To think that grooming students into casual jobs as 'Sex Workers' is wrong

[theOtherPamAyres]

Freshers' Fair for new students at Brighton University featured a 'Sex Workers' stall.

If your son or daughter, fresh out of school, fancied a well paid but highly dangerous casual job then there were tips and leaflets on how to stay safe, and goody bags of lubricants and condoms.

In such a way, the prostitution trade is normalised.

It is sold as an 'empowering', edgy thing and lucrative self-employment. It is marketed with faux concern for young people's safety. (I bet they don't actually reveal the extent of beatings, robberies and rapes of prostituted men and women, though!)

Any young person who might think that sex work isn't all it's cracked up to be will keep their views to themselves, in the face of such enthusiasm and endorsement from the University. No-one wants to be labelled a SW erf (Sex worker exclusionary radical feminist).

Is that what we want for our adult children?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/30/brighton-university-accused-encouraging-prostitution-sex-workers/

Is this real?

As a younger person I was all empowering and edgy about this stuff. Then I grew up, worked with people in this situation, became much clearer about my values and sure as hell wouldn't want this normalised for my DC when they go to university.

aintnothing I think it is real it is also in the guardian.

While tutors should naturally be supportive of any students they have, sex working ones as well as others, they can't possibly be so naïve that they don't realise that what the wording of that stall is directly encouraging new students to get into sex work. I mean, ffs, they're academics, they should be aware of what language does.

If it was just "Oh but we want our sex working students to be able to come to us for support", a quiet note the effect that your personal academic tutor is always there to listen to you re any concerns should be quite adequate.

Bloody hell pumpkin

It's fucking outrageous. The next step is surely sanctioning women on benefits if they refuse to apply for sex worker jobs.

Just no.

Tacky.

If I attended a Freshers Fair with my dd and clocked a sex workers stall I don’t think I would be responsible for my actions.
What the actual fuck?!

I think it's more about supporting kids who are already in the sex industry. When I started out at drama school (One of the best in the country) a male friend was already working as a prostitute.

He showed me the bag of stuff he'd been given at a drop in support centre. He'd had to work quite hard to find that centre.

He was paying for drama school with that work. He'd left home at 15.

Luckily he got out of it a year later.

It is real, FFS. Unbelievable. And the all the students allegedly alresybin sex work who need ‘supporting’ wouldn’t they already be aware of SWOT it be able to seek it out themselves?

"is this real?'

Yes, and this is the third of fourth thread about it (which could be handy for those who missed the earlier Ines)

"If it was just "Oh but we want our sex working students to be able to come to us for support", a quiet note the effect that your personal academic tutor is always there to listen to you re any concerns should be quite adequate."

Aye, I can totally imagine going to my academic tutor if I had been doing sex work to fund uni. He couldn't even be bothered to offer me advice on how to get through my coursework!

It's a support function. And for the person above saying that someone in sex work would know they exist, did you miss the post above yours saying that their friend had to work hard to find something like that when it wasn't openly talked about?

Lets just instead demand that this kind of support is driven away when it's support and advice networks that keep people safe. I think that it's better to recognise that sex work has and probably will continue to fund a heck of a lot of students through uni, and offer them proper support and advice. As for giving away condoms and lube...well, so? So do sexual health clinics and anyone promoting healthy sex practices. I really can't get worked up about an organisation being allowed to promote their support services directly to the people who may need them in a way that isn't surrounded in shame and secrecy.

It is Brighton. I’m not sure it’s happening across most universities. Brighton has a very proactive sexual health service that aims to meet the needs of its very diverse community (including sex workers).

Are you sure it wasn’t this rather than some dodgy gangmaster encouraging young Sophia into prostitution?

The stall is run by a charity that helps sex workers. I doubt their aim in running it is to increase the number of people in the industry.

If your idea of helping is handing out condoms and telling women not to go off alone without telling anyone where they are, then yes.

If your idea of helping is helping women leave the sex trade, then no, not so much.

Drug dealers stall? Hit man training? Oh, aspirational jobs for which you need a degree these days.

Very misleading headline. It was an outreach charity invited by the students union, not the uni, to offer support to people already doing sex work or to know they are there to help if students go down that route, which happens all too often, sadly. Nobody was promoting sex work, they were offering support. Would you all be outraged about a drugs charity doing the same thing? If so, you don't live in the real world. And yeah, going to an academic for support about this kind of personal issue? In most cases, if not all, I don't think so!

Oh for god's sake. With increased fees and living costs, one in 6 female students now gets involved in the sex industry. Of course they should be made aware of support at university.

You wouldn't be pearl clutching if it was FRANK talking about drugs, or MIND talking about MH issues, would you?

Trying to brand a charity like this as 'disgusting' is yet another way of depriving young women of support.

Purple I knew it. Brighton has a massive issue with drug use and with vulnerable people who end up homeless due to difficult situations.

They're just offering help to those who might need it.

He was paying for drama school with that work. He'd left home at 15.

Well, yes, this is the point. Someone who has had a difficult early life and who then turns to prostitution to paying for their education should receive help and support in finding alternative sources of funding, not a pat on the back and a bunch of condoms and told to get on with it.

It's exploitation, pure and simple.

Nobody was promoting sex work

Except they were, PurpleTrilby. Normalising this kind of work is very dangerous.

God, the naivety on this thread is depressing.

Fresher's Fairs are for brand new students, fresh from school or colleges. It is unlikely that this cohort of new students is already working in, or contemplating a casual job in the sex industry.

It is very risky to assure young people that they will be safe sex workers as long as they take some precautions. It is the the most dangerous job that there is - especially for young people who have just left home for the first time.

Frankly, I don't believe Brighton's Student's Union that the stall is there to advise sex workers. I see it as a form of grooming. I believe that its aim is normalise prostitution and gather support for legalisation.

If 1 in 6 students are turning to sex work to fund their studies then it is already normal.

Better to assist those in it to be as safe as possible and offer routes out to those ready to leave.

You can't just find people magical alternative sources of funding with a snap of your fingers, and as long as people will pay for sex, people will sell it, so charities like the one being discussed are absolutely needed to support those that do. That isn't grooming, or normalisation in the slightest.

Would you prefer that support wasn't offered to those who work in the sex industry? Where do you expect all this magical, shiny, alternative funding to come from?

OP, are you feeling alright? You think a provincial, middle of the road university's student union's mission is to gather support for the legalisation of prositution? What on earth FOR?