Women's rights general conversations

And yes to all of this! I was trying to find the words about how it's usually the most vulnerable that end up in prostitution.

Women: Madonnas, whores, uteruses, emotional support vaginas.

They really are powerful words, straight to the point!

I too am just stunned at the apparent "complexity", no it's not complex at all men of the world, you just like to pretend it is and that it's in a women's best interests to justify your sexual kicks. Disgusting and cowardly mindset I feel.

I have endless contempt for the men who use prostitutes and endless compassion for the women who have been forced or fallen into it.

Would any of the men who advocate for this supposedly empowering "work" be happy to pay their way through further education (and maybe build a little nest egg with all that mega bucks they'll apparently earn) by allowing disgusting men to abuse them, assault them, rape them, degrade them, possibly not pay them and even maybe kill them?

Would they be loudly outspoken with friends, family and society that they are a proud and empowered "sex worker"?... no thought not.

No. Lets just leave all that nastiness to the sub-humans, the support dog people, the sex class we can easily identify when it suits us, the ones that don't matter: the women.

It depends, of course, when I went to do the website for "Les Girls" in Soho it was mainly young women helping with their degree or earning a lot more money than they could otherwise (and with a plan)

I feel sick reading this. Women do not have sex for money if they have supportive families, have never been abused, have good self-esteem and good opportunities in life.

Why would anyone have sex with some revolting bloke who thinks payment is consent? Who doesn't realise that you don't want them to want the girlfriend experience because pretending to like someone is the worse thing mentally.

Did you know Tass, that many prostitutes have false front teeth? Because they get knocked out by their pimps.

And it's being pushed to young women as a positive fucking choice.

When a woman is poor and hungry, the thing to put in her mouth is food, not your cock

These really are powerful words. And I must admit to being rather astounded by having a male say it is ‘complex’ while minimising the harm and exploitation of any woman feeling that any type of sex work is the best financial decision for them.

On a feminist board.

I didn't even find the words, that's a barely coherent jumble because to be honest I'm just absolutely disgusted and angry.

Women are people, they are not things you can rent for your "pleasure" have a fucking wank don't pay to rape.

This thread includes the apt quote: When a woman is poor and hungry, the thing to put in her mouth is food, not your cock Rachel Moran

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4692317-nadia-whittome-wants-to-decriminalise-prostitution-because-of-poverty

Yes! Thank you! I've been sat here trying to find the words.

I'm just.... I can't really say without probably getting a ban or deletion but I can't get round you being so blaze about renting a human being twice with the intention of using their non-enjoying-the-sex bodies (used in place of preferred term to avoid deletion), and now you are handwaving the prostitution of young women because they need money to help educate themselves as being ok, if not aspirational? "earning a lot more money than they could otherwise"

Completely ignoring the mental, physical and social issues surrounding what prostitutes go through not to mention as a PP mentioned just exactly which demographic of women tend to end up in prostitution?

The happy hooker myth is strong in this one.

twitter.com/guillotesque/status/1599717594516189184

Found it! Short and honest. And probably class based.

www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/edinburgh-lap-dancing-ban-sex-work-degrades-every-one-of-us-turning-women-into-the-playthings-of-pathetic-men-susan-dalgety-3939935

Susan Dalgety is good in The Scotsman on this issue. I read a thread earlier about what sex work usually looks like but can’t find it now. Ho hum.

God how I hate how the "sex work is work" thing got hold so quickly, along with "don't worry girls there's always only fans" etc.

"That song from the Sound of Music, My Favourite Things popped up in my head, but the words had changed to 'These are a few of my transphobic things....'. So far I've got 'women with ribbons and women with stickers'."

Women who just won't budge up on their sofas
And who won't act as my servants and gophers

Why should I not use the Ladies to pee?
Everything's very transphobic to me!

People who won't tell me I look like Venus
Lesbians who don't want to look at my penis

Women who won't tell me they're on my side
These are all literally genocide!

People who say that a fifteen-stone fullback
Is not a Black Fern but rather an All-Black

Swimming 'gainst Lia, and losing the race
Why can't they just be good losers with grace?

Women who talk about ovarian cancer
And when I join in, tell me I'm a chancer

They're my support system - how dare they be
People with needs that they put before me!

When the TERF speaks
When the courts judge
When Mermaids gets slammed
I simply remember IT'S ALL A BIG PLOT
Of genocide 'gainst the trans!

I couldn't bring myself to read the article, that's even worse than I thought though.

Men's "right" to sex being written down right out there in your face is just so scary, we aren't so far off the handmaids tale really are we, and we (women) just seem to be losing all our rights and personhood in their minds just as fast as we seem to regain the odd inch of ground here or there.

It's all just so depressing.

No. Not complex.

It depends, of course, when I went to do the website for "Les Girls" in Soho it was mainly young women helping with their degree or earning a lot more money than they could otherwise (and with a plan)

That doesn't negate the other aspects of sex work that are far darker (trafficking and drug addicts, for example), again it's complex

I’m familiar with Julie’s writing in this area - she’s phenomenal!

It just seems that there is no mainstream party on the Left who is seeing it this way. They all seem to be ‘sex work is work’, let’s decriminalise it…It’s depressing!

I think Julie Bindel has written about sex work from a class perspective and I am willing to bet Suzanne Moore, too. Julie Bindel has really informed me about how awful modern Germany is for women, in terms of prostitution. It made me feel I might never visit the country again.

That song from the Sound of Music, My Favourite Things popped up in my head, but the words had changed to 'These are a few of my transphobic things....'. So far I've got 'women with ribbons and women with stickers'.

Mr Menno has great parody songs on YouTube. Very catchy - they’ll be stuck in your head for days.

I don’t understand the support for ‘sex work’ on the left. Years ago I lived in Amsterdam and the Red Light District was so seedy. Does anyone still do proper class analysis? It’s so obvious which class of people are harmed in this situation.

(paid her double)

I was working across Europe and hated being away from home

The first time, I was in a pub in Switzerland and a lady started chatting with me

Being totally dozy, I didn't realize she was a sex worker until she finally spelled it out, I said OK and we went next door where there were a few eastern European guys next door, we went upstairs and I ended up chatting with her and the Madam, explaining about better conditions in cooperative brothels (I wrote the first ever UK website for a brothel, which was a co-op)

The second time I was really lonely and sad, and brought the sex worker to the hotel where I was staying; we ended up in the bar chatting until 2am drinking good brandy (and I paid her a double because she wasted all night with me)

I've heard sex workers (that I knew previously as friends) describe their work as half sex, half social worker

‘…Sisters who don’t want to lend you their knickers’

Bother, posted too early.

... doing terrible things to my to-read pile because I want to look up all the things she references.

It is the perfect riposte to the Pink Brain/Blue Brain nonsense.

Thanks for the links. I may need to track down a glass of something fortifying before diving into the prostitution one.

On a more cheerful note this seems a good place for book recommendations, so I would like to commend to the thread Gina Rippon's The Gendered Brain. I've been recommending it to people for a while based on going to see her give a talk about it, but it has finally worked it's way to the top of my to-read pile and it is brilliant. Although it's doing terrible things to my to-read pile

Crikey, wasn’t expecting that, fair play for posting it. How do you feel about it now?