to find some modern aspects of feminism patronising to women?

[glitterkitten]

I say "modern aspects" as i am more than aware that historical feminist activism has led to my being able to work in a professional job, has given me choices, has improved the general quality of life for women since etc etc.

An example of what i find patronising to the extreme is the recent protest by feminist groups at the opening of the Playboy Club in London.

wild haired, wild eyed women waved placards and protesting about how playboy exploit women, how evil men were manipulating women and that essentially, women who worked within such industries needed to be saved.

how can these women think that they need to save other women, who are simply exercising their right to make independent choice regarding how they make a living?

these women will deny / ignore the fact that some women working in such an industry (in all its guises) CHOOSE to earn a living that way. they earn a good wage, shock horror, they may even ENJOY it!

i find it so patronising. Intensely.

as i said above, i work in a professional career. i have no issues with strip clubs, lap dancing bars, playboy etc. i have accompanied my husband to such clubs on occasion. those women if anything, are taking advantage of the men who sit and dribble at them. the women have the last laugh with the money they make which is undoubtedly higher than the national minimum wage. would a feminist seek to tell me i am wrong??

This is because normal healthy reasonable people understand that sex is linked to privacy, intimacy, boundaries and bodily integrity.

Babyreindeer's post had just reminded me that I forgot to include empathic to the list of adjectives which describe a person who is able to understand the difference between being penetrated for money and doing a job.

Another analogy that sometimes helps to clear up confusion is that of the job centre. If lap dancing/prostitution etc are jobs like any other to some people, these people must surely think that it would be fine for these 'jobs' to be advertised in the job centre. They surely also must think that it would be ok for JSA to be withdrawn from women people who don't accept these sorts of jobs. Correct?

Although of course you will be faced with the hypocrisy in such thinking hit a bit of a problem in that these sorts of 'jobs' flout equality and equal opportunity laws, employment laws and health and safety legislation that are mandatory in actual real jobs.

Well said, Beachcomber.

Baby, Dad & co:

A new report commissioned by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) revealed for the first time the true scale of immigration prostitution and trafficking.

At least 2,600 women were confirmed as being trafficked into England and Wales and forced to work as prostitutes, it found.

A further 9,200 sex workers at brothels and other premises were considered to be "vulnerable migrants" working unwillingly in the sex trade, but whom researchers could not be certain had been trafficked.

In a typical example, a woman smuggled into the UK does not know that she is going to be used as a prostitute, but is forced into selling her body to pay off a £30,000 ?debt-bond?.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7952200/Up-to-12000-foreign-sex-slaves-work-in-British-brothels.html

If prostitution is such a normal, happy way to earn a living (which it isn't, if only for the reasons Beachcomber pointed out above) - how come women have to be tricked, imprisoned and forced into it?

Britain opted out of the European Directive on Trafficking :( It seems British men have such an insatiable demand for impersonal sex with unhappy women, we can't possibly risk interrupting their illegal supply.

I think (discussion of) porn takes you into the area of bodlily exploitation within capitalism, and the gendered exploitation within that. Porn/sex work is not alone in being hugely bodily exploitative - I had a male friend who was killed, years ago, doing one of those young-people-compelled-to-work-in-unsafe-unregulated-jobs-or-lose-all-benefits schemes the Conservatives brought in - he was 17. It still makes me sick to think of it.

Sex work isn't unusual in its exploitation of female bodies - the care professions are staffed by lots of low-paid women, putting their bodies, and minds, at risk for the lower-end of the pay scale.

Sex work is unusual in that it is women who are most wanted in it - the clients/customers are by and large men. Consequently, although the pay-off may seem actually quite small versus the absolute consequences of the (disproportionately spread) risks involved, the pay is often a lot better than that which a woman working in a comparable, non-sex work are, could command. There are incentives for women entering the sex industry.

The entry-level for sex-work, and consequently diminishment of risk and rising pay, is correlated to the social worth of the woman entering. Those that have degrees, for example, tend to enter at a higher level/be better paid.

That's kind of interesting, because it implies that sex-work kind of "ghosts" all forms of female employment - it's always there, touching on the employment, or otherwise of most women.

Personally, I think that's why a lot of us still find sex work an uncomfortable topic, because we sense it impacts on all women, not only at the level of implying that our sexuality is our most valuable commodity, and is a commodity, for others, ie. men as a class, but also because it "ghosts" all female employment.

I don't know, those are just my thoughts on this issue this morning. I've had a lot of friends who have worked as sex workers, at a variety of levels, but I know it's something I wouldn't want to do. I also wouldn't want sex work jobs up in the jobcentre, with an element of compulsion attached - take this available job, or lose benefits.

I also wouldn't want to be compelled to work in an abattoir, or in the sort of job - like my friend's - where you wind up dead, or horribly injured.

I ask myself if there is a difference, in kind, between those two, and to be honest, I'm still not sure I have reached a firm answer on it.

I do, however, think that you can't begin to have a feminist discussion of sex work without first accepting that no-one should be compelled to take work.

But I am quite aware, from reading AIBU, that not everyone agrees with that.

Help Wanted - women and girls do YOU want this job?

Are you tired of mindless, low skilled, low-paying jobs? Would you like a career with flexible hours? Working with people? Offering a professional service?

* No experience required. No high school diploma needed. No minimum age requirement. On-the-job training provided.
* Special opportunities for poor women <span class="line-through"> single mothers </span> women of color.

Women and girls applying for this position will provide the following services:

* Being penetrated orally, anally, and vaginally with penises, fingers, fists, and objects, including but not limited to, bottles, brushes, dildoes, guns and/or animals;

* Being bound and gagged, tied with ropes and/or chaains, burned with cigarettes, or hung from beams or trees;

* Being photographed or filmed performing these acts.

Workplace:

Job-related activities will be performed in the following locations: in an apartment, a hotel, a "massage parlor," car, doorway, hallway, street, executive suite, fraternity house, convention, bar, public toilet, public park, alleyway, military base, on a stage, in a glass booth.

Wages:

Wages will be negotiated at each and every transaction. Payment will be delivered when client determines when and if services have been rendered to his satisfaction.

Corporate management fees range from 40-60% of wages; private manager reserves the right to impound all monies earned.

Benefits:

Benefits will be provided at the discretion of management.

NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LEGAL REDRESS FOR THE FOLLOWING ON-THE-JOB HAZARDS:

* Nonpayment for services rendered;

* Sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy;

* Injuries sustained through performance of services including but not limited to cuts, bruises,lacerations, internal hemorrhaging, broken bones, suffocation, mutilation, disfigurement, dismemberment, and death.

  Note: Accusations of rape will be treated as a breach of contract by employee.

  Name of applicant: <span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span>__

  Signature of manager on behalf of applicant: <span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span><span class="underline">_</span>

never visited a lapdancing club/strip joint or even a titty bar , i do however consume lots of porn, you could say i was an addict. fairly tame porn though, not the fetish or whierd stuff, just naked women , thats all i need, well preferable in their underwear first , there should be a tease. the porn made by women is actually very good, seems to me that most pornographers havent got the slightest clue as to what constitutes erotica, also lots of amertur porn is out there for free by consenting couples, now surely the're not exploited?
for the record i do see the difference between prostitution and other work in a literal sense, my point is that most people do things they dont want to do for work, if your a high-flyer with a great career you love , then lucky you, well done. my work is as close is works gets to punishing your body for cash at the end of the day, but i suppose it's better than selling my arse, point taken there.

Beachcomber - that is what I would hate to see. I'm old enough to remember the Conservatives co-ercing young people to take jobs at the risk of having benefits cut to unliveable levels - it is not impossible that that will happen again.

It's one of the things about sex-work that all you have to be, at the most basic, super-exploitative entry-level, is female.

No woman would, technically, be able to escape being forced into that job.

There is also something in that super-explotative - just being female - level that diminishes both individual subjectivity and femaleness - surely? And that is (surely) part of what makes me so squeamish about it?

Sex-work can be enormously psychologically annihilating, too. It's not just about bodies - and capitalism rarely takes that into account (thinking again about a woman trying to say "no" in a Jobcentre - and being reduced merely to her body, with her emotion and psychology taken as being of no account).

I remember a male "escort" friend in tears after a particularly traumatic encounter with a punter. It hadn't involved violence (well, physical violence) but the activity he'd been paid for had taken him right over his boundaries wrt his sexuality and self.

But then, I often wonder how the researchers working on Jeremy Kyle and other reality programmes can look at themselves in the mirror. I'm actually only slightly joking there. Those are unethical programmes, that fuck up people, and the people making them must undergo some kind of cognitive dissociation. Mind you, I guess they get paid well, and social approbation for working in a societally cherished and desired profession.

dadoff2SeriouslyDisturbingUsername if the rest of your are so uptight about the ass to get that, thats your problem. the OP is clearly more at ease with her sexuality and the dynamic in her relationship that most of you. hell, loads of women i know get off on porn together with their partners . really whats the problem.?

The problem is that the not very bright men who can only get sex through not very bright women, porn and paying for sex shows have to (a) self delude themselves that they are doing something exotic and exciting that other people manage with less effort and indeed payment, and (b) they think what people are paid to exaggerate for artistic effect is the norm and hence come across as wierd and sleazy.

very few woman are beautiful enough to get a job as a playboy bunny and to laugh at the dribbleing sad men who part with there cash just to see their beauty.

it isnt suprising that the women who cant get those jobs and maybe who husbands are ogleing at the bunnies are upset about it.

jelousy isnt a very intelectual argument though, better base it on the dreary worn-out exploitation thing.

men, they remain silent, they watch , they drool, scared to blink incase they miss a nano-second of nipple .

Speak for yourself. I'm an athlete and a damned site more attractive than a saggy cellulite laden silicone enhanced sex worker. I'm also a lawyer and never have had to sell my body to make a living. The sort of men who pay for porn and sex shows are the sort of men I avoid. It taints them by association with sleaze and tells me that their pulling power is so low, all they can get in life are the dregs.

I get sick to the back teeth of irritating annoying men who wouldn't interest me in a world of Sundays trying to come onto me when I'm out and about because they've seen some fantasy scene where men approach women in the street and their clothes suddenly fall off and they have sex. (just the other day I had some idiot try to engage me in converstion when I parked my car - "is your car for sale (it isn't) - give me your phone number and we can discuss it?"). They assume that because they can only pull stupid women with drugs and debt problems, all women are stupid.

To a certain extent all work, and most marriages are a form of prostitution. It is a question of what you are prepared to do for the money/other benefits received.

Actually, BabyReindeer, i wonder if marriage (including within that co-habiting couples) marks a point where we can think about the difference between prostitution and affective, chosen, sexual encounters?

Doesn't it slide towards what we commonly understand as prostitution when there is an element of compulsion - primarily economic, when women (and their children) are (hugely) financially penalised for leaving?

An argument, I think, for raising benefits to single parents and making it even easier to leave. just i.m.o. - though I know there are people/women who disagree.

surely one of the big differences about sex work - the one that really shouts itself out - is that men (as a class) are prepared to beat, stave, and kidnap women (as a class) to do (some of) these "jobs"? It is a big difference.

Why is it so difficult for people to see that prostitution is engaging in sexual acts with strangers for money?

Prostitution is not some vague 'anything to do with the human body that involves an exchange of money'. Comparing the human rights travesty that is the institution of prostitution to a boring or unpleasant day job is crass and ignorant in the extreme.

Prostitution is having people you would not otherwise be intimate with, paying you (or your pimp) in order to sexually assault and harass you. It ain't bleeding rocket science people.

Why is it so difficult for people to see that prostitution is engaging in sexual acts with strangers for money?

And its engaging with strangers for money that generally other people wouldn't do for free as part of a non-commercially motivated human relationship.

Why do some people need to pay for sexual contact? Because they are unattractive, sociopathic, lack social skills, are too highly sexed for one individual to cope with, have unusual sexual needs - are there are any other reasons that others can think of?

I was thinking more of the forthcoming Heffner marriage actually where the only incentive must be inheritance prospects! But yes, you are right. So many women are in low paid jobs that their options when marriages go wrong are very limited.

I disagree - people pay for sexual access to human beings because they think they are entitled to use another human being as a wank object. They think they are entitled to wank into onto or to images of humans. They think sex is a human right. They do not think that bodily integrity is a human right that all humans deserve to have. They think their right to have sex trumps the right of other humans (especially women and children) not be exploited, raped, trafficked, beaten, coerced, threatened, imprisoned, groomed and pimped.

Some of them also pay for sex in order to have access to a person they can exploit, dominate, beat, abuse, rape, threaten and sexually abuse.

Some of them pay for sex in order to rape children.

And most of that goes for the porn hounds too.

Let's call a spade a spade.

Also nijinsky - I know this isn't the feminist section, but the way you refer to women who sell sex/are sold as 'the dregs' or 'stupid', is very offensive.

I'm not a sex worker because I am lucky enough to never have been abused, groomed, pimped, a runaway with an abusive family, failed by the care system, addicted to drugs, needed the money desperately to feed my kids etc.

It is luck, not superiority.

No, its not always luck Beachcomber. Plenty of women who struggle for money wouldn't dream of going into prostitution. I do believe that stigma also plays a very important role in protecting vulnerable women.

Of course it is luck. I have struggled for money in the past. I found solutions that didn't involve prostitution because I am lucky enough to not have damaged self esteem or a skewed sense sense of self worth, I was lucky enough to have a support network of people who helped me emotionally and would have helped me financially if I had asked. I was lucky enough to not be preyed on by a pimp, I was lucky never to have been raped or sexually abused as a child (as have most of the women in prostitution). I was lucky in that I wasn't trafficked or sold by my parents. I was lucky that my life experiences have taught me that selling sex is self-destructive and self-damaging behaviour that I deserve not to experience.

I'm not a prostituted woman because I am lucky not because I am superior. It is truly misogynistic to think otherwise.

Dittany is right - in a nonmisogynistc society, there would be no stigma or shame in being a prostitute. It is the pimps and the johns who have something to be ashamed of and to be shunned by civilised society for.

Prostitutes are rape victims. It is the rapists and those who make money from selling rape who carry the blame.

(Again, same goes for the porn wankers.)

For those querying whether women can be trafficked within the UK, the Council of Europe Convention on Trafficking defines trafficking as follows:

For the purposes of this Convention:

a "Trafficking in human beings" shall mean the recruitment, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to
consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

b The consent of a victim of ?trafficking in human beings? to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used;

c The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered "trafficking in human beings" even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article;

d "Child" shall mean any person under eighteen years of age;

e ?Victim? shall mean any natural person who is subject to trafficking in human beings as defined in this article.

The UK did (belatedly) ratify the convention last year.

So, a 17 year old working as a prostitute or in pornography has been trafficked. A woman threatened into working as a prostitute to pay of a debt has been trafficked. A woman who "agrees" to "work" as a prostitute rather than "choosing" to leave the boyfriend who has threatened to beat her has been trafficked.

that 'up to 12000 figure' that Garlicbutter quoted (2600 definite + 9600 possible) for foreign women working as sex slaves in the UK is terrifying.

how on earth can anyone think buying sex is ok in that context?

I think the figures in the sex trade are vitally important to discussing this. While I always knew that many prostitutes were pimped by men to pay for drug habits, etc., I used to believe that quite a lot of women made a free choice to work in the sex trade because they simply believed sex was just another commodity and one they were happy to trade for a lucrative pay off.

The figures show that even if there are a few women who genuinely do make that choice, a staggering overwhelming majority do not. And all of them contribute to the objectification of women and send the message that women's bodies exist solely for male pleasure - through no fault of their own either, which is even more

Needless to say, I've done a complete U turn on my feelings on this.

I also think that even t

I would be interested to read the rest of what you were going to say Sunshine.
For those who stated that it was my choice to work as a prostitute. Your right, it was my choice. I am so lucky that I was able to make that choice!
And just for the record I had approached my head of year when I was fourteen or fifteen with my delightful home situation. He was very sympathetic but it was not treated as a serious issue presumably because both my parents were middle class professionals so it could not be that bad really!
As for looking for work as a chambermaid etc I had to get out of my current situation now, not the next week or the week after.
I had a miserable adolescence amd yes I did make some bad choices but thank goodness that period of my life is over.
For some other young teen going through hell it is not over though.

I do not disagree with you Beachcomber. You put it more clearly than I ever could. What you say is 100% accurate.

nijnsky, there are so many holes in your argument , i dont know where to begin.