To ask why I feel sex work is a bit wrong?

[sweatyscruffy]

So I'm fully preparing to get flamed here!
Bf came round last night, I asked her how it was going as her university friends have moved in with her and her dh for a while. Bf's friend was doing webcam work with her dp previously and they were continuing to earn an absolute mint doing it (£30,000 in three months once!) I don't really see anything wrong with it as it's doing what they do anyway with a few cameras filming. The other girl is a medical professional, also part time escort. My bf was telling me about it as if it was the best thing ever. Apparently the agency only takes on clients earning over £50,000, and only contracts girls who know how to talk to and entertain very rich men. It involves a lot of trips to London and Europe, occasionally Dubai. Maybe I sound jealous but the whole thing made me a bit sad. Yes she's a grown woman, yes she knows what she's doing but imagine having to pretend that you find these old men interesting or sexually attractive?
She apparently specifies 40+ men only so she gets the really rich ones so I bet there's a good chance a lot of them are married, not that it's her fault they're choosing to sleep with prostitutes. I try so hard to be ok with it and think of it as feminist but I still feel it's a bit seedy. I'm trying so hard to not judge!

Bezalelle is right.
I am really concerned about this current push for "sexwork" to be reconised legally as work.
Single mum on universal credit? Go on the game or lose your benefits and possibly your home. Its dreadful.

Because as we know it will be women who end up in that position. Not men.

If "sex work is work", then where are their employment rights? Where is the health and safety assessments? Where is the PPE?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1482371/If-you-dont-take-a-job-as-a-prostitute-we-can-stop-your-benefits.html

m.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/outrage-after-job-center-suggests-brothel-job-for-young-woman-in-germany-a-882021.html

@bankittens. Either buying consent is wrong in all circumstances or not. Doesn't matter if it's hands or vagina. Or are you saying hiring a prostitute for a hand job is okay because you're not entering her body?

No I’m not at all.
Buying sexual activity from another person invalidates any notion of consent.

When I go for a massage, I’m not having a sexual interaction with the woman I pay.

@JamieVardysHavingAParty

If "sex work is work", then where are their employment rights? Where is the health and safety assessments? Where is the PPE?

If the related activities around prostitution (soliciting, owning or managing a brothel etc) were legalised (and I am not advocating this) then sure - there can be better opportunities to put in place proper safety, you could even have inspectorates to ensure legal brothels are operating according to the safety guidelines

But until then, it's kind of silly to devalue it as not being work, just because there isn't health and safety. There are drug dealers who are working extremely hard, taking goods and transacting them for cash - this is undeniably work, but there's clearly no health and safety in that line of work!

ages ago there was a readers experience type feature in the guardian by a woman who was doing what has been described here as high end sex work, I think she was a student and able to be choosy about her punters etc- she described how it was beginning to impact her mental health, and especially her real sexual relationship, it was very sad. She was planning to exit but the money was very tempting.
There cannot be no cost to allowing yourself to be used in that way.

I think that even if there are a tiny number of women who are able to be prostitutes safely (which, given the experience I'm citing, I don't believe) it should not be allowed as it perpetuates prostitution as a whole - men will gladly tell themselves that 'she is consenting/it's just a job/it's empowering' when for 99% of women it really really is not.

You could put Punternet and any SWERF message board side-by-side and you wouldn't be able to tell who hates sex workers more.

'Spunk receptacles' fgs.

The first managed red light district in the U.K., in Leeds isn’t working brilliantly
www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/violence-drugs-sexual-diseases-managed-zones-prostitution-failing/

@BanKittenHeels

I'm not surprised it went badly. "Managing" and "legalising" the activities around prostitution won't bring organisation and safety overnight.

It would bring a whole load of increased demand, followed by anti social behaviour (littering of sexual accessories, open drug use etc) and prove a magnet for organised crime to move in and operate unopposed.

The reality is local councils and police wouldn't even begin to have a plan for infrastructure that would be needed to monitor and support this kind of thing. It's like placing rocket fuel underneath it all.

But even if, in a few years time things changed so there were health and safety laws around prostitution and the rooms are nice, sterile white rooms with panic buttons, it’s still not ok to buy another human for sexual gratification.

And even if that did happen there would still be a black market of sex because of drugs and people who profit from women’s misery.

But until then, it's kind of silly to devalue it as not being work, just because there isn't health and safety. There are drug dealers who are working extremely hard, taking goods and transacting them for cash - this is undeniably work, but there's clearly no health and safety in that line of work!

Devaluing? No, I'm not devaluing. I'm just not dignifying exploitation with a sanitised word like "work". There are known to be many trafficked women enslaved in prostitution, and the customers either don't notice or care or it wouldn't be a viable business model for the criminals enslaving them.

If you are treated like crap, to the point that no-one notices the women who are literally forced to be there, and your current and future health are endangered by what you do, it doesn't qualify as a workplace. It's exploitation. This goes for brothels, it goes for sweatshops.

Shes selling herself at the end of the day . You can't get any lower than that

You absolutely can get far lower than that. She's being honest and providing a bona fide service for money. I'd rate that far above psychics and the like. I also think it's not as low as being a peddler of homoeopathy. There are probably loads of occupations way below prostitute on my scale of decency.

It's tricky, street girls or massage parlour workers are often addicts or trafficked. However, the documentary A Very British Brothel, (specialising in older men) had older UK women who were part time & happy with what they were doing. I'd guess even high end takes a toll emotionally tho & your shelf life is short age wise too, so what happens when you're used to the money & work drys up. Belle d'Jour the book by a high end escort does make it seem easy money but she admits she loathed the jobs she got after Uni & got very depressed so to me, it was a last resort: & also she grew up with an American Dad who had escorts as long term partners which must normalise it. She left sex work & now works in Genetics.

I used to think friends like yours prostituting themselves was ‘empowered’ ‘her using the man’ ‘getting money for something she enjoys’. She’s not on drugs, no pimp etc

Then my experiences changed and in that experience I have never, ever met a woman prostituting herself in a ‘high class’ way through her own choice who hadn’t been abused as a child/teenager/young adult.

There were reasons they turned to prostitution, some but not all are - replay their abuse scenario but where they have more ‘power’ so they feel ‘safe’, it makes them feel worth something after the abuse made them feel worthless because men are paying for them, made them feel attractive - ditto, they felt like men would abuse them anyway and they may as well be in control and be paid.

Lots ended up on drugs, working the streets, with pimps etc because the ‘older’ they got the less men who would want them and the less they would pay them.

Lots ended up with drink and drug addictions or committing suicide because of the things they had to do, the way the men treated them, being unable to cope.

After my experiences I can’t support prostitution, sex work or porn but I absolutely support the women doing those things and I am so glad there are so many individuals and charities who work so hard to help them.

Shes selling herself at the end of the day . You can't get any lower than that

Really? So child abusers, rapists, drug dealer's, human sex traffickers, animal abusers, wife/husband beaters, burglars, muggers and murderers are all better people than *OP's friend are they?

There are known to be many trafficked women enslaved in prostitution, and the customers either don't notice or care or it wouldn't be a viable business model for the criminals enslaving them.

There was a piece in a newspaper about this. The conclusion was that the men knew, and didn't care. They 100% knew they were raping a coerced woman and didn't care. That's your average punter.

And SWERF is an idiotic term. Radical feminism doesn't exclude sex workers. It excludes punters, pimps and apologists for abuse.

I know a lot of sex workers, some of whom have been doing it for a long time. Most are people who have chosen this line of work because it's better paid than their other options; some see themselves as healers/therapists; some find it interesting and rewarding as well as lucrative. And, yes, I have met some who did it for a while out of economic necessity and moved on, but who do not regard themselves as either traumatized or 'tainted' by it.

Sex work is work and, like all work, it should be done willingly and without coercion, in safe conditions and properly paid. Sex workers are no more selling 'themselves' than any other workers - they are providing a set amount of their time and undertaking set activities for an agreed fee.

People do all sorts for money. A friend of mine told me men in Dubai pay girls to see them poop they seat under them and she squats and job done. Also women sell their used underwear specially to Japanese men.
It was an eye opener and an education as I didn't know any of that.

Wow, the way some of you are painting sex work as a viable career option with no physical or emotional risks, I can't believe I've never considered it myself.

How many of you would be happy for this to be your daughters choice? Would it depend on the punter? Or would you be uncomfortable with her having sex with her dads friends for money?

There was a piece in a newspaper about this. The conclusion was that the men knew, and didn't care. They 100% knew they were raping a coerced woman and didn't care. That's your average punter.

Some years ago, a journalist did a bit of checking up on a then-recent case of sex-trafficking. The reporting around the case mentioned that the police had found the doors were covered in barbed wire to stop the women escaping, and she dug further. The picture that emerged was not good. This was a place that was very clearly not somewhere the women wanted to be. She asked what kind of man did not notice the barbed wire and so on.

Then she checked the reviews on punternet. Lots of reviews and feedback given on how the women should have treated them. None of them had mentioned any concerns that the women might be coerced...

Sex work exists and its non of your business what another woman chooses to do with her body or time

I don't think anyone is painting a picture that prostitution is without risk. There are women who choose to do it and claim they are empowered. I think the people who question whether they are empowered or not, aren't viewing life through the perspective of these women.

If you've had a completely different upbringing, have potentially been exposed to abuse, may have suffered mental illness, have previously been in similar "work" but now control the means of your industry....wouldn't that be considered empowering if you felt you had few other options?

I'm not saying that everyone who feels empowered doing this, has suffered somehow to feel that.

But we're not walking in these people's shoes when we just downright dismiss their opinions and lived experience.

Those women who feel empowered clearly feel this, this is their lived experience. Whether they would change those views if given greater opportunities or a chance to lift themselves out of a cycle, is a very real question.

No one would be happy for this to be their daughter's choice. But if their daughter was staring them in the face shouting "It's my body my choice", what is your actual nuanced reply other than "get to hell"?

What MrsTerryPratchett said is right. BiL is a sugar daddy, having moved up the chain from street prostitutes and massage parlours. He's almost 60 and trust me, he's paying to get access to very very young women who would never in a million years give him the time of day if he wasn't paying them. He's entitled and doesn't see why he should have to have boring vanilla sex with a regular looking woman in her fifties (SiL). He pretends to believe that he has a relationship with these women, and that he's "helping them out" but isn't able to answer the question about how much "help" he'd be willing to give them if they wouldn't sleep with him. All sugar daddies and babies pretend that the sex is optional but of course it really isn't.

You can buy co-operation, but not consent.