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.

If you say so.

I'm sure it is a livelihood.

Mind you, I think it is implausible to assume people wouldn't joke. How often do people on here post about 'awww, my lovely hubby, he wouldn't hurt a fly' and six months later it's '... and now after he punched me again, I am really leaving this time'. So there's that.

But, even if you take it utterly unquestioningly (which I probably would too if I were busy serving out soup, so I understand that), I would still worry about the other huge number of women.

Just like the diamond analogy.

I don't honestly believe this makes it any less of a black and white issue, because you're concentrating on the men and women who're prostituting themselves. But what about the people buying sex from them? That's the perspective from which it is all much simpler: those people are buying sex. There is no way they can really believe 'ah, s/he would sleep with me even if I weren't paying', so they must know they are coercing someone into sex by paying them. Therefore it is abusive and I would be very happy to see such people defined as abusers and rapists under the law.

Yes LRD, but if that was the case then 18 years ago my dh would be, by your definition, an abuser and rapist.

I have gone into this in detail on the other thread but briefly. He had a mental breakdown in his teens/early 20s diagnosed schizophrenic. He went travelling with a friend. They visited Thailand. He stayed away from the seedy end but people kept saying he should try a Thai massage. They asked the locals were to go to get a massage. They were sent to a place and he duly got a massage from a woman roughly in her 30s or early 40s. At first nothing but a massage but he was asked to remove his clothes which he felt uncomfortable doing because he suffers from psoriasis. Still, it's a Thai massage and that's what they do he thought. She went further and further and eventually produced a condom and initiated sex with him. He freely went along with this and the truth only dawned on him when afterwards she asked for more money.

He left feeling ashamed, dirty, stupid and tearful.

He told me when we had been together a while and were getting serious. He was clearly still upset by it.

That is what I mean by a grey area.

I still don't see how it's rape if the prostitute choses to do it, isn't forced by some 'pimp'.

I wish some of my working girl friends would join here sometimes. That said, they'd probably only be met with abuse.

'happy hookers' :o can't wait to tell them that one haha!

I kind of agree with you GhostShip. I don't morally agree with what they do and I certainly don't agree with men or women paying for sex, but if they have chosen to sell their bodies quite freely then we can hardly tell them they are being raped can we? If there is no rape victim then there can be no rapist.

Not all men who visit prostitutes are seedy either. I know someone who said that one just wanted someone to talk to. Others want cuddles and kisses.

I really don't see it as a black and white issue because each individual case is different. The majority may be seedy as fuck, but we can't denounce it all as that.

It's a tricky one for sure.

One of my friends uses this analogy: a sculpture uses her hands to create something that she'll sell, so why cant she (my friend) use different parts of her body to earn her money?

It's a western view that sex has to be in the bedroom between 2 married people. It's not always like that, and doesn't have to be so taboo if someone choses to go outside these means and actually make money from it.

I understand completely that a lot of the sex trade is built on abuse, but there are a lot of women out there, especially this day and age, that choose this as a way of making money. These are women who'll you see in the supermarket, dropping their kids off at school, having a drink with her friends in the pub. But whilst we go to desk jobs, she'll earn money her own way.

To ignore the fact that some women want to do it, is archaic and blinkered at best.

Agreed Rubarb, whilst I couldn't do it myself and it doesnt sit right with me, I don't blame them for wanting to do it, and they'd be mortified at the insinuation of rape!

And strangely enough a lot of men just go for kisses and cuddles, youre right.

theres also the ones who want to be stood on in high heels but thats another story

The argument that prostitution is rape is nothing to do with the prostitute herself (or himself) and how happy or unhappy they are.

The condition of her consent is that money is paid. The argument is that this condition makes it impossible to freely consent. The penetrator needs to have a reasonable belief that the woman has freely consent to sex. Since he has bought the consent, he cannot reasonably hold this belief. Therefore it is rape regardless of the state of mind of either party.

You are trying to turn these women into rape victims, which they are not. You're actually being really disempowering.

They chose to give consent because they want the money. You're seeing it from the wrong way round. It's not the punter buying it, its the prostitute giving it - for money. You're reversing the power roles.

It's also important to remember here that prostitution isn't illegal, and neither is paying for sex. Which basically throws away the rape argument

I have to love you and leave you for now. Kids to feed through the bars of their cages and husbands to sort out before he goes for his Christmas do.

Actually that makes it sound like I have more than one dh. Well, you never know!

Ghost

I'm not, actually, I'm explaining the argument. I'm on the fence about it myself.

Does the fact that consent depends on payment mean that the consent cannot be freely given? That's the nub of the argument. It's not to do with disempowering anybody.

Ghost

It's true that currently prostitution isn't legally rape, so the law clearly doesn't view paid-for consent as not-freely-given consent. Is the law philosophically right? LRD says no, I guess you say yes.

The issue is complicated further by abuse and drug issues etc eg if the consent is given because the woman will be beaten up if she doesn't get the money, is it then freely given consent? If not, how reasonable is the punter's belief that the consent was freely given?

rhubarb - look, I don't feel comfortable saying 'well, yes', because it feels so rude, online.

But, I do think men who pay for sex ... well, they are abusers.

I can see that the situation you describe sounds pretty complicated, though. I think actually I would say it sounds more as if he was being taken advantage of? Because he didn't set out to pay for sex, so it is not the same?

But I wasn't there.

ghostship - I'm sorry, but I think that is ridiculous. I'm not trying to turn anyone into a rape victim, male or female (odd how we've got onto female victims, isn't it? As if you think a man can't be a victim?! When the OP specifically asked about male victims.).

I'm not reversing the power role. It is utter bollocks to claim that a person who is in a position to pay for sex is not in the role of power, and a person selling sex is. It is the kind of sick, victim-blaming crap that legitimizes the whole system of sexual abuse.

How dare you claim people 'choose' to give consent for money? How dare you generalize like that? When you must know (unless you are very, very naive) that this is not a general truth and that there are men and women who are forced into this industry and abused within it?

sorry TheDoctrine, I thought they were your views.

If you see it as a service, which is how the working girls do, it's a different argument. The women are offering a service that people want to pay for. They don't see it as sex, they see it as a service just like a masseuse, a hairdresser, etc.

The fact theyre paying for it doesn't make it rape. If a man ran off before paying, it wouldn't be rape. They'd see it as theft.

Anyway it's one of them, we're all going to have our opinions. Im basing mine on those who live that life though, not what I've heard or read.

I've known a few female prostitutes; I went out with one (though I didn't know she'd been on the game till later). I also knew - well, met - one male prostiture.

My understanding is that both have far, far more male than female clients.
{Yes, readers, women patronise/use/rape female prostitutes, too}.

If they are unwilling, I'd say they were being raped.
The male one, he was just doing it for an op to "change gender"

Certainly, my GF and some of the other women were very clearly in it through choice; the work wasn't hugely hard and the money and hours suited. Perhaps they were atypical as the worst they'd encountered was smelly clients - though one or two had wanted "without".

The issue is consent; some would have you believe that within the patriarchy prostitutes can not give consent. Whether that's female, male or both, you'd have ask someone who believes that.

FWIW, I believe there is consent by many. To which others will say "But ah, how do you know?"

How dare I claim that? I can 'claim' that because I am friends with 6 working girls. I've already said that I'm not saying a lot of the sex industry is built on abuse, but what I AM saying is that there are working girls out there who do it willingly because they see it as an easy job. THEIR words, not mine.

It isn't utter bollocks at all. You're seeing it as some depraved sex act, you need to see it like they do to fully understand it, which is a service. And where the hell have you got 'victim blaming' from? These girls I'm talking about aren't victims, and they have nothing to be blamed for.

I'm not pretending to speak for all of the women in the sex trade, unlike you, but what I am saying that no matter how much you like to believe the contrary, there are women who CHOOSE this as a job just like you or I would choose to be a nurse, a cleaner, a lawyer.. whatever.

Just because you see selling ones body as something taboo and against the rules, doesn't mean everyone does.

Love how you miss the main sentence in my point to have that little rant. I never once said this is how it is in the whole of the sex trade.

Then I suggest you stop generalizing so ridiculously to make your 'point'.

It is utter bollocks. You are now putting words into my mouth, because you are incapable of formulating an argument.

I don't see it as a 'depraved sex act' at all.

I see it as prostitution.

I agree with doctrine that your focus on 'working girls' (as you put it - still ignoring the focus of the thread I see ...) is missing the point. Prostituted women and men do not exist in a nice little vacuum: they are people who're paid for sex by punters. Those punters are kidding themselves if they believe the people they pay for sex would have sex with them if they weren't paying. IMO consent is therefore coerced.

I dunno Ghost, what proportion of people doing it would have to be damaged by it to make it not ok? More than 50%? More than 70%? More than 30%?

If someone has HIV, and has a 20% risk of passing it on each time they have unprotected sex, is that too much of a risk to put their various sexual partners through, or should care for their fellow human stop them? If I want to pay for sex and there's a 20% chance that the prostitute has not made a free choice to enter prostitution, shouldn't my basic humanity stop me?

I think in the first instance it might be possible to prosecute for reckless endangerment of life, or some such. How would you feel about a similar crime being defined in the second instance?

Actually LRD, you obviously didn't read what I'd put at all. I said there are some, I didn't say all. Not once did I say all, I also made a point to say a lot of the sex industry is based on abuse

You see it as prostitution, but what is that to you? Obviously something taboo and unsavoury, something to be disgusted in. You won't see it as a service the way the women I'm talking about do.

I say working girls, because I have no experience with the males, so I'm not going to talk about them.

Obviously the punters know that they wouldn't get sex without paying, otherwise they'd try it on.

These women choose to give consent. It is there consent to give, whether it's for money it doesn't matter. It is theirs.

They are giving it willingly, the men are stupid enough to pay for it, so the women take advantage of them, and the men take advantage of the women. Its a strange relationship, but one that works for both parties.

I think you're being really offensive to the women out there who do this for a living willingly. They are not rape victims.

I dunno Ghost, what proportion of people doing it would have to be damaged by it to make it not ok? More than 50%? More than 70%? More than 30%?

The same can be said about plenty of things though. Most systems get abused in some way or another. It's a fine line because you're either protecting those who need protecting or taking away the rights of those who don't.

I read it. I simply objected to it. If you want to pretend you're not generalizing, using 'they' consistently isn't a great way to do it.

Please stop putting words in my mouth.

I don't see prostitution as taboo or unsavoury, as my insistance that we stop blaming prostitutes ought to indicate to you. You're making out I'm some kind of prude - knock it off.

I think punters paying for sex are disgusting. It's very simple. They're paying for sex, because they can't get free consent. I would be happy to see this crimininalized.

I do not believe anyone can 'choose' to consent to sex if that consent has to be bought. IMO it's no longer 'free' if it's 'paid for' (complex concept there, I know. ).

I am actually quite unfussed about offending some tiny number of 'happy hookers' known only to a few misogynists. I am much more concerned about the very large numbers of women and men who are abused in this system, and who do need our help. Frankly, if criminalizing the buying of sex and labelling people who pay prostitutes as the abusers they are stops a few 'happy hookers' from working, then that is absolutely fine by me. Since it will also protect women and men who are abused.

And taking away the rights that women have to their bodies.

Rubbish.

No man or woman should have the 'right' to buy sex. If you see that as 'taking away the rights women have to their bodies', then maybe think a moment about the bodies of the women and men who're being abused.

No-one is suggesting taking away women's or men's right to consent to sex, only the right to buy sex. See?