To wonder what you think about people with disabilities buying sex

[huha]

Here is a link: tlc-trust.org.uk

I personally was at first 😲😲😲 but now am thinking 🤔...maybe this is a good thing?? AIBU?

All three were known drug users with long records for various crimes

Well then its fine to use their bodies as commodities. They're just druggies and criminals.

That's the point, sex work prays on the vulnerable, one of those groups is drug addicts. Some of which are hooked onto the drugs so they can be pushed into sex work.

They stole for the same reason they are sex workers, there are desperate for drugs. They need rehabilitation not abusing through prostitution.

I just don’t understand why your concern for safeguarding extends only to disabled men who want sex and doesn’t cover the women who are expected to provide it.

But how are people who are against this safeguarding the women who are providing it? We know that prohibiting prostitution doesn't work, and there is considerable evidence that it makes it less safe for the women.

There is no way to make prostitution safe, because it is in the nature of the type of men who use prostitutes that they do not see women as fully human, and they are much more likely to be the sort of men who perpetrate violence against women (both sexual and physical assault).

Leeds ran an experiment with a "safe" red light district in Holbeck. Within a matter of weeks, a prostitute had been murdered in this "safe" zone. The evidence from the Netherlands and Germany is that trafficking has skyrocketed under decrim - because both are reasonably affluent countries and there simply aren't enough financially desperate Dutch and German women to satisfy the (growing) demand, so desperate women from other countries get trafficked in as sex slaves.

The only way to tackle the problem is by tackling the demand side - by criminalising the purchase of sex and prosecuting the grubby little bastards who buy it.

Head on desk back at you.
Good for you that you are able to use a vibrator. Your hands work. What would you do if they didn't?

Would you, if the chance arose, offered by your social worker no less, choose to partake in a service that was being offered to you? If you felt pretty desperate? If you didn't necessarily have the capacity to think about the reasons a sex worker might be employed in that industry. If the sex worker themselves seemed happy enough-and you developed a good working relationship with that person?

Well of course YOU yourself wouldn't-but then you have never been in the position my service user for example was.

I've not at any point said sex is a human right. I've said I can understand people wanting it and that for a disabled person paying for it might be the only way to get it.

'They need to be rehabilitated'. Yep. I've worked in mental health and addiction services as well and as much as you might not want to contemplate this, not all the service users have any interest at all in being rehabilitated. And not all of them come from backgrounds of deprivation or abuse that 'forced them' into drugs and then prostitution to pay for them either. That's the issue with this debate. Far too many people making blanket assumptions about the people involved. It's a lot more of a grey area than that.

@FermatsTheorem

Your first assertion is a pretty big one (that we can't make it safe). We have made various sex industries safer (think pre internet US porn. it was heavily regulated).

As for the second, it's hard to know that means out of context. Were more women killed outside the safe zone?

As for the third, I know this is a problem, as is sex trafficking. Many women are lied to about the nature of their work in Europe, and then are held effectively against their will. That needs to be addressed absolutely. But others are already sex workers and then come to Germany and enter the sex trade there in what is likely a much safer to country to be a sex worker.

It's entirely possible the way to tackle "this problem" (I am not sure what the precise problem is: violence? prostitution itself? they are different problems), but I'd be surprised if it doesn't drive it underground. Is there evidence this works?

And whilst we at it-are any of you aware of how difficult it is for a very disabled person to access other means of sexual gratification when living in care settings?

Porn? Not if you need help to buy it or turn the TV on to watch it. The staff find it offensive so it's not happening.

Relationship built naturally with someone you met at day centre? Sure, once you've sorted your carer and transport out to get you to your date, asked the staff to hoist the pair of you into bed and help you-not embarrassing or degrading at all-all after you've both had your mental capacity tested of course.
(And then again the staff refuse to do it).

If that was you are you honestly telling me that were a service to be offered to you which would meet your needs for intimacy, in a non demeaning way, you wouldn't even consider taking it?

I don't think some of you have any understanding of just how crap it is to be in that position. No one is saying that's more important or any worse than 'having to work' in prostitution.
Two equally shit situations ( in most cases).

I don't work in safeguarding sex workers-so that isn't my perspective. However as pp said somewhere up thread, to me it would be better to regulate and decriminalise the industry and promote safer practice that way. It's not an industry that's ever going to disappear is it?

How can that service be offered in a non demeaning way? If the user doesn’t have capacity to think about why the prostitute is there, the social worker does! It’s not ok.

Prostitution is an old profession because for centuries women have been viewed as men’s property. We want to evolve and move civilisation forwards. Part of that is making it widely unacceptable for men to buy sex and stop thinking up justifications for them.

So hang on- what would you say to my mother in law then? A woman who chooses to work within the six industry because it's convenient to her-because as she sees it she rather get paid a lot for an hours work than a little for 7 hours work in a shop or similar.
Has she not made a choice then? Or has she also been coerced into it? She has never been trafficked as far as I'm aware. She lives in a nice village outside a major city and just wants to be able to pay her mortgage and have some money left over to have fun with afterwards.
I totally get that it's not like that for all sex workers. But Some do make a choice.
Those commissioned or signposted towards by social services as 'sex therapists' which is the title in this setting, aren't as far as I'm aware being frog marched up to the care home door by a care manager who is also a pimp on the side.

Or are they wrong as well?

So some do but most don't.

It sucks to be disabled.

That doesn't justify prostitution.

So is it not ok for the ones that are choosing to work in the industry to offer services to disabled people then?

Coercion does not always take the form of frogmarching; if it did it would be a lot easier to spot. It tends to be subtler and more insidious than that.

I suppose what I might say to a woman in the situation you describe is the question of how they feel being used to prop up an argument in defence of an industry which routinely does coerce women and which does compromise their safety and wellbeing. An industry in which most of the entrants have previously suffered sexual abuse and many begin under the age of 18.

Someone upthread likened the sale of women’s bodies to the sale of organs. Yes, we sympathise with people in kidney failure but we don’t support a legal market in which organs are bought and sold because we can see the exploitation and risk that would entail. I don’t think selling sex is equivalent to selling goods and services, I think it is more akin to selling kidneys and just because there is a black market that doesn’t legitimise legalising it.

Whilst I don’t want to see prostitutes criminalised, I absolutely want men buying sex and acting as pimps to be treated as criminals. I want it to be seen as utterly unacceptable to buy and sell women for anyone, no matter how much they want one.

I agree that some people choose drug addictions just because they enjoy that lifestyle and they have no intention of giving that up. But that doesn't make it OK to take advantage of those life choices and have sex with them for money. Choosing to be a drug addict doesn't mean you've chosen to be a prostitute, but unfortunately if you are a female drug addict that is sometimes the easy option. Note that not many men turn to prostitution due to drug addiction, probably because the main clientele would be other men.

I think it's correct that prostitution can never be made 'safe' because of the type of men it attracts. So maybe we need to work as a society to change men's attitudes. There are alot of good decent men that would never want to sleep with a prostitute, and agree its vile. So it is possible for them to not grow up thinking women are objects of pleasure to be bought and sold.

Celibacy is not fatal and nobody has a “right” to a sex life. There are plenty of ugly or obnoxious people who can’t get laid, and we don’t expect social workers to organise prostitutes for them.
Prostitution demeans all women, by reducing us to lumps of meat to be bought, sold or rented. The entire industry is despicable, from the pimps and traffickers to the vile clients who are paying for the right to rape a woman who doesn’t fancy them and wouldn’t willingly shag them at all.

Whilst I don’t want to see prostitutes criminalised, I absolutely want men buying sex and acting as pimps to be treated as criminals.

So basically you want the industry to disappear, destroying the careers of the women who do want to do sex work and forcing them into other jobs where they'd probably earn a lot less money. That doesn't sound very empowering.

Really, busybarbara? I think women would absolutely be empowered by men learning that they can’t buy and sell a woman’s body and that women are human beings and deserve to be treated as such...

My mother in law wouldnt agree with you I don't think...yep she might not willingly spend Time with her clients for pleasure on a night out if she didn't fancy them or whatever. But she would, willingly, for the money she earns for it. I wouldn't clean someone else's house for pleasure. But I'd do it for an hourly wage that I considered to be fair. That's genuinely how she sees it.

And again comparing being ugly to being severely disabled and how that affects your ability to create human relationships of any kind misses the point entirely.

There are a lot of women who work in the sex industry that feel empowered by what they do. You might not find it empowering (by your definition), but they do. In fact, a number of these ladies that I used to follow on twitter are disabled. They enjoy the work, feel empowered by it, they don’t suffer the discrimination they might experience in a “normal” work environment and earn a lot of money. There are some truly vile things that happen in the sex industry and many women are enslaved , raped and exploited. However that isn’t everyone’s experience. The world as a whole needs to be more respectful to sex workers , not just the men who purchase their services in my view

In fact, a number of these ladies that I used to follow on twitter are disabled. They enjoy the work, feel empowered by it, they don’t suffer the discrimination they might experience in a “normal” work environment and earn a lot of money

So you’re taking social media posts as fact? Do you actually know anyone who is a sex worker?

@jacques, yes, someone very very close to home

I think women would absolutely be empowered by men learning that they can’t buy and sell a woman’s body and that women are human beings and deserve to be treated as such...

While that would be nice, it is not very helpful to someone who has made an active choice to be in the sex industry, is now earning, say, 40-50k, and is now being told by a bunch of other people they should jack it in for the good of mankind. A lot of parallels with people who work in other contentious industries like making weapons, tobacco, gambling, etc. As much as people's lives are ruined, should other people's jobs be harmed too?

I'm aware that choosing to be a drug addict doesn't mean that anyone has the right to have sex with you
When did I say it did?
I was asked if I had any sympathy for the women who robbed my service users and threatened my staff and I said I didn't especially. Those were choices they were making. I don't think they were doing it because they felt offended that a disabled man in a wheel chair had responded in the affirmative when one of them offered him a hand job in the park for twenty quid tbh.

Why shouldn't the disabled be able to have a sex life? If it means paying, then so be it.

Why shouldn't women not be exploited? If it means men not having a sex life so be it.

TheLastNigel

Your original post implied that it's fine for them to be exploited because they are not nice people and chose a life of drugs and crime.