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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Is one type of prostitute 'better' than another?

170 replies

MelAncoly · 04/12/2016 19:29

Woman 1 - heroin addict, prostituing to feed her habit. Stands on street corners and will go with anyone that has the money.

Woman 2 - professional career, no drug habits or alcohol problems, doesn't even smoke. Simply wants extra money as she's saving to buy a house as she wants to get involved in property development. Her full time job doesn't pay enough to save for the kind of house she wants. She finds clients through an escourt agency.

Is there a difference between the two or are they both as bad as each other?

Also would you/have you ever considered it as a way of easy money?

OP posts:
Italiangreyhound · 06/12/2016 02:03

][https://nordicmodelnow.org/what-is-the-nordic-model/]]

Italiangreyhound · 06/12/2016 02:05

nordicmodelnow.org/what-is-the-nordic-model/

Smile
SandyFeet177 · 06/12/2016 06:02

Number 1 has found herself in a situation that is hard to get out of and it sounds like she has a really hard life. No 2 is chosing to do it for material gain. I don't judge either of them, but can't help but feel for No 1, that's no easy life I'm sure.

Bananabread123 · 06/12/2016 06:59

I agree with the PP who said the first is not bad and the second does not exist.

Why do you believe the 2nd doesn't exist? PP on here have said they have friends who are/have been one. I think it suits some people to assume the 2nd type don't exist as it means they can retain a very simple 'women are all victims, men are all evil' view on prostitution when it's more complex than that.

Bananabread123 · 06/12/2016 07:02

The amount of money is really immaterial Ian't it? Can you really put a price on safety, dignity, etc?

For you and me then yes, but there seem to be some who think selling their bodies to fund a lifestyle is a price worth paying.

FloraFox · 06/12/2016 14:22

Banana if you add abusive partners, mental health problems or history of previous or current sexual abuse to the second example (which I think the OP would agree is consistent with what she means by her second example), i have never seen or heard of anyone who falls into this category. There are women who rationalise their situation while they are in it and sometimes after (I have friends who have done that, there are plenty of examples in public life and plenty of women who have talked about their experiences on here). The number of women in situation 2 is either zero or statistically zero.

Italiangreyhound · 06/12/2016 16:53

Banana re "For you and me then yes, but there seem to be some who think selling their bodies to fund a lifestyle is a price worth paying."

If the women in situation 2 are so smart they can set all that up, why aren't they doing something that doesn't involved their body being invaded in this way? Maybe on some level they feel hey cannot do anything else, or they feel they deserve this life.

I don't know. But I do know that earning a lot of money, or saying you earn a lot of money, doesn't make something awful suddenly become not awful.

Google 'the myth of the high class hooker' for a book called Paid For – My Journey through Prostitution: Surviving a Life of Prostitution ...
By Rachel Moran.

Very interesting.

DavidGTI · 06/12/2016 18:38

Although one perspective is how many successful high class ladies are there that we do not no about because either they are successful and are quite discrete in order to either protect their clientele and to protect themselves.

MrsTerryPratchett · 06/12/2016 18:59

I hope not. Because considering how many sex workers there are, another hidden large amount would make the world an even more depressing place.

FannyWisdom · 06/12/2016 19:09

David have you been watching the daft telly?
Secrets of a call girl or Pretty Woman?

JustGettingStarted · 06/12/2016 21:22

So, if a woman says "I have a university degree, but I am content to be a prostitute" do you just keep digging into her past until you find out about that one crap partner or the time someone groped her on the Tube or had a bout of depression or anything else that perfectly ordinary women experience and say "ah-hah! You're broken and not really OK!"?

JustGettingStarted · 06/12/2016 21:23

I think that's the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

DavidGTI · 06/12/2016 22:28

FannyWisdom would you agree that just because you do not hear of them does not mean to say they do not exist.

Bananabread123 · 06/12/2016 22:46

Flora. I think most prostitutes probably are damaged or desperate.... but i don't know how you can be so certain that all fall into this category? If so how do you explain this story...
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/a-high-end-call-girl-answers-questions-2015-5?client=safari

SarcasmMode · 06/12/2016 23:16

Only better in that woman 2 probably is safer with the sex I.e regular STD checks, uses condoms, has people who they know who will know where they are etc.

In regards to eay money - nope. I wouldn't want to do me so doubt a stranger would.

If they did then still no.

If I had to do a sexual job I'd do that over the phone shit and try not to laugh

HoridHenryrules · 06/12/2016 23:23

A woman who is 18 is selling her virginity for a million euros apparently.

Italiangreyhound · 06/12/2016 23:36

Banana although you asked the question of another may I attempt to answer... "I think most prostitutes probably are damaged or desperate.... but i don't know how you can be so certain that all fall into this category? If so how do you explain this story..."

I guess for me I would take the starting point of the present day and say that a woman who willingly put herself in a room with a total stranger and committed to not just sex but presumably many bizarre, embarrassing or reckless/unsavory acts he may require is not someone who is necessary a happy and well balanced person. Most of us have a sense of self preservation that would over ride this kind of activity.

The thing you link to doesn't necessarily cry totally true to life and real, and even if all the people are real, do we really know they are who they say they are.

Just look at the answers...

"My parents don’t know about my work, or anything else about my sex life."

and

"...but I still had not really explored many of my desires. I was meeting people living alternative lifestyles, and, as I got to know them, the stereotypes that I had built up started to come apart. During this time I was in my mid-twenties, and I had an active sex life."

This implies that the women sees her 'work' of being the sexual reciptical of any paying man as some part of her sex life. I really wonder if prostitutes really see their work as part of their normal fun enjoyable life?

Q.
Have you ever ‘fallen in love’ with a customer?
A.
Yes.

I do find this rather hard to believe. This sounds very Pretty Woman.

David I don't keep digging until I understand why a woman becomes a prostitute. There may be many reasons. I've heard of women who introduce their kids into this so-called profession. But I do wonder how any man can want to have sex with a woman knowing she is only doing it because he is paying. Maybe we need to explore what makes men tick that in any universe that is acceptable.

FannyWisdom · 07/12/2016 15:30

Nowt is impossible David but I think we can all agree that the romanticised version is over represented? Mainstream films/series that glamorise sex work?

It may be that some women are successful..
It's true that almost all suffer mentally.
The reality is so very different.

JustGettingStarted · 07/12/2016 15:37

The two extremes are over represented. Probably most exist somewhere in the middle.

There's been a spate of articles in the Mail / Sun, etc that lift posts from the main UK escorts forum (just like they do to us here at mumsnet). All of the escorts posting to this forum work indoors (mostly independent, a few agency). And every single article has a stock photo of a hooker in a short skirt leaning into a car window.

Indoor escorts are available at all price points in the UK. Only very odd men go looking for it on the street. Presumably they get off on the seediness of it and the relative vulnerability of these women.

Justaboy · 08/12/2016 13:12

Does anybody take any notice of what's in those Sun and Mail comics?

HoridHenryrules · 08/12/2016 17:08

Would anyone fund their child's education this way? You'll be head fucked at the end of it.

londonrach · 08/12/2016 17:14

First one is being exploited. The second is making a choice. Either are bad but the first one needs protecting as shes vvvv valuable. Id judge the man or men using them but never the woman.

londonrach · 08/12/2016 17:15

Forgot to add journalist you are not allowed to use what i say on mn

HoridHenryrules · 08/12/2016 17:29

londonrach why would any newspaper use your quote. You say the first one is vvvv valuable I think you mean vulnerable. Which paper or magazine you work for?

Dutch1e · 08/12/2016 17:52

Avoiding the question of "do we all approve of the sex industry?" and going back to the original post...

Yes I do think the second scenario is 'better.' She has working conditions that support her financial and physical security. If she worked in Amsterdam (trafficking issues aside) she would have a union, medical care, and health/safety inspectors.

The woman on the street corner is the equivalent of a child being being paid pennies an hour in a sweat shop sewing clothes.

It's interesting to me that sex work is one of the few industries in which we briefly wonder what that woman on the corner did to cause her circumstances but we wouldn't dream of asking the same question about the kid in the sweat shop.