex work (to me at least) is just wrong. Most people involved in sex work are vulnerable, they don't need it normalised!

I've just had a quick look. This was a recent top result. www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6698978&page=2

Thanks - I'll have a look.

I'm addition to all the excellent points raised by other posters, I'd also be really concerned that this will lead to a culture where financial support such as hardship funds, or on-campus jobs such as bar work, are biased towards males because they don't have access to the easy choice of sex work in the way that females do

A few years ago I was chatting to someone in the homelessness and emergency accommodation space - they confirmed my suspicion that outside of women's refuges (often for women experiencing violence) that housing tended to be organised around men's needs because women could always fuck for a bed for the night. I think this is now formally called survival sex. The streets are dangerous for women. For young women the pathway into commercial sex is often very swift.

This is so fucked up. A toolkit? Why the hell would they not be putting every single breath of energy behind stopping this? It's horrific, backwards, insulting. Fucking hell surely it would be better to encourage people to drop out of their course than going down this road at age 18? It'd be better to get a minimum wage job and not have a degree surely?! This is so depressing. Honestly this country has its priorities all mixed up.

Good point

Thanks for starting this thread OP. I hope some actions can come out of this. A previous comment though

In the short term universities should commit to waiving fees when students are in dire financial straits with the government reimbursing them.

This won't help students. The vast majority don't pay fees upfront. The money for fees goes from the govt to the university.

Universities can create bursaries and hardship funds for students but they aren't bottomless pits of money.

It's abhorrent.

I'm addition to all the excellent points raised by other posters, I'd also be really concerned that this will lead to a culture where financial support such as hardship funds, or on-campus jobs such as bar work, are biased towards males because they don't have access to the easy choice of sex work in the way that females do.

Yes I had Scottish peers who were 17 in the first year at an English uni.

I also had two friends who had been moved up a year at school and so were also through out the first year.

I am furious too. And all this going on in parallel to the rightful uproar about VAWG. The connection between this message that Unis are giving to to kids in their care and the entitled attitude of men is plain to see.
OP - Julie Bindel does a lot of work in this area and it might be worth reaching out to her for advice on how to mobilise academics (and parents - because I agree with a PP that ultimately no parent waving their child off to Uni expects them to end up being exploited in this way).
Good luck and please keep posting because I would like to help in any way I can.

Not read the whole thread.

Read the toolkit been ranting at DH.

Fucking hell.

The stats. 5% of students have engaged in sex work and 20% of students have considered it.

Later. If you add 'identifed as female'and non binary together (note. No actual sex figures). Then it's 90%.

So is it more like 10% and 40% of female students..?

Who knows. And that's a huge problem.

Later they say that most involved are vulnerable in some way.

And then just move on :/

No mention of help to exit etc.
No mention really of harms.

Note that the list of things focuses on Mon contact (cam etc), mentions 'sugaring', and fails to mention prostitution at all.

What an utter fucking load of shit.

As a normal person. If I found out that an 18 yo girl I knew was working as a prostitute or a cam girl etc I would want to get them out.

But that's not even mentioned. No mention of what if they want to exit. What if there's a pimp involved. What if they are out of their depth or confused. What if the messages they are getting- the document says it's appealing because it's flexible- that it's AOK- makes them feel that even if they're not sure they should be ok with it.

18-21 is SO young. Many girls this age are not very sexually experienced at all.

It's a pile of shit OP, for sure.

This isn't exactly the same thing per se, but this article came up on twitter yesterday, and I think it's linked. 4w.pub/kidschat-teenchat-pedophiles-porn/?fbclid=IwAR2haARYWt_anRbGbVtR0NYSlJik5a-aiXy55DvSjUGtE6Ap7f5MW1eiGC4

I've just had a quick look. This was a recent top result. www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6698978&page=2

I haven't been on TSR for a long time, but part of why I left was the unmoderated misogyny. It was a drip, drip of hostility that made me feel tense any time I ventured out of subject-specific topics. And the going on about sex work and threads from young men asking about how to hire an escort were part of that. When you are in an online environment where you are regularly confronted with posts discussing what they're entitled to expect from a woman for £, you can deduce that the same posters see you and other female forum members as objects to be bought too.

Glad to see this thread being bumped on this incredibly busy board. It really needs massive coverage so parents can see just which universities are promoting this as a life choice for 18 year olds.

Does anyone have any links to sites where young people and students might hang out and be actively recruited?

Actually, the more I think about this, the angrier I get.

Again.