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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:
Deathgrip · 05/02/2020 12:39

If consent is bought, it’s not consent IMV.

Of course I’m sure there are a small number of women who have many other options and would choose sex work over all of them. If the only women in the industry were those women, I’d have less of a problem. But that will never be the case, and I believe the choice is never made in a vacuum.

BurneyFanny · 05/02/2020 12:40

Giving two examples of disabled people with sex lives does not negate the fact that many others don't. I think this is an interesting read: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/10/sex-workers-disabled-people

Hoik · 05/02/2020 12:41

But people wouldn't consent to a LOT of things if money was not involved. Would not consent to rubbing strangers bodies (massage therapists), clearing someone's gutters, delivering someone's post....

Massage therapists, postmen, window cleaners, etc have employment rights, health and safety protections, holidays, sick leave, and so on. They also have the right of refusal to provide their services to customers who are abusive or who pose a danger to them, they also have the option to walk away from their job and find another.

Melroses · 05/02/2020 12:41

Using anybody is beyond the pale. YABU.

And what everyone else said about needs.

Drabarni · 05/02/2020 12:43

I agree with you OP, but there's only 19% of us.
Think the others a bit uptight. Grin

FeedThemFlumps · 05/02/2020 12:43

So, OP, if you follow the train of thought that says women always have another option, know they have another option and so prostitution is 100% a choice, made by otherwise healthy women - then why don't more women from happy, healthy childhoods who are 100% a-okay with their lives make this 'choice'? Why is the industry over represented by vulnerable people with abusive backgrounds, debt problems, drug problems?

Surely if it's just a choice like any other, then all sectors of society would be proportionately represented?

DuLANGMondeFOREVER · 05/02/2020 12:43

Thanks, Arya - it’s a long time ago and I was very young and shielded by that false sense of invincibility that youth provides. Sometimes it seems more like a film I watched than I life I led. It’s honestly a surprise to me that I wasn’t found dead under a Mayfair club ‘s fire escape or similar.

I would’ve argued argued to the death that it was consensual at the time, but the truth is you are groomed into thinking it’s a normal choice and only when looking back you see how fucked up it really is.

IfNot · 05/02/2020 12:44

Also to the PPs disagreeing with all sex work- lap dancing etc, you are totally clueless and are arguing about something you have no experience or knowledge of.

You are wrong. All kinds of people, with all kinds of past stories post on MN.

IndefatigableMouse · 05/02/2020 12:45

If you say people with disabilities should have access to prostitutes that is no different to saying anyone should. No one has a right to sex.

And so what if there’s one happy sex worker in a hundred - no punter knows who he is getting so it’s the same as ‘using’ the unhappy ones every time.

Hoik · 05/02/2020 12:45

Yes, its soooooo uptight to believe that women's bodies are not commodities Hmm

norealshepherds · 05/02/2020 12:45

I think it’s grim, but everyone’s different

crustycrab · 05/02/2020 12:45

Burney that is not an "interesting read". It's a load of romanticised twaddle. Have you even thought about the "sex worker".

The last paragraph says it all. Vile.....

I really love the idea of sex workers giving disabled people the chance to be touched in a non-medical way, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to be held in a warm pair of arms and have their sexual dreams respected and lived out.

PositiveVibez · 05/02/2020 12:45

suppose if it was made a legal profession and taken off the streets then some level of control could be expected

Oh like in Amsterdam - where this hasn't worked at all. Trafficked women now make up 70-80% of sex workers in Amsterdam and the mayor who advocated for it has now changed her mind and is trying to change the original 'lets legalise, it will be great' stance.

drinkygin · 05/02/2020 12:47

@IfNot no I’m not wrong.

NameChange84 · 05/02/2020 12:48

Plus this part of the article was particularly sad from the sex workers point of view;

“When I took a sex worker down to a residential place for severely disabled people for the staff to experience what a sex worker is like, they asked her what she would do if a client bashed her over the head with his uncontrollable arm, or threw up over her and she replied: "I would duck the arm and I would clear up the vomit, that's part of what I do: clearing up excrement".”

Yes I gave two examples, but two examples of people who are relatively well known. I know many more in real life as I taught children and adults with disabilities for many years. I also had a relationship with a disabled man.

I stand by my point. NO ONE IS ENTITLED TO SEX.

Eemamc · 05/02/2020 12:48

Sara Pascoe has a very interesting podcast talking with sex workers. One of the ladies, amongst other things, specialises in working with disabled clients. They are well educated, articulate sex workers who have made an active choice in how they want to live their lives. One is a qualified teacher for example, but chooses to be a sex worker instead. I’d recommend a listen.

MummyJasmin · 05/02/2020 12:49

YABVU

RunForBurritos · 05/02/2020 12:51

Prostitution, very much like abortion, will happen whether illegal or not. I have always wondered if really, it wouldn't be in the sex workers' interests to make it legal and regulate it, to protect their rights etc.
I also realise that it is a very complex topic that I don't know much about.

I can understand why your friend doesn't want his wife to know. Frankly, if I were the wife I would definitely not want to know.

Having said that, I will absolutely not call him scum. Nor will I judge anyone who uses porn, and God knows many people do judge that.

Abraid2 · 05/02/2020 12:51

The way I think about this is, how would I feel if my daughter told me she was selling her vagina to men.

And this gives me an immediate answer.

SarahTancredi · 05/02/2020 12:51

I hope those who dont find it a big deal never end up trapped in a situation themselves or have to watch while their sisters or daughters get sucked in to the seedy underworld.

We already know that the problems with universal credit, problems created by the designer of the bloody system itself and all out of the recipients control are driving women to drastic measures.

Look how many threads there have been on MN where exs refuse to pay for their kids or suddenly reduce their payments leaving the resident parents in the shit

Not everyone has family and those who do well your elderly parents wont be around forever and what if your sister meets someone and moves to Dubai or Australia or wherever.

None of us know what's around the corner. None of us know we wont be a victim of some horrid accident that renders us unable to work or so severely traumatised they turn to drugs or alcohol and have to fund an addiction.

IfNot · 05/02/2020 12:52

@IfNot no I’m not wrong.

You said that all these posters who are against the sex industry don't know what they are talking about because they have no experience of it.
Well, I'm telling you that you are wrong because, at the very least, 4 of the posters DO have experience.

Redyellowpink · 05/02/2020 12:52

Regardless of whether the woman 'consents' to it at the time...OP do you honestly believe that this won't have a long term impact on her psychologically? Has anyone made this point yet? sorry haven't rtwt

DuLANGMondeFOREVER · 05/02/2020 12:52

It was phone sex followed by dancing jobs (back then it was ‘table dancing’ rather than ‘pole dancing’) that groomed me into thinking prostitution was normal. All the other girls did it, so being the one that didn’t go on ‘cases’ made me the weirdo. Eventually, you give in and once you’ve done it once it becomes harder to resist in future.
It’s a seedy underworld that preys on youth and insecurity and vulnerability. It’s not ‘work’ or an ‘industry’, it’s organised crime.

And I was a fancy London club girl, not a street worker giving hand jobs for crack money. The happy hooker is a myth, because even if you feel ok about it at the time, the experience leaves you mistrustful and prone to disassociation.

catlady3 · 05/02/2020 12:52

My issue is more with the societal structures that lead women to "choose" prostitution as their best option, because often, it seems to be the only viable option. So sure, it's a choice, but it's not much of a choice usually.

FrogsFrogs · 05/02/2020 12:53

Comparing prostitution to abortion is pretty Hmm