To think the use of prostitutes just isn't that big a deal?

[Hihothedairyo]

Now here me out first, I do not mean married men who use prostitutes without the knowledge/consent of their wives/partners. Those are scum, I have been cheated on in that way before so believe me when I say I do not agree with that.

However, I've seen and heard a lot of people (including friends of mine) who believe that men in general who use prostitutes are scum.

Personally, I think that, provided you are sure the person you are having sex with is not being trafficked, then you are really just two consenting adults having sex. Yes there is money exchanged, but nobody is forcing the sex worker to do this job (in this scenario, I know that DOES happen).

Should a person who's say, 30 years old and still a virgin, and now feels their too old and too inexperienced to go out and find a woman to have sex with them, not be able to use a service that a woman is willingly providing? What about someone with some form of disability that wants sex but doesn't have the confidence or whatever to get it normally?

I've got a good friend who lost his virginity to a prostitute, and has visited them a few other times also. He's in a happy relationship now and does not use them and never has while in any relationship. I don't feel that him having used them was wrong, but he is not open about having used them at all and I'm pretty sure his partner doesn't know that he ever has.

I just feel there is far too much judgement and hate towards people who are, in reality, just doing something that has been done since time began. And I see no wrong in it, I imagine I'm in the minority here though.

It is buying a woman's body.

Think about that for a minute.

Paying money to put your penis into a woman's vagina, who would not consent to it unless money was involved.

Yes, I think you probably are in the minority.

Bezalelle OK, but, they ARE consenting. They are getting paid for it, and they are choosing to provide that service?

Buying women is sordid, nasty and just awful. No woman actively chooses to become a prostitute. She does it because she has no other option.

It's exploitative, seedy and I would judge the fuck out of any man - or woman - who thinks it's OK.

(I also judge the fuck out of women who bleat on about sex work being a valid employment choice yadda yadda rather than stepping up and helping women get out of that situation).

You can’t buy consent.

No one has a right to sex.

How much money would it take for the men using prostitutes to have sex with a man they wouldn’t otherwise willingly have sex with?

If all the men using prostitutes are just lovely lonely men, why are so many prostitutes forced to do things they don’t want to, hurt, beaten or killed.

How would you know if someone was forced to be there or not? Many women are forced into it by partners/husbands rather than gangs of human traffickers or pimps.

provided you are sure the person you are having sex with is not being trafficked

And how do you manage that exactly?

Getting paid for that service means they need the money therefore it is not consenting sex because if they don't provide the sex they don't get the cash.

The myth of the happy hooker with a heart of gold providing a service to her clients and having a jolly good time for herself too is a myth. Prostitution harms women.

I would totally judge someone that used prostitutes.
That's not consent.

Re-read your second to last paragraph. See how many times the word ‘use/used’ is in there, in reference to another human being, and have a rethink about how ok you are with that. And if, after thinking about, you’re still ok with that, I doubt anyone here can change your mind to be honest.

There is something very messed up about having sex with someone who doesn’t want to have it with you.

How would you know if someone was forced to be there or not? Many women are forced into it by partners/husbands rather than gangs of human traffickers or pimps.

Also many women forced into it by necessity seeing as they need money to pay rent, buy food, clothe children, etc.

How are you sure the woman hasn't been trafficked?

She does it because she has no other option

I understand some women's reasoning for doing it, however, it is never the only option.

Bought consent isn't true consent. Even if a woman isn't trafficked in that moment, think about the circumstances that may have got her to that point. A very large number of women in prostitution have a history of abuse, chaotic backgrounds and addiction. Any man that pays to penetrate a woman who is literally doing it because she needs money is no better than a rapist IMO.

YABVU.

Women's bodies are not commodities.

Choice is an illusion. There was a great post on that subject in the surrogacy thread.

Also look into the ‘legal red light district’ I think it’s in Liverpool but I could be wrong. Rapes increased, women reported being offered money for men to ‘have time’ with their children, women were assaulted and harassed.

Here is a very short article about some of the issues, there are many more and much longer ones too including some written by residents who live nearby www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/uk/993530/leeds-news-red-light-district-prostitute-prostitution-sex-drugs/amp

First lets be clear men and women both use male and female prositutes. I personally do have a problem with it. But I do not necesserily see a prostitute as hard done by. (But it depends on there situation are they doing it for drugs? Do they have a pimp? Do they walk the streets or in a brothel ect.)

You cant buy consent.

You have this rose tinted idea of poor inexperienced men who just wanna learn how to get good for a girl friend.

What you really get is men who feel entitled to a womans body. Who use prostitutes because they think so little of them that they can make them do all the humiliating painfull disgusting degrading things that someone they arent paying and are supposed to pretend they care about, wont do.

They dont care if they are pimped/trafficked/addicted to drugs etc they dont even care about their jobs either. They are lawyers and cops and everything in between. Power hungry slime balls.

So yes it is a big deal.

Wealthy/comfortably off women do not become prostitutes. Women who kids themselves they are “empowered” by it etc are kidding themselves i’m afraid.

First lets be clear men and women both use male and female prositutes

Where are all these brothels then full of trafficked men for women to buy? Must have missed that.

'First lets be clear men and women both use male and female prositutes'

I'd be interested to learn what the numbers are for men who pay for sex Vs women who pay for sex.

Just so that we are clear.

Well, well, well. Your first post on MN. Who knew?

Here's the superb post on 'choice' by thecatfromjapan

We've gone completely mad over the 'magic' of the word 'choice'.

'Choice' isn't an either/or: in capitalism, it's a sliding scale. 'Choice' is shaded by compulsion and coercion more times than not - explicit, overt, implicit, hidden, fiscal, societal ...

'It was her choice' is one of the most vacuous phrases to be wheeled out in contemporary politics. It's intended as a hammer to bring thinking on a political issue to a close, to assert finality and closure forcefully.

But it's meaningless.

If you truly believe in politics - in the idea that distributions of power are available to analysis and critique, and the implicit, concomitant, belief that such distributions are neither natural nor immutable, and if you further believe in progressive politics (the belief that power distributions can and must change) - it is crazy to foreclose analysis of power distributions through an absolute, non-nuanced ascription of full (not partial, not lacking) 'choice' whenever instances of analysis of people's actions under capitalism/patriarchy/whatever arise.

It's a full-stop in thinking.

If a right-wing authoritarian demanded that we never examine the unfair conditions under which the majority of people labour and live in current society, we'd refuse.

I do not understand, for the life of me, why the Left go happily into alliance with authoritarians and libertarians and ascribe a similar force around the use of the word 'choice'.

So ... on Monday, I will get up and go to work in a job I hate.

Sure, it's a 'choice' - but a limited, circumscribed 'choice'.

It is compelled, and my agency enacted within circumscribed limits.

And, yes, it's a nuanced thing - with many others having worse and better choices.

Why have we given up the idea of nuance and things not being either/or?

It's a completely dysfunctional tendency in modern politics.

I am sure there may be some women who do willing enter the sex industry but I have no idea how you can be sure they are willing.
I suppose if it was made a legal profession and taken off the streets then some level of control could be expected. But I am equally sure even if it was free will it would be a very desperate woman who chose to do it.

You are woefully misinformed and I really don’t understand why you started a thread about this when you are convinced you’re not being unfair