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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not be ashamed...

304 replies

GirlFriendExperience · 22/05/2011 14:32

That I'm an escort girl/call girl/high class prositute (whatever you want to call it) ...

I love my job, I'm very good at it, I pay taxes, it's not illegal and I help a lot of people. So why should I spend my life apologising for it/lying about it/defending myself??

  • Yes have name changed in case I get flamed... which in itself is depressing!
OP posts:
strawberrymewmew · 22/05/2011 19:35

And if you honestly weren't ashamed you wouldn't have been bothered about posting on your actual nick name.

I'm sure at some point I will get a flaming, but I'm not scared to. So why should you be?

frantic51 · 22/05/2011 21:08

No, I'd like to see brothels legalised and regulated so that women, and men who chose this way of earning a living could go about their business in relative safety. Your will never get rid of the demand for prostitutes as long as the male population has breath in it's body, so better to safeguard the welfare of women and men working in the industry imo.

strawberrymewmew · 22/05/2011 21:13

Frantic I completely agree with you. It would make life a lot safer for those who do choose to sell their bodies. I know of a few people who have been in very bad situations, including a girl who was raped by a few well known footballers when she went to their posh hotel. She was only expecting one person to be there and when she tried to leave the refused to let her.

izzywhizzyletsgetbusy · 22/05/2011 21:15

I'm more than willing to sit corrected as long as it's not on the naughty step, bupcakes but wasn't the wind in the willows or blowing in the wrong direction for you a few days back?

Primalscream · 22/05/2011 21:16

Agree 100% frantic51

AyeRobot · 22/05/2011 21:22

Amsterdam has seen an increase in trafficking because of legalisation. Article here

Legalisation doesn't work and actively harms the women who work as prostitutes. It contributes to a culture that keep women firmly in the sex class. And that affects all women.

Primalscream · 22/05/2011 21:24

So what's the answer?

frantic51 · 22/05/2011 21:29

I said legalise brothels. I, too, would like to see an end to street "pick up" areas.

strawberrymewmew · 22/05/2011 21:33

I have just noticed that the OP had disapeared quite a while ago, I am fairly sure that this was a troll thread.
This subject is possibly one of the easiest ways to get an argument going on here.

LadyOfTheManor · 22/05/2011 21:33

Frantic, did you read what AyeRobot posted?

AyeRobot · 22/05/2011 21:37

Criminalise the punters, as they do in Sweden.

Legal brothels lead to an increase in illegal brothels and an increase in the trafficking of women. Do you know what that means for the women? That they are getting raped by men who are paying to do it. Why would anyone want to legalise rape?

AyeRobot · 22/05/2011 21:40

Prostitution:Fact or Fiction

How many abused women are acceptable in order for the happy hooker to ply her trade?

MissFenella · 22/05/2011 21:43

OP how do you keep your fanjo smelling fesh and squeaky clean please? any top tips to share - thanks

Primalscream · 22/05/2011 21:45

but surely some protection is better than none? At least if it's legalised the women have some protection and aren't fined and put in prison ( as if they haven't got a hard enough life ) I'm trying to find the lesser of two evils iyswim?

AyeRobot · 22/05/2011 21:48

If the punters and the pimps and the traffickers are put in prison, then the women will be safe. Not all men are rapists, you know. The women need help with their visa status or to return to their home countries. Although the latter is no guarantee of safety

Primalscream · 22/05/2011 21:51

Oh my god that's awful -

razzlebathbone · 22/05/2011 22:10

You simply cannot equate male prostitution with female prostitution on any level. Even most male prostitutes cater to other men.

Do you see many women kerb crawling? Do you ever hear of female serial killers/rapists attacking male prostitutes? Are men traditionally objectified?

Women who are prostitutes are barely viewed as human. They are almost never referred to as women, in the media or culture, when they are murdered or attacked.

Men paying women for sex comes with a whole weight of history. Men have never been subjugated on the grand scale which countless generations and cultures of owmen have. Contextually, prostitution is about male abuse. There will be a minority of exceptions, as with most things, domestic violence for instance, but to start counter-defending with notions of women exploiting vulnerable men for sex is insidious.

razzlebathbone · 22/05/2011 22:10

women, not owmen. obv.

CurrySpice · 22/05/2011 22:15

Prostitution is not illegal.

OP I have no problems whatsoever in how you earn your living. We areall doing what we need to do

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 22/05/2011 22:20

"Women who are prostitutes are barely viewed as human."

Well, they're certainly not viewed as human beings who can act of their own volition, by the radfems. The repeated use of the phrase "prostituted women" on a thread started by a woman who works consensually shows that.

LadyOfTheManor · 22/05/2011 22:30

Razzle- Are you suggesting that not a single women has paid for sex in her time from a prostitute?

The ONE exchange is all that is needed, and she is exploiting him.

Of course, her ovaries prevent her from being chastised about it in the same way feminists are quick to bully men.

Buying and selling sex revolts me, despite who's doing it and for what reasons.

AyeRobot · 22/05/2011 22:31

Fir the record, I have no problem with the OP and I certainly don't think she should be ashamed. I was simply adding some information that I think some posters didn't know about.

OLKN, I think it's difficult to act of your own volition if you are trafficked or pimped, which were the women I think dittany was referring to, and who make up the majority of prostitutes in the world. Why don't you use dittany's name, anyway?

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 22/05/2011 22:38

AyeRobot, I didn't use dittany's name in my last post because it's not only dittany who uses that phrase; it's common with radfems.

The OP is not trafficked or pimped. She is a prostitute, she is not a prostituted woman, and it's rather tiresome when independent sex workers/escorts/call girls wish to discuss their work and it always comes back to street workers, and trafficked women. Trafficking for sex is not as big a problem as has been made out in the past, (Operations Pentameter I and II showed that quite conclusively) and never seems to be raised in connection with agricultural workers etc.

The definition of "trafficking" in English law is so wide that it could include giving a prostitute a lift to the supermarket. And not every woman who is trafficked from abroad, has been trafficked against her will.

ohboob · 22/05/2011 22:39

Strawberry I think you are very brave for posting what you did.

manicinsomniac · 22/05/2011 22:41

As long as you are genuinely happy and safe in what you do then it's your choice.

Interestingly, many (the majority?) of feminists have moved beyond the idea that prostitution is derogatory to women. I used to feel that men who 'used' prostitues were abhorrent and that prostitution was wrong because it was using a woman's body as a commodity that could be sold to the highest bidder.

It was internet posters who made me think through my views properly actually. It seems many strippers, prostitutes and other sex industry workers chose their job as a positive affirmation of their womanhood and a show of confidence and ownership of their own bodies.

A couple of quotes I've dredged up from another forum via the search function:

"In my opinion, banning the sex industry on the grounds of 'feminism' is completely counter-intuitive. It implies that sex, sexuality and the naked human form is something to be guarded and kept hidden, because it has the power to shape culture and politics. Sure, you can dress it up and say that strip clubs, porn etc are 'degrading' to women, but implicit within that is the belief that sex and open sexual expression are innately degrading acts rather than the free expression of basic instincts. Sexual expression is only as 'wrong' or 'degrading' as the person witnessing it believes it to be.

The idea that the naked female form, even one performing sexual acts, is something that has the power to change culture for the worse only serves to give credence and power to the misogynistic ideals of old: that sexuality is something to be expressed behind closed doors, between monogamous lovers."

"When people perpetuate the idea that being naked or using your body/sexuality for monetary gain immediately turns that woman into a sexual object who deserves to be objectified, they effectively excuse misogyny. Shutting down the sex industry to reduce the objectification of women does nothing to address the root of the problem - it doesn't challenge the belief that women are sexual objects or that it's OK to think that sometimes, depending on what the woman is doing or wearing. It says to those people 'porn/stripping make it easy for people to objectify women, so we're going to remove that temptation completely'. Ergo: 'objectifying women is only natural when they're in certain situations, and we want to stop that, so we'll stop them from entering those situations completely"

I don't think I agree with that viewpoint but just saying, it's out there and pretty valid.