in wondering what the difference is between a female prostitute and a male one?

[THERhubarb]

Yes from another thread that I've decided not to contribute to any more. But there is a train on thought on that thread that a man who uses a prostitute is a rapist. So therefore this logic is also applied to male escorts who are used by women?

Wondered what people's thoughts were.

feel all subversive and naughty for taking the worst bits of lad culture. It's a pile of shite.

That is so right.

Another example of how male strippers are viewed differently is the film 'the full monty'.

Its a film that sold millions, is shown on tv at least once a year and is seen as a funny film. Its also usually shown around christmas.

Its about a group of men that are so skint after losing their jobs they decide to become strippers.

I don't think a film about women who resort to stripping to pay their bills would be seen as funny.

I assume you think that, morally, rather than legally, paying a prostitute for sex is rape?

Calendar girls?

Absolutely.

I have been on these hen parties (and left one in disgust when they all started abusing and harrassing the 18yo waiter) and have also been present when someone received a male stripper and I once went on a works do to see some male strippers. The last one was not pleasant at all and I was actually frightened by the levels of aggression that the women displayed. The lone stripper again was ordered to remove more than he was entirely happy to whilst countless women sat and writhed on his knee. I felt ashamed to be a woman right then.

These are the life experiences that actually made me seek out mens company. Because the people I worked with and mixed with were a horrible bunch. However they were not a minority, certainly in that part of the North West.

There was a women's strip club opened in Preston and a few of the lads went along out of curiousity. I think they were quite bored because apparently it was just topless women serving drinks whilst other topless women danced on the stage and the men sat around chatting to each other.

I know that's not the case everywhere but I really don't think that women are entirely innocent when it comes to sexual abuse and I agree completely about the lad culture. If anything, it has made matters worse for women.

LRD, they were only posing for photos though and no-one saw them in the nude. They weren't performing in front of screaming men.

True. Just thinking aloud really.

I don't like Full Monty or CG, so happy to moan about both of them. TBH it's the tweeness I dislike as much as anything else.

What about Coyote Ugly? Clothes weren't removed but it was a film about women performing in a fairly sexual way for their (predominantly) male audience.

Its true, however with coyote ugly, the film had a bit of back lash and didn't have people raving about 'how good it was'.

The difference being that people still watch full monty now and think its funny. I don't remember there being a back lash about it. I do remember a few protests at college about people boycotting Coyote.

Also a bar opened in my town called Coyote ugly and there were protests as it was going to be similar, it open twice and the owner rebranded it and change dit name.

I know this as I own a business in the same town and we are in several business persons groups together. I told him he was a cock for attempting to open it.

I also can't stand calander girls. While these women did it for charity, I don't see it as empowering at all.

Sorry was also meant to say that the difference between Calander girls and full monty is the fact the the girls were not doing as they couldn't afford to pay their bills.

This is true. OTOH I tend to reckon when you consider the top-shelf mags, the billboard up in my town advertising the 'gentleman's club', the number of naked women/boobs advertising shite on TV, the proportion of media coverage given to women for being scantily clad and/or pretty as opposed to men ... I'll carry on being equal-opportunities in my annoyance with crappy sexism, rather than concentrating on the cast of Full Monty or this particular advert.

I think you are misunderstanding. I am not saying men have it worse.

I am saying there is a different social view on women going to see male strippers.

As in my examples its seen as funny, but men seeing women stripping is seedy.

I think both are seedy. I also think as you have said the sex industry markets tones more women for men, than men for women.

The unfortunate thing, is that its still booming despite being seedy.

It should all be view the same.

Can I ask a possibly daft and maybe naive question without being flamed?

If a male prostitute wasn't happy with what he was doing, surely he wouldn't be able to /achieve/maintain erection?

brady my thinking is along the same lines. It is all seedy and women bellowing out lewd comments at men is not funny at all.

Nothing is black and white and I do think that bandying about the term 'rape' for prostitution neglects those grey areas. There are many different types of prostitute and many different types of client as we can see. If you are going to call prostitution rape you need to define it. In law, the woman has given her consent but morally you may argue that she has not. However some women are more capable of giving moral consent than others.

Oh, sure. I'm just saying it as I see it: there's loads of shite going on. I'll condemn abuse and rape of men (as well as sexist advertising targeting men), and I'll do the same re. women.

I don't believe that there should be a difference in how we treat men and women, simple as that.

People who are willing to be sexist are also the people who don't care that they're treating men and women differently by responding one way to one kind of sexism and another way to another.

I think my misunderstanding comes from me disagreeing with the way you use 'general' and 'real life', as in, the general view being that this stuff is funny. I don't think that my life is less 'real' just because I don't feel this stuff is funny. It may be a lot of people find it funny - and a lot of people are sexist - but that doesn't make them more real or give their opinion more weight.

loopy, not sure, I think if he is a healthy man with no problems down there then by touching it and rubbing it you can get an erection even if psychologically he doesn't want one iyswim? I think it's to do with the blood flow which is not always conscious. That's why a man can wake up with a stiffy.

loopy I would imagine you are right. Except there are drugs that can take care of that.

Some men, just like women, could also be groomed into thinking they did want to sell their bodies.

I think we are actually agreeing LRD. Just misunderstanding of terms.

Can you explain that a bit more TheRhub? Sorry, I just don't see how that's a grey area?

Some women have always been less capable of giving consent than others. Eg., there is a level of learning disability at which it's not considered that people are really capable of giving consent. Likewise, children are not considered capable of giving consent. The law does change its position on these issues - eg., the way age of consent has changed over the years - so I would agree that sometimes what we feel is morally right is not the same as what is legally correct.

I don't think there is any moral grey area - paying for sex is abusive - but are you saying that legally, there is a grey area and that is the problem?

Yep, I think so brady, I just didn't follow the terms.

loopy - no, it's not true. One of the really traumatic issues with male rape is that sometimes, a man will ejaculate, and could feel conflicted. It's a physical response, but I can see why it could make you feel awful, because there are still so many myths around what rape is. It is still just as much rape if a man gets an erection or ejaculates - rape is about what someone else does to your body, not about your body and what you did (I think).

By grey areas I mean to say that many women view prostitution as their job much as I would see my job. They really give no other thought to it than that.

People are killed for the diamond and gold industry and yet people still buy gold knowing full well how it is procured.
People still buy products from Nike who are known to use factories which support child slavery.

It's a fucked up world but I don't see that a man who has consensual sex with a prostitute, who is more than happy to give him a quick fuck for cash, is rape. Morally it may be because as you say, no-one should pay for sex. But then there are lots of things that morally, people should not do.

Is it any more immoral for a girl to get drunk and have a quick shag behind a nightclub? You could say she was taken advantage of. She might say that she wanted a shag, she got a shag, what was the big deal?

There is the grey area. I am aware that there are many prostitutes who are forced into it and so their consent is one borne out of coercion but I don't think that ALL prostitution is like this.

Yes I do think it immoral to pay for sex but I don't think it is rape in all of the cases.

Do they? I'm never sure I believe that TBH. How do you know? I'm asking because my brother works with prostituted women and they say the opposite, and when I've heard women who've escaped from prostitution speak, they also say they reckon this isn't widely true, but only the case for a few people like Belle de Jour, who're making a persona out of the 'happy hooker' image.

I suppose it may be that I've only heard about all the huge numbers of prostitutes who're not happy, but it would certainly be enough to bother me very much. I think the analogy with gold or diamonds is very good - many people just won't buy diamonds for that very reason, that it's hard to know what you're getting even with the claims of ethical sourcing.

I don't see the parallel with drunk women having consensual sex. Yes, sure, women should feel free to get drunk and have sex ... what's the alternative?

It isn't at all the same as paying the (I'm sorry, but I would suggest mythical) 'happy hooker'.

If someone pays a prostitute for sex, they know that person is doing it for money. It is not the same as someone having sex when they want to have sex.

LRD, there is a poster on this thread who knows some of the mythical "happy hookers". I also used to volunteer to give out soup on the streets of Manchester many moons ago. The women I met were not victims. They were happy enough doing what they did and even joked amongst their friends about how much money they got each night.

I'm not saying that the job is not dangerous and risky and seedy and abusive but for some it's a livelihood.

I've also seen many MN threads were posters either knew of or admitted themselves that they once sold their bodies for sex to bring in some extra cash and did not feel abused at all.

I suppose it depends, as you say, which end of the spectrum you see. Your brother no doubt works with the other end, those who need help, who have been abused, who are homeless (the girls I met had nice homes and in fact I was told to stop giving them soup because they were taking it from the genuinely homeless people). They might well be in the majority, I don't know.

But it's far from a black and white issue.