How is it possible to be a feminist and support the sex industry?

Ok, just trying to think outloud about why I disagree with sex work even though I'm not in the industry, I never have been, dh doesn't buy services etc (although I have had some experience of working with prostitutes)...

I do think sex work affects all women, prostitute or not. I think it encourages a culture where women and women's bodies are viewed as commodities/objects to be bought and sold. This effects the way men view women, in a sex work experience, in work, in the family, etc. We are all affected by what goes on around us and the culture we live in, which is why I believe sex work is an area where it's not just a matter of 'i want to work in this way, leave me alone'.

I think it feeds the idea that men 'need' sex and women 'need to' satisfy, mainly because it sets up a structure whereby this can happen.

It commodifies sexual experience and offers sexual experience which is 1. deliberately unequal (one person there is for financial gain, one is for sexual gratification) and 2. divorced from emotional commitment of any kind. Even a one-night-stand has to have a certain level of emotional commitment, even if that is only 'we're going to mutually use each other's bodies for short term sexual pleasure.'

Sex is more than a physical experience (sorry SGB back to this ). Isn't there is something to do with emotions, feelings and love in normal sex and sexual relationships. Isn't that important, hence in society we're not all just gratifying ourselves with whoever, but looking for gf/bf/dh/dw's? etc.

Madwomenintheattic - same here I had dinner lol - anyway, I am not sure how easy any parents can cope with burgeoning sexuality of their kids. But I really do not feel equipped to judge carers/parents on how they deal with the sexual urge of whomever they care for. As a service provider the notion of seeing someone who may not be able to rationalise the decision to pay for my services does make me feel uncomfortable. Put it simpler whoever I see needs to have reached either the legal age or equivalent mental age. It would be for me an ethical wrong choice to see and potentially exploit a vulnerable client. Similarly, I re-evaluate any client relationship where I feel that the customer has perhaps a bigger emotional expectancy. As the sex worker I also have to take some responsibility for not exploiting my client if he is falling love or is veering towards an obsession with me. That means not taking advantage of very regular, long and lucrative bookings.

Anyway, I enjoyed your ?ramblings? as I am really actually keen to have a two way dialogue. This will not be possible with everyone ? that is a reality of forum life anywhere. Some people have a need to ram their beliefs down other people?s throats a universal truth that tolerates no other. As long as this is in a cyber format that is fine and it is part and parcel of free speech. We can ignore posters and concentrate on an overall debate. I still sadly do not see much in the way of constructive contributions to tackle sexual or indeed overall labour exploitation. Often people who actually work directly with help organisations both nationally and internationally have to become pragmatists and tackle one particular case on a whole. Passion and anger at injustice is an admirable thing but it does not solve actual situations. My parents worked most of their lives for aid organisations, my mum as a dentist and basic general medical practionner, my father as an architect and structural engineer. Their parents were refugees and their childhood experiences shaped them. They had to navigate a minefield of cultural attitudes, religion, tribal hostility, corruption, ignorance, apathy, total indifference of some towards the plight of others. My parents abhorred the corruption they encountered but they would not have been able to actually achieve anything by merely shouting and railing against it. They paid everyone often the equivalent of a few pennies in order to get medication or materials that had suddenly got lost in transit etc. The main thing I learned from them ? if you genuinely try to help ? first of all you should leave your judgements and own pre-conceived ideas outside and actually offer unconditional help. I feel this kind of attitude should be the cornerstone of any kind of aid work. Sadly many charities operate like some Victorian autocrats that seek to convert the heathens and rescue fallen women. Again I repeat ? help and do not judge!

or is it "all-you-can-eat" ??

horrible

Jesus H. Christ..."eat-all-you-can" brothels [shock}

that is some sick kind of shit

If everybody knows about these trafficked women in Camden etc. why aren't the authorities doing something about it shut the operations down?

This comes back to my question to MissHoneyMoon about the legality of the flat owners living off immoral earnings of prostitutes. Is this legal or illegal? If it is illegal why aren't the authorities shutting all of the operations down? Are they turning a blind eye and is all the media talk of government action to stop it just BS?

Btw Dittany are you disabled? Or do just you feel as entitled to speak on behalf of disabled people of what is disrespectful to them as you presume you can speak for and over prostitutes? Is there any other society segment you don?t? actually demographically belong to but you nevertheless feel you are entitled to speak for and make sweeping judgments for?

Do you ever listen to people or speak to them rather than ignore their valid experiences and shout over them? I really pity you that you live in such a narrow minded little black and white world devoid of individual thinking that might break out from the dogma. I am wondering whether or not to donate some money to your cause so you can buy loads of barbwire and knit yourself an iron curtain to keep any dissidents out.

apols, lots of x-posts - had the temerity to make a coffee...

thanks for link, both. i'm familiar with the issue, but curious how it was being marketed.

the perceived 'necessity' of the service says rather more about the values and attitudes of mainstream society than either a sex worker or anyone with a disability. it's more symptomatic of cultural values than anything else. (i have a daughter with cerebral palsy. fortunately she's too young to be negotiating that particular minefield yet, although don't get me started on perceived 'worth'.)

re 'visibility' and happy hooker narrative etc - i don't wish to imply that i have any particular opinions wrt sex wrokers per se in this regard - my comments wrt hidden communities and 'heads above the parapet' were largely drawn from other groups that i'm more familiar with - just recognition that there are reasons why (as misshm discussed in her post) workers would not want to be overly visible.

partly that's what i'm asking really - whether the media/ cultural stereotype is happy hooker/ trafficked slave/ junkie (all of which, apparently, are valid sub-groups of sex-worker), what is a woman to do with this information? what effects does it have on the life of every woman in the street? is this a question that (happy hookers?) sex-workers ask themselves?

is it a responsibility of every woman to have an opinion on this? can one particular brand of 'feminist' celebrate the right of an individual to do what he/ she wants with their own body? or does the fact that an individual behaviour/ action might have ramifications for all women mean that individual freedoms should be removed?

(i'm being a bit facetious myself, of course. we can wander down the 'necessity for criminals to exist to keep the rest of us citizens in line' road for hours. and this fence is giving me splinters.)

generally, i'm all for encouraging women to make their own decisions. i'm just uncomfortable that this 'decision' might have consequences for women who are forced into the decision, or any woman on any street where that masculine right to purchase and own (a woman) has become an unconscious belief. i accept that the transaction works well for some women (as someone else said - the privileged few/ many who can make their own decisions about who to take their money from, and when). do they have a duty to consider wider consequences?

i'm curious - when you join the military you have to consider the whole killing issue/ what war does/ is, and come up with some sort of ethical view as to whether you can get over that. does the same thing happen with 'thinking' sex workers, misshm/ manda? not so much from a personal perspective, but more of a 'society' thing?

just rambling. sorry!

@ Dittany
The existence of trafficking and its victims has not been denied by anyone on this thread. Posting your link does not actually answer the issue of sex worker migrants and permanently residing sex workers. The link posted makes sad and distressing reading as intended. But again it does not actually address any of the points I and others have made. Similar and truly heart breaking accounts can be found among smuggled slave labours in the UK, Spain and many other industrial countries in the hospitality, agricultural and many other industries. However, the problem does not lay with the work/profession/trade itself but the fact that some people are forced to do the work and are exploited. As consumers we are all implicated in the existence and perpetuation of slave labour. The solution is not stopping the entire profession but to make ethical purchasing decisions.

Actually, with respect to ethical consumer choices, on one industry forum I have linked some European brothels with flat rate admissions and unlimited sex to the equivalent of treating prostitutes as battery hens. Again this simple and admittedly ham fisted analogy is not saying that the concept of consuming eggs represent the exploitation of chickens. The ethical conclusion to take would be do not try and get eggs at the cheapest and lowest price but consider the welfare of chickens and create the best and most pleasant environment to lay eggs. The comparison is really over simplified as we are people and offer services but again it tries to de-stigmatise sex work.

I am quite resigned to see that some posters will not accept that sex work is an acceptable way to earn a living. That is their choice but it isn?t their choice to seek prohibition of the work I would like to do.

Disability is an emotive subject and again I doubt there is a universal way of dealing with sexuality for parents and carers. When someone is for example physically relying on others to facilitate their sex life then carers need to respect and show tolerance to the wishes of the disabled regardless to how they feel politically about prostitution.

I deliberately introduced the notion of disabled clients as it is far less easy to label them as exploiters. That said ? I do not believe anyone has an automatic right to sex and that by that motion also does not have a right to my services. I do not offer discounts to disabled clients, students or anyone. I neither discriminate nor favour anyone?s right to access to my services.

Personally, I need to look at booking requests by those with for example learning disabilities and appraise each case individually. I personally do not accept bookings from those that I believe do not have the mental maturity to deal with a paid encounter. I do not want to cause a situation where a client cannot clearly appreciate the concept of time for money. I do have a few clients with Asberger. I also have clients that are blind or paralysed. I do not patronise them but make allowances for adequate time for perhaps physically accessing my place.

"But I do think that quite a few posters here simply cannot reconcile the idea of sex work per se based on personal attitudes to sex. I totally respect that as I was not ready nor would have considered it myself until I felt mentally and emotionally mature enough."

MHM - that is quite clear that you are implying that "quite a few posters on here" are not as developed as you/mentally and emotionally mature enough to consider sex work a viable choice (as you do).

Concerning research... looking round forums as you suggest is not a great way of doing any kind of independent research. Unless I was going to contact posters, check their legitimacy/stories, put together a decent methodology to assess and quantify what I'm finding out, etc, all I end up with is hearsay. Statistics and pie charts can be misquoted, but good thorough research stands up to scrutiny and offers a substantial contribution to the debate. I'm not happy to simply listen to (a) those I stumble across or (b) those that shout the loudest, in any debate.

@ FrankFrankly ? I wonder if you misunderstood my comment about being mentally and emotionally mature enough? I was referring to myself with regards to embarking on a ?career? in escorting. I personally would not have been emotionally and mentally ready for this work until my late thirties. However, that does not mean that other women would feel the same or would need to wait until that age. Does that make sense to you in this context? I really cannot without trying to be contrary see how this comment could in any way be read as demeaning and unhelpful in the context of this discussion.

Again and this not meant in an aggressive or flippant manner ? would it not be better to actually check out some industry forums and perhaps get a feel for the number of women who work in the same way than me than producing statistics and a pie chart. Surely those can be misread and misquoted by both camps. Why not actually instead do some basic research to get an idea yourself?

claig - I disagree with you about the patriarchy thing, but I'm finding it really interesting reflecting on what you said about economics pushing high-end prostitution into mainstream media. I think you raise a really important point.

In response to madwomanintheattic ? I am highly visible and so are many many of my colleagues. We participate on industry forums and all sorts of debates and organisations with our working identity clearly linked to our profiles. Many of the forums are open to be read without having to register. We have websites and blogs and they are linked among each other (including to Manda and a few ladies from here) and even to outside groups. My blog has been linked to by a few feminist bloggers. I am not claiming that they might agree with me but found it interesting enough to raise awareness to my ramblings.

Now as we are participating in forums usually with our profiles showing websites, emails and phone numbers so we are sadly taking the risks of becoming the target of some crack pots. Given the vitriol by an albeit small number of posters, we often need to weigh up the chance to raise awareness and facing vindictive people who try to sabotage our work and who contact us with a view to attack us. Ironically, it isn?t clients a lot of us worry about but fanatics from all sorts of backgrounds. Ridicule and vitriol as shown by a small number of posters here is the tip if the iceberg of the kind of nutters that are not merely content at hissing us that we are ?fuck holes?

My site and blog are actually a major marketing tool that attracts the ?thinking? client who wants to ethically ?punt?. They want to enjoy the service I am happy to offer but are also keen to meet someone who is not merely a ?fuck hole? but connect with me as an entire person. I am sure that many people will sneer at this and disbelieve it but this is not an isolated modus operandi.

PS: This is the link to TLC www.tlc-trust.org.uk/forum/