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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
RayRayBidet · 02/10/2018 14:14

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

It wasn't a jobs fair ffs! They aren't promoting it as a lifestyle choice. It's a charity that provides advice/information on issues like housing, escaping DV personal , safety advice and sexual health services to women who get paid for sex.
It's not a recruitment agency.

RayRayBidet · 02/10/2018 14:19

@NothingOnTellyAgain
By the way there are plenty of women who are involved in trafficking young women into sexual slavery as prostitutes. I wasn't suggesting that women paying for sex are beating up prostitutes
www.google.de/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-northern-ireland-42933503
www.google.de/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-england-london-44645937
www.google.de/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-england-lancashire-42163801
There are 3 examples which took about a minute to find

NothingOnTellyAgain · 02/10/2018 17:38

RayRay
It was at the freshers fair
How quickly do you think their money had run out?

Your line clearly stated that men and women were customers:

"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."

Mummadeeze · 02/10/2018 17:48

As a naive-ish 18 year old, I had read lots of Jackie Collins type novels that featured glamorous escorts and I went to Uni actually hoping to get this kind of work on the side. I realise in hindsight this was very delusional of me. My campus was in a rural area with no opportunities to explore this kind of work as a sideline so I left it as a kind of fantasy and got a job at the student bar. I do think I would have felt my ambition was totally acceptable if there had been a stall like this at our Freshers fair.... although I do get that it wasn’t trying to coax people into it, I suspect it would have had that kind of effect on me.

RayRayBidet · 02/10/2018 19:59

@NothingOnTellyAgain
No I didn't mean women who pay I have already explained that after the original comment. I meant there are women involved in harming other women and forcing them into prostitution and I provided some examples of what I meant. Not sure why that makes my original point that a charity which provides an outreach service to vulnerable women prostitutes/sex workers call them what you want is convincing university students at a freshers fair is to become prostitutes in order to pay their tuition fees.
I am not going to continue this discussion. The story and the thread title are click bait designed to get a reaction and are actually misleading.
I will say it one last time, advertising an outreach service is not recruiting prostitutes.
@Mummadeeze
Of course you would. Yeah sure.

Mummadeeze · 02/10/2018 20:29

It sounds like you don’t believe me, which is fine, and maybe I shouldn’t have posted about my inner thoughts in relation to this post. I apologise as sharing info about my low self esteem and extreme promiscuity at that age have no real relevance to the motivation behind the decision to give this charity run stand presence. What I was trying to say is they my vision of sex work was very glamourised already when I went to Uni and this may have added fuel to that fire. That doesn’t mean to say it should or shouldn’t be there.

ThefusilliJerry · 02/10/2018 20:36

Jesus Christ what a world.
Of course they shouldn’t be there. I wouldn’t expect there to be a fucking needle exchange either. These are harmful lifestyles and anyone who portrays them as innocuous and manageable is an utter cunt.

Rebecca36 · 02/10/2018 20:40

You post away Mummadeeze, you did nothing wrong and are just being honest about thoughts you had when you were young - which didn't materialise into actions.

I had similar thoughts but was too scared to go through with it! I know some who did, made a lot of money in a short space of time, gave it up when they were earning a decent salary and never looked back.

We had a thread on same subject (Brighton- freshers fair), a couple or three weeks ago. I don't believe one in six students are prostitutes but there will be a few in every college. I do not pass judgement on them and the fact is they can go out to meet someone once or twice a week and earn a lot of money.

ButchyRestingFace · 02/10/2018 20:45

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

That's a big "if". Where does this stat come from?

WelcomeToShootingStars · 02/10/2018 20:48

I'm on the fence. It is fact that some students do turn to sex work to supplement their income and its no bad thing to give advice on how to stay safe to those who choose to do so.

But advertising it is a bit too far.

Thatssomebadhatharry · 02/10/2018 20:50

Many students also sell drugs. Did they have a stall for this too.

Elephantinacravat · 02/10/2018 20:55

How come the male students don't have to sell their bodies and be exploited to fund their student fees?

Maybe so many girls are turning to prostitution at uni because it is being normalise and promoted as this empowering thing? After all if you disagree with prostitution you are just a saggy titted old SWERF aren't you?

Rebecca36 · 02/10/2018 20:55

Thatssomebadhatharry Tue 02-Oct-18 20:50:49
Many students also sell drugs. Did they have a stall for this too.
---
Good point, yes a lot of them sell weed and the like. There wouldn't have been a stall because selling drugs is illegal.
---
WelcomeToShootingStars Tue 02-Oct-18 20:48:18
I'm on the fence. It is fact that some students do turn to sex work to supplement their income and its no bad thing to give advice on how to stay safe to those who choose to do so.

But advertising it is a bit too far.
...........................
Yes it is. It's sort of normalising it.

Wannabeyorkshirelass · 02/10/2018 21:40

I'm about 20K in student debt. I was in a relationship during uni and he objected when I was offered a job stripping so I didn't pursue it, but I do wonder how much less debt I'd have. If the shitty government continue to cripple students with debt, this kind of thing is going to become more and more common. All of the outrage won't change that.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 02/10/2018 21:55

Well it will if it changes policy around fees/ grants etc

Obviously

If lots of students turn to prostitution to make ends meet that is a direct result of government policy, not some kind of inevitable force of nature

53rdWay · 02/10/2018 22:04

After all if you disagree with prostitution you are just a saggy titted old SWERF aren't you?

Also naive and pearl-clutching, that's us.

I do think most of the people who just can't see what on earth our problem is with this would manage if the subject was something other than sex. They would be able to see a difference between, say, a stall for a debt advice service at the fresher's fair, and one for an organisation promoting payday loans as a fun and common way to support yourself at university, complete with lots of language about how they totally respect your autonomy and your choice as a free individual to take out such a loan.

Wannabeyorkshirelass · 02/10/2018 22:08

You're agreeing with me.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 03/10/2018 08:47

I thought outrage would have no effect on anything?

Don't bother complaining.

PiperPublickOccurrences · 03/10/2018 08:57

It's not "sex work". It's prostitution.

And totally inappropriate at a Freshers' Fair./

NothingOnTellyAgain · 03/10/2018 11:46

Re this "1 in 6" stat

Presumably - and this isn't a wild guess - this is a career pathway that is generally only consdiered by women.
In brighton > where this was > you may have more men at college who would consider it
But over the country, and bearing in mind that most men would absolutely not consider selling their arses to other men under any circs > and would probably do crime / drug dealing / pretty much anything else first (which does beg the question of why it's such a great option for women then?)

Then as universities are probably 50/50ish in sex split

This actually means more like, 1 in 3 women (girls to me really, yes I know they're 18, it's so young!) are working as prostitutes to get through university, or are considering it.

Does this really sound likely?

If it's not true > where has this stat come rom, who did they ask?
If it is, WTF 1/3 of all girls at uni can expect to get involved in prostitution? I mean that's just appalling.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 03/10/2018 11:47

What parent would send their daughter to university with a 1 in 3 chance that she is going to end up taking cash for use of her orifices by manky skanky dangerous entitled men?

If that's true then it's a genuine scandal and parents need to be aware. It also shows that grooming / recruiting is going on at a massive scale in UK universities. ie pimps have easy access to female students.

AjasLipstick · 03/10/2018 13:21

Nothing not all parents "send their child to university"

Mine certainly didn't. I sorted myself out at the age of 19 having realised nobody else would help me and there were numerous other kids on my course like me.

I sorted out my accommodation, my grant...moving down there. Everything.

Belina · 03/10/2018 13:26

Dont judge women in the sex industry but dont think it should be encouraged due to the mental strain and danger it has on many women.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 03/10/2018 13:28

You know what I mean though FGS

Way to miss the point

Many parents are still close to their kids at and deserve to know if there is a 1 in 3 chance that girls will become prostitutes when they get there.

If it is true (and I find it hard to believe - either the stats are being inflated (why?) or it is true (!) then parents deserve to know don't you think??

To pretend that all ties are cut at 18 and parents across the board don't and won't care about this is ridiculous.

Of COURSE parents should be informed if this is the case and of course many will prevent their daughters going to institutions where, if 1 in 3 is true, pimps are recruiting within halls etc.

The potential students should ALSO be advised of this of course.

I talk to my girls about danger and choices and things, I'm not a bad person for doing that or for knowing that prostitution is fucking dangerous.

I think this is rubbish and I wonder why they have inflated the stats.

If 1 in 3 girls at university are getting into prostitution, don't you think that's a problem?
Wouldn't you have liked to have known that before you went off? Shouldn't students be told?

Or becasue some young people dont' have parental support,it shoudl not be raised as an issue or questioned? Is that your point?

Elephantinacravat · 03/10/2018 13:33

The idea that 1/3 of students are getting into prostitution to pay off their student debts is absolute bollocks and we all know it.

It's being pedalled by misogynists who have an agenda to normalise prostitution. Just calling it 'sex work' is a thinly veiled attempt to make it sound more legitimate.