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Original poster

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

138 replies

theOtherPamAyres · 01/10/2018 00:29

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/

OP posts:
Babdoc · 01/10/2018 13:21

Surely most students who need cash to fund their studies take jobs as restaurant or bar staff, cleaners or carers, work as tourist guides, etc?
If male students manage to fund their studies by themselves without working as lap dancers and prostitutes, why the hell do female ones apparently need to?
I’d bar such stands from Freshers Fairs. All student unions have lists of support agencies and charities who can help students with financial problems. And that should NOT include careers advice on prostitution.

pumkinspicetime · 01/10/2018 15:35

Also this organization only works with women so the chap mentioned up thread wouldn't have got support from it.
So the normalization of sex work in this case is only in relation to young women.
I would also question the messages that it gives the young men attending the freshers fair. It runs alongside the normalization of hard core pornography and the issues that run along aside this.
It seems like we are moving backwards at present.

IHATEPeppaPig · 01/10/2018 15:51

God this is a depressing thread, of course there needs to be support for sex workers but they are at a freshers fair for goodness sake- there are more appropriate places to promote this charity.

Anyone who suggests this doesn't normalise sex work is so naive!

RayRayBidet · 01/10/2018 16:00

Isn't it more a case of showing that there is support for those who find themselves turning to sex work?
Given the statistics it's possible that some of the students might end up doing that. At least if they do they might remember the charity exists. Then if they need help they might find it.

CherryPavlova · 01/10/2018 18:48

I don’t know any of my daughters university friends who opted to work in the six industry....but I’m told by one of her friends that female cabin crew shoes (used) sell at a very good profit so lots in reasonably paid employment do profit from the sex industry.

ArcheryAnnie · 01/10/2018 22:28

Isn't it more a case of showing that there is support for those who find themselves turning to sex work?

There's support and then there's normalising. Even calling it "sex work" instead of what it is - prostitution - is part of the normalising, grooming aspect, of promoting it as work like any other.

If a charity like the Poppy Project - which closed a few years ago because it had it's funding withdrawn by the government (and given to the fucking Salvation Army instead - I'm not even kidding) - set up a stall, I'd trust them to be able to support women students working in prostitution in all kinds of ways, whether helping them survive while they are still stuck in it, or helping them get out.

A charity that calls it "sex work" and completely, comprehensively ignores that it is an inherently abusive, dangerous industry is one I'd be very wary of.

RayRayBidet · 02/10/2018 10:13

It wasn't a jobs fair ffs.
And facing reality that there are people who sell sex for whatever reason and helping them stay safe and helping them to leave it is not normalising it.
The outrage should be directed at the men who pay for it.

ArcheryAnnie · 02/10/2018 10:16

But there's nothing there about helping them to leave, is there?

RayRayBidet · 02/10/2018 10:33

Well it looks as though they provide support and advice/information. I take that to mean they can signpost clients to local services eg housing, women's aid/refuges, mental health services, drug and alcohol services. Those are the tools they have to help people leave. As well as how to keep themselves safe if they continue to sell sex.
Harm reduction is not enticement.

ArcheryAnnie · 02/10/2018 10:58

Have you had a look on their website? There's one tiny thing about leaving, half a single sentence, in amongst a lot of other stuff, and it doesn't say anything at all, anywhere, about the inherently dangerous and exploitative nature of prostitution.

There's a very well-organised pimp lobby who have sold this idea of "sex work" as a woke concept, and too many otherwise sensible organisations have leapt upon it as the woke thing to do. I don't think you can assume anything good about a service which describes prostitution as "sex work". There might be a lot of good there, but you can't assume it.

RayRayBidet · 02/10/2018 11:04

I imagine the people who work in "sex" are aware of the risks.

ArcheryAnnie · 02/10/2018 11:13

I'm sure they are. But those who don't yet work in it are not. Hence the concern about normalising and grooming.

RayRayBidet · 02/10/2018 12:16

Let's put the blame for grooming young women into prostitution where it belongs on the shoulders of traffickers, pimps and abusive men and women who prey on the vulnerable and pay for sex.
Would you say a charity that helps addicts being there was normalising and encouraging drug taking?

53rdWay · 02/10/2018 12:21

Would you say a charity that helps addicts being there was normalising and encouraging drug taking?

If said charity was pushing the line that heroin is a hobby just like any other hobby, inviting people to come and play on a wheel of drug wellbeing, and not giving any more than lip service to supporting people to quit or recognising that there are any inherent dangers to addiction, yes I would.

RayRayBidet · 02/10/2018 12:51

Picking up a leaflet at a freshers’ fair won’t turn you into a sex worker

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/02/brighton-university-freshers-fair-sex-workers-health-support-services?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

CesiraAndEnrico · 02/10/2018 13:08

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.

However well intentioned it doesn't sound all that different from the men and women who were trying to persuade me that sex work wasn't that big of a deal, the risks could be managed and horrible prejudice was the cause of all and any negative connotations associated with the industry.

I teetered. Several times. And then slammed the door shut, heart beating hard at how near I was slipping towards the point where the world was going to finished chewing me up and just swallow everything I used to be, and could be. I slammed it because even in the state I was in, I could see that they were clearly sleazy self-interested people. I had just enough self preservation left under the heavy layer of vulnerability to engage self defence shields against their siren song.

I'm not sure I would have had the instinctive reflex to help me not fall in if they had looked respectable and like they genuinely cared about me.

I think there is a balance to be struck between helping those in the industry survive it, and being careful the paths that lead to the industry aren't inadvertently being made much more slippery for the vulnerable young people who are starting to think it is the only way out of their financial and emotional pain hole.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 02/10/2018 13:12

"one in 6 female students now gets involved in the sex industry"

The fuck?

This is utterly unacceptable.

All PP are right to say that "sex work" is being normalised left right and centre in society and this is not a good tihng for anyoen except seedy nasty men.

pumkinspicetime · 02/10/2018 13:12

Young people who are active in prostitution obviously are likely to require additional physical and mental health support. They should be made aware of where they could gain this.
Sex work should not be promoted or normalized for young people, not least because of the physical and emotional health risks.
Sex can be fun, is normal and safe sex should be promoted, sex work should not be allowed to hijack these messages.

FullOfJellyBeans · 02/10/2018 13:13

I would be more inclined to listen to arguments if people actually had some evidence that the visible existence of this charity means that more woman turn to sex work.

It is incredibly naive to imagine that by hiding the fact that it happens you encourage it. I've also never seen evidence that calling it "sex work" encourages more women into it than by referring to it as prostitution.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 02/10/2018 13:15

RayRay I'm not sure that most 18yo girls away from home for the first time would be all that au fait with the risks involved in taking money from men in return for sex.

I'm really not sure of that at all.

There are a lot of "sugar daddy" pieces and have been for a while promoting that type of arrangement as easy money and even some saying no sex required (hahahhaha).

For sure the sex industry is working hard to normalise it.

It's not good for 18yo girls to be presented with this as a viable option while away like bar work or whatever.

18 is SO YOUNG. Yes I know you can drive vote etc but it is still so bloody young.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 02/10/2018 13:19

lol RayRay

Yes the abusive women who pay for sex are a HUGE issue here.

Come off it.

It's not women raping beating and murdering prostitutes, abducting women off the street in Holbeck etc it's MEN. I mean do we really have to pretend it's not, that sexual violence and violence in general and espcially against men and women working as prostitutes are female customers????????

Some pimps are women yes but the CLIENTELLE I mean come on.

Why do we have to pretend this isn't a situation where sex is relevant?

NothingOnTellyAgain · 02/10/2018 13:22

It doesn't make sense.
If they want to support student sex workers then why are they at the freshers fair.
One would imagine that if their concern is students "turning to sex work" to pay bills etc then they'd be targeting ones who havent' literally just got off the bus.

Telling girls that 1 in 6 make ends meet by doing sex work is absolutely normalising it. No question.

pumkinspicetime · 02/10/2018 13:23

I would have had no idea about some of the risks and long term impacts of sex work as a student in my first week at university and I had a working class upbringing. It wasn't until I started working with women in my late 20's who were involved in trading their bodies for cash that I really understood the damage that it could do. I honestly wouldn't have thought I would have had to protect my dd from being sold this as a lifestyle choice at a freshers fair. It has always happened, will always happen and young people need protection from it not having made just another way to earn money like bar work and cleaning.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 02/10/2018 13:23

It is also an interesting message to send the male students.

because no matter what a PP says, it's men who pay for sex, overwhelmingly.

pumkinspicetime · 02/10/2018 13:27

Yes, I don't want my ds given the message that paying for sex is fine because it is all empowered choice on the prostitute's side and just helping them pay their way. It is the next step after normalizing hard core pornography for teenage boys.