I have asked at least once but I think twice now about what suepine suggests is put in place to protect vulnerable women in prostitution. Looking back though, why would someone be posting on a feminist board scolding women as they have and being so pissed off about a law that put the criminal action on the men exploiting the women’s body?

I can think of one glaringly obvious reason to be so pissed that a law has been brought in that makes it clear that the male purchasing the use of a woman’s body is the criminal.

And why they seem overly invested in it for someone not a feminist suggesting alternatives. Plus why they believe that the proportion of women who are prostitutes are there because they make it a career choice.

And why they seem to think it is so vital that male people are so validated that they have a special make believe athletic category that is inclusive of all women, making it essentially a category for males who wish to be called women but expecting women to also enter that one rather than the female category that this poster concedes should be there as well.

mmmm! What kind of person wishes to protect men who are using female people as resources and exploiting them in both prostitution and sport? Who particularly would want men to not ever have to face the consequences of their decisions? Particularly those special men?

Men who buy sex don’t want access to women with dignity and self-respect. The whole point for both punters and pimps is looking for (and controlling) women who don’t feel safe, secure or dignified, or who don’t have viable alternatives. Men who pay to have sex don’t see any women as worthy of respect; a man who respects women wouldn’t want to pay for sexual access to women’s bodies.

Men who buy sexual access to women don’t want women who enjoy what they’re going through, they actively want women to fake enjoyment despite what’s being done to them. They complain about women being lethargic or not putting in enough effort. Men don’t want to treat prostitutes well, the whole point of a society allowing prostitution is having a class of woman who can’t say no to sex and have 'No' that be respected.

I’ve listened women in prostitution, both street and brothel, describe their days and how relentless and awful it is. I’ve seen adverts by brothels and pimps, I’ve read reviews by, and interviews with, men who buy sex. None of it speaks of a culture that sees women as equal human beings or of wanting to treat women with dignity, respect, or to reduce stigma. None of it speaks of seeing these women as providing a service. Degradation is the whole point. And men know that women are commonly trafficked and/or forced into prostitution by circumstances and pimps, and these men don’t care - they just complain that the women cry, or scream, or struggle all the way through what they do to them.

I’ve even seen reports and interviews with women who went into prostitution with a sex positive attitude, thinking that they just need to frame the whole experience 'correctly' i.e. "I enjoy casual sex so why not get paid for it", and these women come out of brothels shocked at how men treated them and what men expected them to do and the lack of respect men had for them. Reframing their participation in prostitution as a job or service didn’t protect them.

By all means, continue to think prostitution is a service provided by women (tell yourself that women can have power or dignity in the exchange) but I’ve seen ads from German and NZ brothels advertising gang bangs with heavily pregnant women and 'all you can eat' deals that encourage men to live out depraved fantasies. I’ve listened to the testimony of women trafficked from poor countries into the West and how they’ve been abused and forced into prostitution. I’ve listened to the women who had to actually live up to that description of yours that selling sex is a service and they hated every minute of it.

Throughout history men have justified prostitution: women of their vanquished enemies, temple prostitutes, courtesans, concubines, child brides, geisha, arranged marriage. Male-dominated societies just want a class of women who can’t say no to them and who can be abused without social censure. And some women in those societies are happy to go along with it, "better her than me", "that’s all she’s fit for", "she brought it on herself". The modern version of this attitude is,"it’s a job, and no worse than any other shitty job".

If you don’t know about any of this information then read about it - none of it is hard to find. And if you do know about stories like these and still think selling sex is a service that men can expect from women then I suggest you have a problem in seeing women as people rather than objects.

Telling people that they’re Victorian prudes because they see this issue differently than you is puerile.

@SuePine69 seems very keen to take the side of biological men in women's sports while dismissing what the majority of women think.

They also are keen to explain to an audience of women how women prostituting themselves are only offering a service, are happy that this is how they make money and are making a good living.

Hmmm I wonder which category of people are most likely to take these perspectives?

It’s not arguing with you. I have pointed out your arrogance in telling everyone that you are right and they are wrong.

Yes to the changing room situation.

But it will end up outing in several ways. When it is only male athletes winning, and maybe even competing in it, it will be outing.

And what happens when the male competitors set records never to be broken by female athletes? As has happened in park run. Do the people suggesting this category think that those ‘special women’ records will not out the record holder as being male?

I would think that not a lot of thought has gone into all the possibilities of this ‘special women’ category. But apparently, rejection of such a wonderfully moderate solution is extreme, rather than it being identified as an unworkable solution based on a superficial understanding of the situation.

I take it though that creation of a special 'women's/girl's' category is a new 'this is a workable and kind compromise and anyone who thinks it still harms women is just an extremism' position. When all it is, is a suggestion that dismisses why women and girls require their own sport category at all.

But the special 'non outing' category will not only validate the TW as woman, because look if I am competing with the women I must be/am a woman it will also allow access for the TW into the same changing space because as above.

Yes.

The NB category remains won by male people. Just the male people. And they get equal prize money both the male and female place getters while coming in hundreds after the winning male and mere minutes behind the winning female.

But apparently, as this is supposedly not harming anyone at all (except female NB people) it is to be applauded. That there is less chances for female athletes to win and not equal chances for female athletes to win is dismissed or ignored because it is an inconvenient truth that gets in the way of the 'middle ground'.

However, this is a great example of why sports should not be used as the opportunity for male people to validate their special feelings (ie. those feelings according to Prawn).

On the subject of the special categories for special people in sport, remember the debacle of the Boston Marathon when they introduced a Non Binary Category open to all who claimed Non Binary status and then surprise, surprise there was moaning a-plenty when it became clear that one category of non binaries wiped the floor with the other participants. It won't shock anyone here to realise that the non binaries who excelled were all of the same sex class. The solution suggested was to have TWO separate non binary categories based on, you'll never guess, Male and Female - you really couldn't make this shit up.

The idea that sport is to be used to validate identities and not out people is so far on the bonkers scale as to be circling somewhere round Mars.

It is the 'happy hooker' story Boiled. The complete dismissal of the reality.

I've just told you that prostitution isn't about women sold for sex or selling themselves for sex. Why do you persist with your Victorian attitudes? I've told you that the vast majority of prostitutes can afford to keep themselves in other ways but find that prostitution suits them. Believe me, most of them have got more money than you have. I have respect for them and their dignity.

Oh my Fucking God! No prostitute I've ever known, and for various reasons I've known more than a lot of people, have ever been able to afford to keep themselves in other ways. They sell themselves for sex, usually whilst giving their pimp his cut, because they need the tenner they are going to get to feed their kid, feed their habit, pay their rent, pay the guy they owe money to.... I could go on, but invariably it's because they either feel like they don't, or they actually don't, have a bloody choice. These aren't women who are going to be able to get regular jobs with regular hours and regular wages. These are usually women with abusive traumatic histories, with fucked up heads, fragile mental health, usually drug addictions and usually up to their eyes in debt.

I must remember next time I see my neighbour slip off down the back lane to get in a dodgy blokes car to earn some money to top up the electric meter so that her daughter is warm through the winter that she's probably got more money than me, she's not selling herself for sex, and that she's just doing it because it suits her! I'm sure she'll be thrilled!!

Is this poster claiming that Neighbourhood is racist?

This poster seems to have a tendency to keep calling FWR regulars racist and other names lately. They make some pretty nasty generalisations about FWR and MN.

Can you confirm AdamRyan? Are you calling Neighbourhood and other posters on FWR racist?

yes.

I take it though that creation of a special 'women's/girl's' category is a new 'this is a workable and kind compromise and anyone who thinks it still harms women is just an extremism' position. When all it is, is a suggestion that dismisses why women and girls require their own sport category at all. If they didn't need it for safety and dignity and fairness, those women and girls would simply compete with male people and there would be no fucking need for any female sport's categories.

Female sport's categories are not simply there to make female people feel validated as female people. They are there for a reason. Having two parallel female categories based purely on having one for a male who demands inclusion into a female category so as to leave the 'real female' (because that is what it will be) category alone is kindness gone irrational.

And males with DSDs have unique requirements and to be fair, most likely should have a category for themselves. However, that being said, I have also read a paper that suggests that there seems to be no evidence that 5ARD athletes could not excel in the male category. Their medical condition, iirc (and please correct me if I am wrong), doesn't reduce their capacity to perform at an elite male standard.

Simply creating special categories for athletes to identify into based on feelings achieves what exactly?

What other group of people making hard decisions to take medication that limits their performance seek access to sports category that is not created for their needs, but for the needs of a protected characteristic group?

What other group of people making hard decisions to take medication that limits their performance seek to be treated as female athletes when they are not?

What other group of people making hard decisions to take medication that limits their performance don't accept that they are the sex they also were just with their performance limited by medication?

When they enter men’s or open races alongside other men?

Not all transwomen are cheats.

When are they not?

Because if the rules are made clear that a category is female only, why would anyone need to be 'outed' if there is an open category and females who choose to compete in the open category are doing so?

Having a 'special women's' category would attract who? Any person who doesn't qualify as a 'biological woman' in your words ie. Any person who is not female. Why would any female person compete in a category where a male person is going to enter and is likely to win? And we all saw how a trans category was set up and ignored in the recent swimming event.

ALL males who compete in a female category which has been set up to allow female people a chance to compete fairly are 'cheating'. Just because they may not be competing against the rules, if they are there, they are a potential harm for women and girls. And the harms are numerous, from physical harm through to causing a woman or girl to be excluded because that male took a place where a woman or girl could be, or because female people do not want to compete with or against a male person.

Again, you have tried to position yourself as some kind of middle ground / compromise advocate when you seem to have very little knowledge about how sport's categories work, what the intention of those categories are and what your solutions mean in practice.

Tell us, what other sport categories are you happy to allow the category boundaries to be breached just because someone identifies as something they are not. Seriously, you are arguing for cross category entry for athletes where no athlete has been permitted to enter before. Why are these males able to do this when no one else is?

Why can’t a 25 year old compete in the Masters in the other 75 year old category if they identify as a 75 year old?

Why can’t that 25 year old compete in the under 12 year old category if they identify as an under 12?

Why can’t a fully sighted person compete in a category for the visually impaired if they identify as visually impaired?

Why can’t a heavy weight compete in a lighter weight if they identify as that lighter weight?

Why can’t a black belt compete with a beginner if they identify as a beginner?

Why can’t a professional compete as an amateur if they say they are?

If you have ANY category that is labelled or 'women', 'girls', or 'female', then that category is single sex. There is no logic for having two categories and expecting any female athlete to compete in the 'special women's' category. Your solution is make believe and unworkable. And it gives all male people just another opportunity to win and ignores the needs of female athletes.

The reason TW shouldn't compete against women is simple - they are NOT women.

Any TW that wants to compete against women is indeed a cheat.

What reason other than that is there for TW wanting to compete against women ? Using the other women as validation that the TW is a woman, why should women be used like that?

Any males entering a female race is a cheat.

Why is Adam c&ping her own post from another thread?

I'll c&p mine then, if that's what we're doing

Look, I really don't have time for any of this right now, but I am willing to stand on a soap box and shout one thing:

Rapists and abusers are horrible men!

I assumed we all knew that. So why do people bring out the smelling salts at the suggestion that rapists might also be racist? Yes, they are. White ones fetishise and abuse women from other races. So do all the others.

If you come from such a monocultural area that you've never heard men (particularly teenage boys) of all ethnicities sounding off about what they think of women from other ethnicities, that's your knowledge gap. Don't make it our problem.

I don't know why people feel this need to insist that sexually abusive men must be paragons of fairness and justice along all the other possible axes of oppression. I guess it's misogyny; if you don't truly see women as people, you'll remain convinced that a man can be a serial rapist and a kind, non-discriminatory pillar of the community. Obviously he might still respect everyone else equally, regardless of their colour, creed, culture, nationality or disability!

@Helleofabore
If an athlete says that they should be able to compete in a female category, you would say no if they are trans. If someone asked you for your reason for excluding them you would say 'not telling' because you wouldn't want to out them. Have I understood what you are saying?

I too would say no, and I would explain to them that there are many women who do not wish to compete with transwomen or with women like Caster Semenya. They have the right to do so.

Also, I do not agree with the principal of gender self-identification, at least when it comes to sport (or prisons or women only spaces). It is true that there are some men who will say they self-identify as a woman (whatever their true feelings) to come first in a contest. These are cheats.

Not all transwomen are cheats. There was a headline recently somewhere that said 'when are we going to recognise that transwomen are cheats?' It might have been Julia Hartley-Brewer who said it. This is the sort of extremism that I'm talking about.

For example Evelyn and Tessa are clearly biological males in all their photos.

nypost.com/2023/10/13/trans-cyclists-take-gold-and-silver-in-chicago-womens-races/

Proposing an 'open' category is just a way of excluding transwomen. It is not a form of compromise.

Is the purpose for TW to participate in sport? If so they are being included. I suspect your view is that TW participation in sport must include them being validated as being a woman whilst doing so.

As for outing trans people, I don't think that you give a damn about that, you would out any transwoman you could.

TW who are determined to participate in sport against women and be lauded as a woman whilst doing so are outing themselves as cheats.

Your marathon idea tells me two things: (1) You have no knowledge of sport and (2) have no knowledge of marathons.