Weekend in Amsterdam - how would you feel?

[cathkidstonrefusnik]

I wasn't sure where to post this - I'd like to have a range of views, so didn't post in feminism. I've name-changed.

Some background first...I work in a male-dominated environment where the view of women purely as sex objects amongst some of my co-workers (not all by any means) is not far below the surface.

It has improved in the year since I've been there, at least when I'm around, largely because I can, and do, challenge inappropriate behaviour - it's public sector, so there are strict policies, and my boss is very supportive, although somewhat unenlightened himself at times.

Anyway, in a few weeks' time, it's one of my co-worker's stag celebration, and a large party are going to Amsterdam. Now, unless I'm getting the wrong idea, this is bound to involve strip clubs, sex shows, possibly prostitutes, isn't it?

Although it's entirely up to them what they do (legally) in their own time, I must admit it gives me the creeps - I'm quite surprised by some of the ones who are going to, among them married men with young children.

Am I over-reacting? Is it at all possible the weekend will involve drinking and drugs without the sex element?

I haven't commented on it negatively in work, and what exactly the weekend involves hasn't been discussed in my presence.

Nyac the thread got sidetracked in the first place because of the fact that wild generalisations were being thrown about, mainly by yourself. And when this was challenged it got even more into those realms. You suggested that we were incapable of understanding men and why they would go to Amsterdam when a number of people said there was a variety of different reasons to go to Amsterdam. There was assumption on top of assumption. Some of which I found quite patronising.

You equate one type of behaviour as automatically being linked with another more extreme one and also say that its all about women hating, which I fundamentally disagree with. And I actually think thats a very important issue to address if you are questioning why men use sex services or why they make ignorant remarks and that needs to be highlighted as much as the rights and wrongs of prostitution. There are varying levels of sexism and ignorance and they need to be treated separately and as individual problems.

And the thread topic wasn't about the rights and wrongs of prostitution. It was about whether the men in question would indulge in it or not and whether it was our business and whether it impacts on us at work.

The thread could have gone more in that direction of the rights and wrongs of prostitution if you had chosen to go in that direction on several occasions. You were given a very good opportunity by SF to direct the direction of the thread when she asked you to reply to her question regarding legalisation of brothels (which I note was ignored).

The thread still could go in that direction. I just think we'd all benefit and get the input of some of the men on MN which is interesting if we lost some of the generalisations here.

Nyac I would personally like to thank you for your persistence and patience on this thread in the face of such "I'm all right Jack" refusal to accept the bigger picture

us women that are here this evening, tapping on our keyboard in our naice warm house with our dc tucked up bed, sipping our nice red, with DP/DH snoozing in the armchair need to look a little wider

perhaps spare a thought for the trafficked 18 yo's sucking the cock of entitled men who hate them in Amsterdam (and other places), the woman getting raped by her husband for the nth time and maybe another black eye to add to all the others, the teenage boy renting his arsehole out for a few quid to buy his next fix, the "porn star" getting gang-banged in several orifices and getting physically damaged in the process for our viewing pleasure

I could go on

Feminists oppose the sex industry

get over it

if you are pro- the sex industry, you will have a problem with certain feminist posters on these boards, who can see a bigger picture...the political, not the personal.

get over it

using any random thread to have a go at "the feminists" from your comfy home seems strange to me

and before we get into the realms of "you don't know what I may have suffered in my life"...

well, I have a good idea, I have been through stuff myself

and that is why I am a feminist, and will challenge thinking that puts the welfare of women (yes, even women I don't personally know shock, horror) somewhere waaay below the right of a man to buy women for his selfish sexual pleasure

I am the mother of a son, and will be teaching him this (in case I am accused of being a "RadFem" who drowns boy-babies at birth)

jesus. i am not pro the sex industry and i am a feminist

but the sweepimg assumptions nyac was making were neither helpful nor IMO anything to do with feminism, they were just ill founded and derailing

FFS.

As the mother of 2 boys, and the sister of 2 brothers who were sadly both sexually abused, hearing "rad fems" suggesting that sexual crimes, abuse and degradation of males is somehow a lesser crime because it's mostly committed by other men and with lower incidence, omfg. Words fail me. I support the right of everyone, irrespective of gender to live without the fear of abuse or exploitation. Seriously, your views expressed in your last few posts nyac have brought tears to my eyes of frustration and sadness.

At the risk of outing myself here, during my time working with survivors of abuse, I have found that female on male abuse is not as uncommon as we as a society would like to think.

And my boys will not grow up thinking its okay to exploit women because of some fucking porn magazine. They will grow up with respect and a knowledge of how to relate to people of all genders because that will be the way they are raised.

My DH and BIL grew up in Amsterdam, as I said earlier up thread. Despite being aware of the red light district and the evidence of the sex industry throughout their teens in the city they are the kindest, most decent men I know. So exposure to this shit doesn't guarantee the specific outcome you allude to.

ujj, feeling strongly about the treatment that some women recieve at the hands of some men does not preclude one from accepting that all sorts of abuse goes on in the world

That's simply untrue YAAW. I've based my arguments in fact and have been able to back them up with concrete evidence.

The "wild assertion" is the one that sexist men going on stag weekends to Amsterdam are doing it without a thought to the commercial sex services on offer there. Once again it is documented that the sex industry in places like Amsterdam and Prague is supported in part by stag parties from the UK. This is not secret knowledge.

I'm pretty sure there are men on this thread already.

Good post AF.

Ok then, back to original thread then:

Stag dos are generally very awkward affairs. You invariably get a group of people who don't know each other that well (the stag may have more than one friendship group and that can create an imbalance. I think the stag also behaves differently within those friendship groups normally). E.g. Work colleagues, school friends, college friends all coming together in an unfamiliar environment. It doesn't help if one of those groups are smaller than the others either. Therefore, what tends to happen is either:

1. People react to an uncomfortable situation by getting 'macho' and drinking too much
2. People compete with the other groups by drinking too much
3. People enter into the spirit of the event, bond with the people in the group, enjoy it and drink too much.

One thing that is guaranteed to end in tears is male-only groups sinking too much. What will then happen is:

1. A fight within the group
2. A fight with another group (locals or another stag do)
3. 'Happy drunk' - which leads to strip clubs.

There is a varying amount of peer pressure. Some groups put a lot of pressure on people to 'enjoy it', others have far more respect for boundaries. But generally, things happen on stag dos that involves the combination of 'oh shit, I didn't did I?' and 'I'm never drinking afain' the following morning. It is part luck as to how much pressure is put on any one person within the group and circumstance as to what happens and the level of severity. Male nudity is common, strip clubs are common, hangovers are common. It rarely goes beyond that and it does it is as a result of one person completely losing sense. Generally, there will be sensible influences in nearly any group that stop the worst excesses from happening.

Very few men actually enjoy stag dos, but they have to say that they did to remain 'loyal' to the stag. I doubt anyone in the OP's office will actually sleep with anyone in that event,and even if they do it will be highly unlikely that it would be a prostitute. If they do, then it probably wouldn't be their first time with a prostitute anyway. They would get robbed by the rest of the group for the rest of the event if they did anyway.

ujjay, this thread is about women being abused in Amsterdam. Why do you have nothing to say about that?

"Seriously, your views expressed in your last few posts nyac have brought tears to my eyes of frustration and sadness."

I said that both things were important to fight. Why did that make you cry? It's up to me and other rad fems to have our priorities, the same way you have yours. I don't cry because some people want to be environmenalists and aren't focusing on rape in all its forms, or are socialists fighting capitalism and aren't fighting domestic violence. People have different priorities with things that they want to work on politically. Getting upset about that and trying to guilt trip them about it with tears seems a bit odd to me.

Let's not forget that the anti-rad fem arguments on this thread have run in tandem with arguments in favour of ignoring the fact that a lot of UK men on stag weekends in Amsterdam there go there to pay to sexually exploit women.

I cry about those women ujjay. Nobody deserves to be treated like that. Women are destroyed literally by the sex industry. Some of them dont' even make it out alive.

Well let's hope no-one here is posting from an iphone or ipad.....

A lot Nyac - which no one ignored - but not all, not even most. Which is what you seemed to be saying

.

Ribbed, not robbed and plenty of other typos.

yes, and lots of people care about the working conditions of some very maltreated people too

you can care about that, and you can oppose the sex industry

they can co-exist

Quote: ujjay, this thread is about women being abused in Amsterdam. Why do you have nothing to say about that?

I thought it was about whether people who went to Amsterdam on a stag do were likely to abuse women. I've interpreted your posts as you felt that all men who went to Amsterdam on a stag do would abuse women in some way. A very dangerous assumption and stereotypical I feel.

Oh and AF: I don't think anyone is doubting the legitimacy of your concerns and the need to wipe out those abuses, merely doubting the generalisations that can arise from seeing or hearing about those abuses

Why is it a "dangerous" assumption, to note that sexist men who go to Amsterdam for stag weekends generally are there for the public availability of commercial sex in all its forms, unless they are known to take a keen interest in Rembrandt or spliffs.

Once again the reason why there is a large red light district in Amsterdam is because they have a high number of customers, many of whom are male tourists on stag weekends.

They can indeed co-exist

But it's always the sex industry people tend to rant about on MN.

That rant often being posted from an iphone or ipad made by abused women and children in China, who are working 7 days a week in cramped, over crowded sweatshops and being slowly poisoned by toxic chemicals.....

There are men on this thread, but I do feel a fair few of them feel very much unable or unwilling to express an honest and open opinion at times on MN due to the treatment they get when they do so, in the face of some of the hostility and generalisation I've got a problem with here. I've seen it on several occasions. I find their input and perspective as very helpful when they do, even if its stuff we don't want to hear. I respect their bare honesty at times.

I think WoundUpLeaf's comments above about how different groups react in different ways to an unnatural situation interesting. There are soooo many angles you can take on this. For example even if a stag do does go to Amsterdam, I think its not inevitable they will end up in a strip show or with prostitutes. There are ways in which the behaviour of the group can be influenced (primarily by the level of alcohol they are allowed to consume).

I think it is very unfair to put all men into one category and think that they would be up for shagging a prostitute. I know some guys who would but the majority wouldn't as thu find the idea of doing so quite gross.

Nobody has put all men in one category. Unless every man on the planet is a sexist who goes on stag weekends to Amsterdam.

I know lots of men who have never done anything like that, men for example who had stag dos where they went walking in the Dales and visited a lot of pubs. Weirdly enough I don't think the sex trade was involved in their celebrations, unlike the types who go off to Amsterdam and Prague.

the problem is though WUL, that people think because they know a "happy" hooker or two, or have spoken to a couple of women who didn't have all their relationships with men ruined by their time being an empowerfulised lapdancer that the sex industry "can't be all bad"

which is, in fact, a pernicious generalisation and the people that peddle such apologies for the systematic abuse of women are equally guilty of accusations of misrepresenting the facts to prove a point, no ?

Weirdly enough I don't think the sex trade was involved in their celebrations, unlike the types who go off to Amsterdam and Prague

And if the Dale walking men accepted an invite to a stag do in Amsterdam or Prague, would that suddenly make them that 'type' you speak of?

Or would it make them exactly the same men...merely going to Amsterdam or Prague to celebrate a friend/son/brother getting married?

You've just put all men who go on Stag Dos to Amsterdam and Prague into one category. Go figure.

a thread about a bunch of sleazoids who are on their way to Amsterdam to possibly rape a few trafficked women

There is no evidence that the men mentioned in this OP are going to do any such thing. That's your assumption.

NYAC - I have plenty to say about the abuse of women in the sex industry But this thread wasn't about that.

Your post at 22:22 states that your stance is that abuse is gendered. I would heartily dispute that. You have statistics to back your arguments I suppose but how many accounts are actually reported? Not every woman will report abuse for a variety of reasons. Do you think men and boys don't live in fear of their lives? Try being a young man and finding the balls to say your mother has been abusing you for years or that your wife has beaten you black and blue every day of your married life and you are too scared to leave her because she threatens to kill your kids.

As I have said before, the exploitation in the sex industry is abhorrent to me. I do cry for those women. I have lost count of the conversations I have had with DH about how the fuck you even begin to eradicate the sex tourism in Amsterdam. It saddens me beyond belief to see those girls with their dead eyes and the arseholes who stand outside leering at them.

Don't accuse me of not caring because I bothered to answer the OP by saying that her co-workers actions outside of the office were fuck all to do with her. If she wants to go along and make a public stand outside a brothel whilst they are visiting then that's different but she can't complain about things that "might" happen.

Quote: Why is it a "dangerous" assumption, to note that sexist men who go to Amsterdam for stag weekends generally are there for the public availability of commercial sex in all its forms

Because the prior intent of the organiser isn't often to abuse women and he individual intent of many or all people within that group also isn't to abuse women. That some abuse goes on is without question. It is also without question that any abuse needs to be stopped. However, i don't feel it is right to make the connection you then make, which I see as 'therefore, all men who go to Amsterdam on a stag do are sexist / evil and will do evil things'. Evil people may be male, it doesn't mean that men are evil.