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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

665 replies

Hihothedairyo · 05/02/2020 11:40

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.

OP posts:
NameChange84 · 05/02/2020 18:48

My statement is not completely false. I am Irish.

gypsywater · 05/02/2020 18:49

Give it up OP Grin

Original poster
Hihothedairyo · 05/02/2020 18:51

Well then you should know better, everyone gets social welfare, regardless of how much taxes you have paid. As I said, I know plenty of people who have litreally never worked, my brother in law being one and my brother being another. They each get almost 200 a week. So yes your statement is false.

OP posts:
Pumperthepumper · 05/02/2020 18:53

as I said, if you take that 200 plus quid a week and still turn to prostitution, that is a choice you made. It's that simple. I'm done talking to you now, you're just saying the same thing over and over again. It's boring.

Why would you though? If that was enough? How is that a choice? And if you have to do it as well as claiming benefits, how is that an alternative to prostitution?

I can see why this is boring for you - you can’t answer, because you know you’re wrong.

I wonder how far you would go to feed your children or to keep your home, if the £200 wasn’t enough - there might be women reading this who were hoping to get an idea of all these other options you were insisting exist. Help them out!

Winesalot · 05/02/2020 18:54

LittleSweet I am very sorry to hear this and I apologise if I have offended you. However, you really cannot compare the provision of a service from Pysch or anyone providing a service where they have rights and should have security and protection and should be enjoying their job (and if they don't they have the freedom to do something about it) to transactional sex.

However, I think we probably agree on most of your previous post and I think I now get what you were saying. And as you say, it is ALL about the degree of control in that situation.

TheBigFatMermaid · 05/02/2020 18:56

I think it depends on your definition of choosing to do it. I would say a mother, who find the benefits do not buy a flat screen TV and a goat for the garden may feel it is the only way she can provide sufficiently for her children. I don't call that a choice!

Mummyshark2019 · 05/02/2020 18:57

Prostitutes are revolting. Men who use them are even more revolting. If it is not illegal, it should be.

Warsawa31 · 05/02/2020 18:58

I’ve never visited a prostitute and personally I don’t feel money entitles me to someone’s body. There is no way of telling if the person has been trafficked or is a drug user etc etc

However, EVERYONE does things for money that they wouldn’t otherwise do. Thinking of a dangerous legal job , What about miners who risk their lives and bodies for the pay or power line workers like me? I could, and have known several people, be electrocuted in some cases fatally. We wouldn’t be up there risking our lives for free. So don’t pretend that money doesn’t buy consent, it’s literally the basis for a free market.

If someone, of either sex, chooses of their own free will to offer sex for money, they should be able to do it in safety and have the full backing of law and the community whilst they do it.

I do not respect anyone who uses prostitutes and it would better if we lived in a world where people didnt do it. But we don’t

brieislife · 05/02/2020 19:00

*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 ...*

I don’t think the pain/pleasure thing is a fair statement. I don’t get any pleasure from my work. And don’t really expect to. And past jobs have indeed left me in physical pain.

Re. the separating of emotions from sex, I do think it’s possible for some people. I’ve certainly slept with people I wasn’t emotionally attached to in any way, and don’t feel any less of a person because of it.

I think the bit about health & safety protections, employment rights etc. falls into my second paragraph which you didn’t quite where I said that unless safety can be guaranteed (which it can’t) then prostitution is unacceptable.

brieislife · 05/02/2020 19:01

quote

mbosnz · 05/02/2020 19:02

Prostitutes are revolting

I don't know how you can say that.

I had a situation where a prostitute, when I was young and silly, and walking home alone, tight as a drum one NYE, insisted on me taking her money and making me get a taxi home.

People become prostitutes for many reasons, and many different types of people become prostitutes. This does not make them inherently revolting.

Thelnebriati · 05/02/2020 19:10

brieislife
Re. the separating of emotions from sex, I do think it’s possible for some people. I’ve certainly slept with people I wasn’t emotionally attached to in any way, and don’t feel any less of a person because of it.

Thats not comparable to having to sleep with 20 random men every night, it it.

RunForBurritos · 05/02/2020 19:11

Bananabixflox I am the one who wondered this out loud, and I didn't think of that.
You are absolutely right, that wouldn't be okay at all.
But surely there are jobs that people can turn down because they personally object to them? To do with meat if you don't eat it ? I imagine that stripper is not a job people are expected to consider either?
As I said , I know nothing on this and this thread has been very informative. The Amsterdam example has been quoted several times on here. It sounds like it doesn't work either.

Original poster
Hihothedairyo · 05/02/2020 19:11

Pumperthepumper I'm done talking to you because you can't accept that I don't have to have the same opinion as you, and I'm not going to keep on arguing my stance over and over again. As for helping women, why don't you? You seem very invested, especially considering this was not even what I started the thread about in the first place.

And once again, not once did I say I judged women for doing this, not once did I say that I believe they are dirty or wrong or that I don't understand their reasonings for making the choice to do sex work. And I sympathise with all of that, my point is, it is still a choice, as are most roads in life. 8f you can't accept other people's opinions, you shouldn't be on here.

OP posts:
motherheroic · 05/02/2020 19:12

Prostitiues are survival sex workers. You don't walk the streets late at night willingly risking assault, rape or even murder unless you are desperate.

RunForBurritos · 05/02/2020 19:13

To clarify, I am talking about an hypothetical where prostitution would be seen as a regular job and therefore suggested to jobseekers as a valid option.
Which of course it isn't.

NameChange84 · 05/02/2020 19:14

Actual Jobseekers Benefit in Ireland is ABSOLUTELY based on previous contributions. Jobseekers Allowance on the other hand is not contribution based but has more criteria in order to qualify for it. Unfortunately, I had a relative who met neither criteria and was not able to be helped with social welfare. Luckily they had family to step in and pay their mortgage.

You must be blind if you can’t see the current problems with homelessness in our major cities. Have you not seen the images in the paper of the elderly and small children reliant on food from street based charities in Dublin? You do realise that there are people who fall through the cracks even in Ireland?

Original poster
Hihothedairyo · 05/02/2020 19:15

Not all prostitutes walk the streets. I'm face I'd imagine most of them aren't standing on street corners trying to jump into cars.

OP posts:
Thelnebriati · 05/02/2020 19:15

Hihothedairyo
Walk along the street; you have to have sex with the first 20 men you see. They will each give you £20 so its OK.

Do that for a few months then report back.

OnlyTheTitOfTheLangBerg · 05/02/2020 19:16

The mindset that allows prostitution to be more-or-less socially acceptable/tolerated is revolting. Punters who respect women so little as to prioritise their orgasm over everything else, including whether the woman has been trafficked into the situation she’s now in, are revolting. Prostitutes are not revolting.

Pumperthepumper · 05/02/2020 19:16

It’s surely not an opinion that they have other choices - they do or they don’t. I say they don’t. You say they do, but can’t name any other choice.

So let’s hear the other choices you say exist.

Original poster
Hihothedairyo · 05/02/2020 19:17

NameChange84 as a matter of face, I'm well aware of our homeless crisis, considering this time 2 years ago I was homeless with a 5 week old baby. I'm actually still on homeless hap. So thanks, but I know exactly what's going on in this country, and I know that prostitution is an option, but it's not the only option.

OP posts:
Original poster
Hihothedairyo · 05/02/2020 19:18

Jesus my phone keeps autocorrect ING fact to face..

OP posts:
yabadabadontdoit · 05/02/2020 19:18

Prostitutes are revolting
I find that statement revolting. Prostitutes are human beings, someone’s daughter, sister, friend, who has ended up, either through no choice of their own or through bad choices leading to no choices, in such a desperate situation that they spend their lives having sex with men they would not choose to, to survive.

WaggleWiggle · 05/02/2020 19:18

I judge men that use them. I can’t imagine reaching an orgasm with someone that I know is having sex with me purely to get money. It’s the grimmest, saddest, most desperate thing I can think of. I may feel sorry for a man who does it - perhaps a widower who is desperate for anything like intimacy, for example - but I still feel that the act of paying for sex is degrading. It doesn’t matter if both parties consent. The degradation comes from buying access to another person because they won’t give it to you voluntarily.