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.

Drinkygin - Given this forum is anonymous and that posters don't have a bio you can read that details all their experiences, how can you possibly know what anyone here knows about or has experience of? Are you simply assuming that because you think that people with experience of something can only have the one opinion of it?

Think the others a bit uptight.

Ah yes, the childish fallacy that if you are against another person's body being bought and used as a wanksock, you must hate all sex. How original, and how utterly bollocks.

And yes, for the record I'm against surrogacy too.

It’s not ‘work’ or an ‘industry’, it’s organised crime.

YES!!! Its absolutely is.

I wince at “using a prostitute” as though she is a slot-machine. You don’t “use” humans. You interact with them. A man doesn’t “use a prostitute” - he has sex with a woman for money.

Could you have sex with someone knowing that they didn't fancy you, didn't even like you, and would probably rather be doing almost anything else than touching your genitals? Does that thought turn you on?

Men who use prostitutes are people that would answer yes to that question.

I know two escorts (prostitutes)

One hated it but did it to pay her way out of horrible debt.

The other really didn’t mind. She would come in to work the next day with hundreds of pounds in her bag. Even shown me her website. She’s married now with two kids.

There are women who don’t mind it or actively seek to do it just for the money.

Having said that I just couldn’t be with a man who had used prostitutes.

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.
Generally, I agree.
Specifically - some sex workers actively choose their career as a valid option. I don't think they'd like to be lectured on their choice, made as grown adults.

(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).
Then you are, in some specific instances, blaming the women themselves, who choose sex work as a valid option & see no need to be offered "help" to get out of it - because this is their active & rational choice.

My chum X, for example, who chooses sex work as a viable method of raising enough money to pay off her mortgage while also supporting her child. Who doesn't even allow her clients to touch her, because she provides a specialist service, where she is in charge, & they pay £170 an hour for the privilege?
X is certainly not being exploited.
X has a business plan & will retire on its proceeds when she chooses.

The sex worker industry is what we should be criticizing here, & the society which has brought it to bear in such unequal & degrading ways - not the minority of women who choose to profit from it, & certainly not the vast majority, who are exploited, demeaned, & unsafe.

Oh so, I am in no way saying that it is OK for women's boyfriends to rape and abuse them so I don't know why someone said that?

Also, I'm reading all the responses but as there's a lot it's hard to really reply. This thread is making me see a different point of view, and although some people have been quite rude about it, I am glad to read the opinions on here from those who are simply trying to educate.

I actually was not aware of how many of these women were victims of childhood sexual abuse, to be honest I'd never even really thought about that, which has made me feel quite sad. I also wasn't for one second saying that it's OK for men to beat up and rape women. Those were, once again, not the men I was talking about, I would have thought that was quite obvious.

The consent thing.. I don't know I understand what you are all saying, but I just don't really agree. And I still don't agree with it being a person's only choice, I am open to your views and having my mind changed, but I can't see my kind changing on that, theres always a different option, barring being trafficked or forced into it.

Soon

I wince at “using a prostitute” as though she is a slot-machine. You don’t “use” humans. You interact with them. A man doesn’t “use a prostitute” - he has sex with a woman for money

That entirely depends if it’s the women’s choice as we know not all woman are doing it out of free will

There are women who don’t mind it or actively seek to do it just for the money.

All the women I knew who found it relatively easy (and I knew hundreds of women all over London in my time) were the ones who had been abused as children and were able to effectively dissociate from their situation at will. It was a learned skill, to not give a fuck about sexually servicing a man you wouldn’t even have a drink with in your normal day to day,

Sorry loureeddododo I think my post may have conveyed the wrong message.

I abhor prostitution and men who pay for sex. The term “using” just adds to my impression.

Disabled people have no more right to sex than able-bodied people.

Which is none.

There are women who don’t mind it or actively seek to do it just for the money.

and

Specifically - some sex workers actively choose their career as a valid option. I don't think they'd like to be lectured on their choice, made as grown adults.

Honestly? I don't give a fuck if they don't like to be lectured. Their 'choice' harms other women, harms women as a class. It sends a message that women are there to be commodified by men and to service men. It leads to situations such as that in Holbeck in Leeds, where women and children going about their daily business are propositioned by men assuming they must be prostitutes. It feeds rape culture and the belief that too many men hold that they have a right to sex whenever and however they want it, so long as they have the cash to rent a body.

Not every choice made by an individual woman is automatically empowering, feminist or harmless just because it is a woman making it.

#NordicModelNow

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

And in the fairness of balance, did she have a trafficked sex worker on? A drug addicted sex worker? A sex worker who has suffered trauma growing up at the hands of males?

Or was it just articulate, well-educated women?

If the podcast also talks about the horrific, traumatic side of prostitution, I might listen to it.

Go back and read catinjapans post about choice. Really read it.

Choice is a construct designed to end thinking.

"Choice" is influenced by and depends on other determination factors.

Consent is taken away when sex is paid for. It is not consent. The whole reason that the same encounter wouldn't happen if no money was involved.

You're imagining a scenario where "Katy fancies a new bag and do the friendly, wouldn't harm a fly guy, Peter is offering her £50 for a quick bunk up round at her nice bungalow. Nice gentle guy he is". You're doing that to justify it to yourself.

That's not what is happening. Not even close. You should get your head around it and help your friend to do the same.

I can’t express myself as articulately as many PP have done but because there is no voting button I’ve just come on to say YABU.

Their 'choice' harms other women, harms women as a class. It sends a message that women are there to be commodified by men and to service men

Hear bloody hear.

@DuLANGMondeFOREVER I agree with your entire post.

Even if we said though 99% of prostitutes has no history of abuse or rape, weren’t forced into it weren’t trafficked into it etc. Does that make it ok?

If someone lined up 100 men in front of me and said you can have sex with whichever one you want, however one doesn’t want to be here/has no choice but to be here/was beaten until he agreed to be here/is here because he needs the money and we’re paying him/is here because he feels that is all he’s worth but don’t worry he will act like he’s enjoying it, I wouldn’t have sex with any of them incase I chose the one who didn’t want it! How is this even an argument.

If sex work is just work then you will have no objection to young boys and girls doing it for work experience I assume?

If sex work is work then write the Person Specification and Job Description and see what it looks like.

Go online and find the sites where men write reviews of the women they have just abused. It will make you vomit and dispel any ideas that this is a benign 'business' where consenting adults have sex with each other and one just gives the other money.

FrogsFrogs the reason why I compare the two is because they are both controversial, some people are very much against it, some are not.
Make abortion illegal and it will happen in horrible conditions, as was the case in the past.
In short, you can't stop it altogether ( personally I am glad abortions can be done safely and legally in this country).
I don't think you can stop prostitution either, and like I said , I really don't know enough at the moment to decide whether making it legal would also make it safer.
I will say though, that I feel abortion is a necessity.
Prostitution isn't.

‘sex work’ (I abhor that phrase) will never be normal ‘work’ because the prostitutes would all have to wear hazmat suits and body armour to pass a Health and Safety in the workplace assessment and all the punters would have to be DBS checked!

There is absolutely no comparison between having someone put a body part into your body and jobs like cleaning gutters and anyone who makes that comparison is either an idiot or so devoid of human feeling that there must be something more serious going on with them. Cleaning gutters is an unpleasant job but it is nowhere near the same as a person going into a room with (usually) a taller, stronger person in order to allow that person to interact with the most sensitive, most personal parts of their body, with a very high potential for pain and injury. Even if the client is the nicest person ever, it's still a fact that the interaction has involved the most intimate acts known to humans, acts that we don't tell children about because they are too complex and sensitive for them to understand. Anyone who says that in sex work those acts suddenly become straightforward, easy to do with anyone with no repercussions is clearly full of shit.

Prostitution is the ultimate exploitation.

It's not a vocation, it's a rock bottom option option that comes from being in a position of a hard horrible choice.

It's also tells us a lot about the hearts and minds of men who get off on this power dynamic.

I would add that if you are a woman who accepts that prostitution is inevitable and that we should therefore facilitate it by making it legal/setting it up as a proper job, then I think you have an extreme level of internalised misogyny. It is actually possible for you to say 'I don't accept this and never will' as an expression of your own self-respect and your respect for other women, even if you think men will continue to disregard women and treat them like commodities. Giving in to it is the ultimate act of self-erasure - you can't even claim your rights as a theoretical idea, never mind in reality.

I would add that if you are a woman who accepts that prostitution is inevitable and that we should therefore facilitate it by making it legal/setting it up as a proper job, then I think you have an extreme level of internalised misogyny.

Men would be doing it too if it was a proper job.