What is wrong with the term 'Sex workers'?

How does the friend know that it is ‘their preferred term’? I suspect if you asked some poor kid who had been trafficked onto it which they’d prefer, they’d say that they’d preferred not to have been trafficked or tricked into it.

It’s not flipping Pretty Woman, and no ‘cam gal’ is making £££££££ a week and buying a flay on Canary Wharf.

Prostitute had become a 'derogotry" term because it is very specific. It describes a woman who sells sexual acts for money. Replace it with 'sex worker' and you muddy what's being sold. It could be exotic dancing, erotic cakes whatever. You lose the implied risks and lived reality of the person (usually forced to do it)
So yes, it does sanitise it, because to lose the meaning of the word minimises what that person has to do. It creates a situation where the person describing them doesn't have to think about the unpleasant implications for the person in that role. But it doesn't take away the negative reality of the role. The danger is still there.
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Specific word is needed to apply to a specific situation where someone isn't an escort or exotic dancer(I notice they are neatly conflated above). If the word sex worker started being used for just prostituted people, it would gather the same negative connotations as prostitute. It's the role that attracts negative views, not the word. If we all started using courtesan, it would be exactly the same.

No matter what word you use. The reality stays the same. It's exploitation. It's often addiction. It's often abuse. it's dangerous.

Do you think if men were in the position of being likely to be murdered or have anal prolapse because of their 'job' there'd be a rush to normalise it?

It's just bullshit isn't it? In no other work does your boss or your customer/client get to penetrate you or subject you degrading acts they need to pay someone to do let them. Sharing and being exposed to bodily fluids is viscerally personal, and most of the work is dangerous, not because buying sex is illegal in some places, but because the men who pay for sex aren't really bothered by the fact that the only reason that woman is having sex with them is because if money. Full consent isn't really a priority and that comes with a lot of associated risks.

'Sex worker' is a term which creates an umbrella over the whole 'industry'

Pimps, traffickers, prostitutes, trafficked women and girls, online and phone sex workers are all 'sex workers'

It makes the whole mess seem less toxic and dangerous.

Say it as you see it. Prostitution. Prostitutes. Sex slaves. Pimps. Traffickers.

Don't euphemise or 'dial it down'.

I personally prefer the term sex workers as I think 'prostitute' is and has been such a derogatory term.

It's nothing to do with sanitizing or normalising it as an industry.

I think it must be awful for the vast majority of women who do it but I'm still happy to use the term of their preference.

As a mum to two daughters I don't accept the term sex work. Careers day for them will be about their academic and creative potential not if they can sell their body. I think sex work is used to normalise violence against another person's body and make women think they are being a prude if they don't consider it as a way out of their poverty. Let's face it most of the "customers" are male so it is in their interests to normalise it so they can have access to a bigger workforce.
Language is really important, on this board we know how important language is and how the meaning of words can be altered to suit a purpose that leaves women in the shit.

Prostitute has a very specific meaning.

It always has.

The word courtesan isn't in use is it? I mean generally.

Not look like a 'tart'??

FFS

In this day and age there are many different forms of prostitution and the term 'sex work' seems to cover everything.
A prostitute is a person who takes money for sexual services but I think some lap dancers and strippers would object to being called prostitutes in the same way some women marketing themselves as 'Escorts' would also object but they are all sex workers providing sexual services.
It's all about marketing isn't it?.
A 'Courtesan' markets herself at the rich man who will take her to places where she won't embarrass herself or him, for a large fee, and the rich man who wants sexual services seeks out the services of a courtesan for those reasons.
Men who see 'Escorts' expect the lady to be well dressed and not look like a tart (unless they request it). They feel safer seeing someone like this and kid themselves the lady is willing and happy to be with them. They would not use the term 'sex worker' To the man who sees escorts a sex worker is the girl on the street. A sex worker is a drug addict.

So the girls use another handle to attract a certain type of client.

It will never be cut and dried. Men will never take responsibility for what they do preferring to think the prostitutes they see are not working but having fun and some sex workers are not working at all but being worked by others.

That would be useful thanks.

It was a big thing with the Yorkshire ripper wasn't it.

Unless it's pertinent I see no reason to report on what their job is anyone.

I tend to say women who sell sex.

Because when talking about the harms of that specific role the use of sex worker masks, minimises etc.

The fact that the word makes people see those women negatively is not to do with words but with social views/ judgement.

The words can be changed over and over but the underlying attitude won't and that's a problem.

There has been at least one study which showed that use of terms like ‘prostitute’ make people feel more negatively towards women who sell sex. For example, if a headline in a newspaperidentifies the victim of a rape or a murder as a prostitute, there is less sympathy and concern, and the women are viewed as less human and more deserving of what happened to them. I’ll see if I can find it - I read it a long time ago.

Oh sorry wrong thread!

That's another side to it then.

If sex work excludes those being exploited then it's definitely not the right term to use when discussing the harms specially of prostitution.

Another sleight of hand with that term then.

Thanks for that margarita.

When talking about the harms of selling sex then it's a different group.

It includes those being abused trafficked etc and excludes those doing cam work etc.

"How is it taxed?"

In Britain, sex workers have to pay tax on their earnings.

"What's the pay scale?"

I had a look on an escort directory. Prices are generally between £100 and £200 for an hour. "High class" escorts in big cities or porn stars may charge several hundred pounds an hour.

Street prostitution (which has been illegal since 2007) prices are usually much lower.

"Is there a Union?"

Look up Scot-Pep and Umbrella Lane. I think they might count.

"If someone is dissatisfied, do they get a refund?"

I doubt it.

A sex worker is an adult who sells sexual services. It doesn't refer to trafficked victims (trafficked victims are called trafficked). It can include things like stripping and cam-work, but usually refers to prostitution.

It's the term used by many sex workers themselves and groups made up of them, as well as local and international human rights, health, anti-STD and anti-trafficking orgs.

Although I understand some here think any org that uses the term "sex worker" or advocates for decriminalisation is "run by pimps".

In the end is there any point in you two having these conversations?

It's clear that you have very different perspectives. It's an emotive topic. I doubt either of you will change your minds any time in the foreseeable future.

If she's you friend and you want to keep it that way then I'd just avoid this stuff tbh.

Out of interest, which one of you brings these things up and what prompts it?

Because it legitimises their abusers as “customers”

IF her line is prostitution is a fun way to earn lots of money and it's just work

Ask her if she thinks that orgs that are for women who want to exit are pointless. Should they be defunded and closed?

Ask her if she would agree to home with a man she had spoken to for a couple of mins outside a shop. Let's say he said he had something she really wanted to see at his house. A picasso or a lion or whatever. Would she think twice about going? Would she go at all? If not why not.

if she says yes I would without a second thought then she's either lying, incredibly naive, or not at all risk averse!

If she says no. Why not? And if not, why does she not think it's unsafe to go to men's homes or have them come to yours, who you have zero idea who they are.

Tell her to read this in full.

extract

For many anti-human trafficking and feminist activists, “sex work” is now the preferred term for how Myers-Powell survived from the age of 14 until just before her 40th birthday, when a particularly vicious assault forced a change. But it is not a term preferred by Myers-Powell. “I understand why people [use ‘sex worker’] and I appreciate it, but, you see, I lived it. No one ever used those soft words about me. My arrest record, before it was vacated, never said ‘sex worker’. It said ‘prostitute’. The men never called me a ‘sex worker’, they called me a ‘ho’.”

And there’s another reason this terminology doesn’t sit right with her: “It makes it seem as if it’s a part of normal society – but I don’t know any prostitute that ever got a 401k [pension plan] or a paid holiday, or benefits. Do you?”

Myers-Powell’s formidable power as an advocate comes from this directness. She has never found it uncomfortable to talk about her most painful experiences. “It’s always been part of my uniqueness,” she says brightly, then goes on to prove the claim by unstintingly describing her childhood. Her 16-year-old mother died when Myers-Powell was just six months old.

She was raised by her grandmother, “a beautiful woman, a great woman, a strong woman, but she had a drinking problem, and that made her be like two different people”. Myers-Powell has many happy memories of reading comics together and baking. “She could cook anything – even hard candy!” But then there was the drinking: “There was an opportunity for her drinking partners to take advantage of me, because her focus wasn’t on me … but theirs was. So I got molested a lot.” Myers-Powell’s earliest memories of rape go back to when she was four years old.

She was often alone at home in the evenings, because her grandmother’s job as a maid for wealthy families in the suburbs meant a long commute. Her favourite entertainment was to sit at the window and watch the red light district outside.

At that time, [the prostitutes’] dressed up really nice, like Diana Ross and the Supremes, with the sparkly dresses and the big hair, and they impressed me,” she says. One day, when she was about nine, she asked her grandmother what these glamorous women were doing. “She said: ‘They take their panties off and men give them money,’ and I said: ‘I’ll probably do that when I grow up,’ – because men had already been taking my panties off.”

Continues: www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/17/brenda-myers-powell-pimped-out-left-for-dead-survived

During a recession the numbers of women working as prostitutes rises. When the country's doing well economically the numbers fall. Which implies it's not a free choice but driven by poverty in many cases.

OP what was the wider context?

Was it just about the term sex work?

It seems her general views came up-

' such as Diary of a call girl etc, and try as she migjt I don't think she had any sense of the misery and desperation which can lead people into prostitution.'

I don't think she's tried at all has she.

I think she doesn't want to know.

I genuinely can't understand how any woman is so lacking in empathy/ imagination here.

The vast majority of women know how awful men can be. From girls to women there can't be many who've not experienced creepy men while out and about, aggressive men, had boyfriend who pushed at sexual barriers etc etc. It happens to all of us. You'd have to never go outside on foot, never go to a pub bar or club, never go to the park, etc etc

Is it because like so much of this it's easier to pretend it's all fine. Because if you recognise it isn't, then that means thinking about a whole load of difficult things.

I can't believe that deep down they don't at least suspect it's not all roses.

Yes Pat’s Arrow what’s in place for cpd in “sex work”?