To end a friendship due to his use of sex workers?

[Cornishjam1162]

It has recently come to light that a friend of 15 years is a regular customer of sex workers. We have always wondered why he never wanted to date again after getting a divorce and now it makes sense. I would have never had him down as the type and I'm shocked to say the least. I don't know the circumstances behind why the women do that line of work but there's always the risk that they're not doing it out of their own free will isn't there? I feel like he could well be exploiting vulnerable women.

Would you end a friendship over this? Am I being too judgemental?

I've ended a friendship over this. This was a vegetarian, Green-voting Union member. I expected so much better from him! Turns out it wasn't just him but a few of my other male friends too. I dropped the entire friendship circle.

I was forced into prostitution. I had a boyfriend who turned out to only want me for what I could earn him. He had me working in brothels, where anyone could turn up, pick a girl and fuck her.

He had me working for agencies, where anyone could pick me off an online menu, and a driver would take me to him. Drivers weren't to protect the women, they were to protect the money.

He had me on adultwork, and he waited in the living room whilst they fucked me in the bedroom.
I had to tell every man I loved it. It was my idea. Nobody was forcing me. Etc etc.

There's reviews of me on ukpunting- want to read them, I can link them. They all thought I was there of my own free will. They all thought I was clean and sober- I was an addict.

The brothels and agencies KNEW I was being forced, but they didn't care. They liked it because it meant I couldn't turn anyone down and they made more money.

There's videos of me being raped on pornhub. They won't take them down.

I am never, ever going to be free of it.

I couldn't be friends with him either OP. I never met a woman who did it because she loved it. I met a lot of women who had been tricked into it, or trafficked, or were desperate. Some might but to be very honest, I don't care about them. For every one of them there's a thousand of me.

I immediately cut contact with two male friends when they revealed that they were buying sex.

Yes, unreasonable in my view. I do think it's a legitimate decision for women to be sex workers, and you don't know the circumstances of the women your friend is paying.

But it's an ethical and individual decision for you. I could not be proper friends with Daily Mail readers, brexit believers or deeply religious people

On what planet is reading the daily mail or voting for Brexit analogous to exploiting trafficked and addicted women for sex?

BelperLawnmower · 15/05/2022 12:57

"I could not be proper friends with Daily Mail readers, brexit believers or deeply religious people"

I suspect they wouldn't want to be friends with a bigot either

Making judgements about other people's ethical choices, and choosing who you want to be friends with - I don't fancy a friendship with any of them.

I once had a male ‘friend’ who admitted he used sex workers in the past. A few months later he told me he didn’t like having sex with his girlfriend but stayed in the relationship because he didn’t want to lose her (the practical benefits of the relationship actually). He then told me that he did feel sexually attracted to me. I stopped seeing him after that. It’s always a certain type of man who uses sex workers. I should have listened to my gut feeling and have ended the relationship after that first confession.

Assuming this isn't merely a specious excuse, what about all the sex workers who are unwilling?

This would seriously change my viewpoint on him for the worse and I'd never see him in the same light again. I find men who use sex workers pathetic. I'd also let the friendship slide.

No, I wouldn't end my friendship with him
What he spends his time and money on is nothing to do with me.

I wouldn't be a friend- no

Vampire thank you for posting this, I admire your bravery. I'm also really sorry this happened to you. I hope people like you speak up more. I too have heard the ridiculous "many women like it/like the money" bs thing too many times now, it really make me angry as it's clearly bullshit. I even know one woman directly who claims the same thing, I'm doing it willingly, it's fine etc. Except she was seriously sexually abused as a child, grew up in abusive foster care and has had a very traumatic and difficult lifem she is clearly very damaged and vulnerable and, whilst she thinks she's doing it willingly, any outsider can see she is being used by her 'boyfriend' who is clearly her pimp. She doesn't have normal emotional boundaries or responses due to the abuse she has suffered.

I hope you are out of that situation now and please be assured that there are many, many women out there, the vast majority I believe, who see prostitution for the terrible abuse of women (and a few young men) that it is and that is what I am teaching my son's.

Doing a job solely for the money describes probably 95% of jobs people do. That doesn't make it coercion.

How is that an argument? Would anyone do any kind of difficult or unsavoury job if they could get the same pay for easier work? In fact would anyone do any work if they could get that pay for being eg a chocolate taster?

That's the nature of work, the harder it is or the harder it is to find workers, the more people get paid. I'm pretty sure most sex workers could get a job that has 10-12 hour shifts for minimum wage. But they choose to do sex work because the pay is so much higher.

Not to mention tax free, but that's another topic.

JammyThing · 15/05/2022 15:23

"Assuming this isn't merely a specious excuse, what about all the sex workers who are unwilling?"

If they aren't willing then they're slaves not workers. Most people in the UK who are in the sex industry are there because they chose to be.

Absolute bullshit.

Look for the agenda people.

This argument just goes round and round inconclusively.

I think it boils down to the fact that some people just disapprove of any sex work from a conservative prudish point of view but prefer to justify it from a feminist perspective, that no woman can ever truly give consent for cash.

(The same thing happens on threads about drugs. Some people have a conservative moral objection to recreational drug use in itself (which is usually at odds with their own use of alcohol) but prefer to point to problems with the supply chain as a more convenient explanation.)

He can't know for certain, but he ought to. The majority of prostitutes are coerced. Even in areas where naive/thick/selfish people fondly imagine are oh so enlightened, forward-thinking & sex positive, like Amsterdam's red light district.

Send him a copy of Sarah Forsythe's book OP.
www.amazon.co.uk/Slave-Girl-Sarah-Forsyth/dp/1844546853

If he can invest time in non-consensually buying access to women's bodies, but refuses to invest a couple of hours in reading her book - you have your answer: he's a cunt who is not interested in women's minds, let alone their rights, & only cares about getting his rocks off.

Most people in the UK who are in the sex industry are there because they chose to be.

Citation please @misssatan?
Or an apology for inventing that specious 'fact' - either will do.

Here's the UK picture:
www.streetlight.uk.com/the-facts/
"When asked if they would like to leave prostitution, 9 out of 10 women said YES."

And from the so called "safe" capital of sex work:
"As Amsterdam began shutting down its legal brothels a few years ago, Mayor Job Cohen acknowledged that the Dutch had been wrong about legal prostitution. It did not make prostitution safer. Instead, he said, legal prostitution increased organised crime. It functioned like a magnet for pimps and punters. Trafficking increased after legal prostitution 80 per cent of women in Dutch prostitution have been trafficked."

I’d cut him off dead and never speak to him again.

Really? Can you back that up?

Also, I'm curious. How would OP's friend be able to tell which of the women he was paying (or paying for) are sex workers (according to your definition) and which are slaves (according to your definition)?

Most men love sex and love making money. Yet they don't prostitute themselves.

Why?

Because the vast majority of their 'clients' would be male.

I spent 4 hours with a man the other day, we chatted for 3 1/2 hours of that and had sex for maybe 15 minutes. I got £500 for those 4 hours 🤷‍♀️ why would I want a career when I can make £1000 in a day from spending most of my day just talking?

So your typical client just wants to 'talk' and is prepared to spend hundreds of quid for that? Your repartee must be sublimely witty.

Or you're not telling us the full truth.

The error in the statistical analysis of the 9/10 is that it does not state how many people were asked.