For those who like to declare that "sex work" is empowering

Prostituted women have the right to refuse unhygienic clients.

Until they are raped or their pimp beats them. Christ, it's like some people really live on another planet.

You realise sex workers have the right to refuse service to clients with poor hygiene, and to call the police on anyone abusive to them 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

This topic is about trafficked Romanian girls.
Sex work is between consenting adults.
Very different.

Except that "sex work is work" and "swerf" is used most frequently to shut down survivors of trafficking and handwave away women raising the alarm as engaging in a moral panic
It's primarily used to justify men's 'right' to sex, and rarely used to gain support or rights for the women actually selling sex.

Who else remembers a couple of years ago when a couple of idiots protestors disrupted a talk that an expert on child trafficking was giving while shouting 'blowjobs are jobs'?
Or Sammy Woodhouse being called a swerf by a the Labour candidate for MP a few years back?

These aren't terms used to support women. They're terms used to shut down the voices of trafficked and abused women and girls. Anyone using them seriously and thinking they're doing so in good faith is showing incredible naivety and privilege.

I always wonder at those who screech ‘it’s just the same as any job’!

Are the people being dragged into the job centre going to be to get forced to apply for that job too? After all, no qualifications needed.

In the course of my work and volunteering I have regularly had to call the police on behalf of women - and children - in dangerous circumstances including risk of life.

If we can't get a copper out for two weeks with reminders and an escalation, does anyone really believe they are available to help a prostituted woman in the moment?

"She was asked whether women on benefits would be pressured into sex work as a job opportunity."

This chestnut has done the rounds over and over on every other discussion on sex work. It's never happened and it never will happen.

"The punter sites where they give their reviews of women they’ve exploited for sex?"

The sex worker can also leave a review for the client for other sex workers to see to help them decide whether to meetup with said client or not if he were to request a booking.

@titchy, opinions vary but I understand many sex workers in Britain would like to see the introduction of decriminalisation which would legally permit them to work together to be even safer.

In tonnes of jobs employees pair up for general safety, yet this isn't legally allowed for sex workers.

I was so tempted to tell MargaritaPie just what I thought of this viciously patronising nonsense, but then I remembered that I lost my first life yesterday when the equally nauseating Barley was attempting to browbeat and defame a disabled woman with mental health difficulties on another thread. Same s*, different idiot.

Nadia Whittome MP is a fervent supporter of sex work is work. She was asked whether women on benefits would be pressured into sex work as a job opportunity. For some strange reason, she never replied.

You realise sex workers have the right to refuse service to clients with poor hygiene, and to call the police on anyone abusive to them?

In addition these types of client would likely find it difficult to get a booking with other sex workers (they have ways of communicating with each other and share clients to avoid).

So prostitutes are safe then because they can call the police? And there are no violent clients because the prostitutes all tell each other which clients to avoid yes?

You realise sex workers have the right to refuse service to clients with poor hygiene, and to call the police on anyone abusive to them?

Shall we start listing prostituted women murdered over the years (not trafficked)? The much higher rates of murder, assault of prostituted women?

The punter sites where they give their reviews of women they’ve exploited for sex?

Once we remove all the women with addictions, the women who can’t survive on the benefits given to them with the UC cut, the underage girls and the trafficked women - how many ‘consenting adults’ are left?

Yeah because the police have a stellar record in responding to women's reports of abuse

This topic is about trafficked Romanian girls.

Sex work is between consenting adults.

Very different.

But do you think sex work is empowering?

In addition these types of client would likely find it difficult to get a booking with other sex workers (they have ways of communicating with each other and share clients to avoid).

Sex work is between consenting adults.

Very different.

I believe that every privileged young woman that holds the luxury belief that sex work is work should go and pull a shift of a few hours servicing fat, sweaty, dirty abusive men. I suspect most of them would change their beliefs.

What they really mean is that sex work is work for poor women. Not for the likes of them.

If you watch the BBC report on Romanian trafficking, the UK police are aware and doing fuck all.

Do you think sex work is empowering marg?

If they are anything like to women/girls around here they are sad looking wee things who look cold and bored.

"Did they watch Pretty Woman"

Thanks to this movie a few stereotypes have become commonplace, this includes for example the general population thinking you can identify a street sex worker by thigh high boots(they almost never wear these).