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’s true that a punter might be paying for a cheery nymphomaniac who loves their job. It’s a hell of a lot more likely, however, that they’re paying for a poor woman who has been abused at some point in her life and would rather be doing anything else but feels trapped. And how would you know? It’s the latter’s job to act like the former.

There are lots of jobs in society people wouldn't do if given a free choice. This doesn't make it acceptable, but it is a fact of living in an unequal society. I hated my job in a care home (nothing wrong with being a carer, it was just an awful home with a nasty manager), I didn't purposefully choose it, but it was better than the alternatives of unemployment or an even worse paid 0 hour contract cleaning job.

This is exactly the trouble with the rebranding of prostitution as "sex work". It becomes thought of as just another rubbish job. It's not a job, it's the sexual exploitation of women.

Take the caring job you mention - you have to manage other people's bodily fluids, and because it's a job you get gloves, face masks and washing facilities to manage the risk. You are protected by health and safety legislation. No job would require what is required of people in the sex trade.

As a hca, who has been shit on, pissed on, sneezed on, purposely spat on, I've had an elderly woman fart in my face and laugh, I've had a woman ask me to stick my finger up her bum and pull her poop out because she was constipated (don't even ask because I really don't know), and so much more. I can honestly say, I'd take all of that any day over sucking the cock of any man I didn't really want to.

I suppose I did have this idea of the 'happy hooker' as others have pointed out. And while there are some and we all know it, I can sort of see now from this thread that, that idea is quite flawed.

Caring is a tough job. But if someone stuck their fingers up your nose, in your mouth, or god forbid in your vagina, it would be considered to be unacceptable and possibly assault. You would not be asked to tolerate it. In 'sex work' the whole point is for someone to stick things in your body. That fundamental difference is absolutely key.

Cheeseandwin5

I don’t agree with prostitution but in terms of what a prostitute does with her money that is her choice. I don’t think criminalising prostitutes is right, it’s the punters and the pimps that I would target.
It’s more that very few “successful” prostitutes are truly benefiting from the money they earn or they are paying a very high price for it. Also the drivers that drive them to prostitution may be utterly destructive and the trauma of prostitution magnified that.

magnifies

Yes, and a lot of prostitutes would also happily take a job as a carer too over that...but what you are failing to understand OP is that not every woman has the option of getting care work or any other work. As I’ve previously mentioned, what is a woman with a criminal record and no qualifications supposed to do?

, I don't have a need to

Haven't you just answered your own question, OP?

You don't NEED to.
You are not at rock bottom looking for the only options to get money.
In other words it's not really a choice at all is it?!

It’s no different than selling my brain to my employer.

If you think of sex as only a bodily function, that you are protected by employment rights and provided with the protective gear necessary to remain healthy, and without any emotion involved and that every sex interaction gives you nothing but pleasure and never any pain nor discomfort or risk ...

@justasking111 here's a good one

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/AMA/3662207-I-used-to-be-a-prostitute-AMA?pg=1&order=

Having lived in both Germany and The Netherlands women choosing to sell sex is normal and is heavily regulated. As long as the women have freedom of choice then its up to them.

Sadly, it seems that there is a great deal of concern that a high proportion of the 80% of sex workers in Amsterdam that are immigrants are trafficking victims. So, really, this model is not working either.

I'm talking about the difference between dancing on stage in front of a group of people and having an intimate interaction, usually in a private room, with one other person.

In my experience, these kinds of jobs aren’t real/are unsustainable. Dancers have to pay a nightly house fee to the club, and you can’t make enough via stage dances to come out with a profit over the whole week (no one* is allowed to just work Friday/Saturday, you have to do your fair share of the quiet nights to be rota’d on for the money making nights).
It’s a spiral. You start out thinking you can just dance on the stage and by the time you find out how it all really works, you’ve already danced near-naked and gone home in debt to the management. Then it’s a kind of emotional sunk costs fallacy - you’ve made the mental leap and danced topless in front of strange men, now you want to make some actual money out of it. It’s hard to stop at this point, walk away, get a bar job, whatever. You’ve seen with your own eyes that some girls make big money in the club, you’ve just got to get over the next mental hurdle and do some private dancers. It’s like a whirlpool, you think you are in control, but it turns out you are on the edges, you get sucked down into the home whether you intended it or not.

(*well, you might be allowed to only work weekends, but likely you’ll have to do sexual favours/freebies for the management in return)

Aragog regardless of the reasons you came to the decision, regardless of how fucked your life is, whether you are addicted to drugs or trying to feed your kids, you are still choosing prostitution as a means to get by. There is help out there if people look for it, there are other ways to get by, if you want it enough. But if you don't, and you feel it's easier to prostitute yourself, you are still choosing to do so.

Look that's my opinion, you don't have to agree with it, as I said, I don't judge the women who do it, and I understand their reasons completely, I've already said that. But just because I understand doesn't mean I'll lie and say that I believe they had no other choice. If that was the case, everyone in a bad situation would turn to prostitution. But they don't. They choose not to.

Yep. A failed DBS check rules you out of even the lowest paid caring jobs, and If you are in the prostitution racket it’s easy to pick up a caution for soliciting or drug possession.

*Having lived in both Germany and The Netherlands women choosing to sell sex is normal and is heavily regulated. As long as the women have freedom of choice then its up to them.
*
Sorry but that's just so naive. I've read so many accounts of trafficked women working as prostitutes in Amsterdam. There are trafficking gangs operating that terrorise their victims so they're not able to leave. (I work with a charity project supporting Central Asian victims of trafficking.

And these Central Asian trafficking victims don't have a choice, OP. When they're freed and go back home, they're shamed by their communities and thus the only work available is, hardly surprisingly, prostitution. That's what the project I'm involved with is about, training women from those communities to help these women learn a trade so they don't have to sell their bodies.

Mittens030869 OK but as I've said multiple times, I'm not talking about trafficked women, of course they don't have a choice.

I agree. If both parties are consenting I don't have a problem with it.

I had a friend who was a working girl. She did what she did because it suited her - her other options were things like cleaning or checkout jobs as she had no qualifications. She was quite happy with doing it and set her own hours and expectations. She wasnt a back alley STI type though so maybe that is different. She just saw it as providing a service just like any other service industry.

I know what you are saying OP. I feel like I would be more likely to go on the rob if I was really desperate-and benefit sanctions can make people really desperate.
But you can't look at the "choice" of prostitution as one made in a neutral way. What I mean is, say you are in a desperate situation and need to feed your kids. You are much more likely to sell your body if you have already experienced the dehumanising effects of abuse, or have been used by men from an early age. Very few grown up women who have never tried prostitution before would choose that UNLESS they have been "primed" already by their life experiences. Prostitution is merely a continuation of abuse. I wouldn't have said that in my 20s btw, but older and wiser I can see the bigger picture.
And actually, most prostitutes have been doing it off an in since their early teens and NEVER made an informed grown up choice.

As you say, OP, your friend "uses" prostitutes. Does your OH use you when I'm the mood? Like a Kleenex? Or have you got something less transactional going on?

back alley STI type
I beg your pardon??

I don't think paying for consent is moral.

There is help out there if people look for it, there are other ways to get by, if you want it enough.

For the third time: what are these other ways?

If both parties are truly consenting - I have no issue at all with it. I have a friend who is a sex worker, and a friend who buys the services of sex workers (£300 per hr!), though they apprently do not know each other. I assume they would not tell me if they did!! They are both very happy with their choices.