I have quite strong views on prostitution

[Tonight1]

Not at all about the women, just that I would not want to date a habitual user! Or punter as they're called. And yes this came up recently.

This is discussion about how you would feel about it?

AIBU - wouldn't mind
YANBU - would mind

No decent man uses prostitutes.

I don't like the idea of dating a man whose had casual sex like one night stands, prostitution puts them firmly in the never touching with a bargepole category.

Yup. This.

I think she reconciled that with the £400 an hour she was getting or the equivalent of nearly £3000 she netted for an “ all nighter”. And I know a number of jobs that cause irritation and soreness : you should have seen my face after wearing PPE for hours on end.

I couldn't do it. I watched a documentary on it a while ago and a poor woman who had chosen to do it as a job recounted how she had been raped, beaten and had clients refuse to wear condoms. She basically said men feel they can do anything because they're paying for it. Even if a man isn't one of the bad one's, I wouldn't risk it.

Two consenting adults agreeing to an ONS, I view as different.

I wouldn't take £400/hour if cystitis was the consequence.

And recall that most prostituted women aren't graduates taking £400/hour, they are trafficked from places like Romania or groomed into it as children and the pimps get the money, or they are having vaginal sex for as little as £4 on Sheil Road. And they are at the same risk of cystitis and vaginal irritation and pregnancy and STIs as the £400/hour women.

PPE has a purpose: to protect you and others from catching COVID. Remind me what great and worthy purpose is served by prostitution? Oh yes, of course, men orgasming... which they could do by themselves.

Exactly. The problem with prostitution isn't the behaviour of the prostituted, it's the male behaviour that is granted implicit approval when we accept men buying women.

Consent cannot be purchased and I wouldn't go near a man who thought it could be

Sorry, have been preoccupied and tired today. Will read through and respond tomorrow

I would argue that purchased consent is not truly consent.

If you wouldn't shag him without him giving you money, then it's not sex that you want, is it?

I'll repeat: "The problem with prostitution isn't the behaviour of the prostituted [women], it's the male behaviour that is granted implicit approval when we accept men buying women."

As you say, punters are bizarre.

Some women are unlucky in terms of their tendency to get cystitis. I envy you that you are not one.

Yeah but if my mate asked me to do their nails, or help them move house or something, and I went, "Urg I really don't want to but I will" and they said, "thanks you rock" that would be OK. If someone wanted a shag and I said the same, they should say, "no, you tell you when you're horny". Sex is just different.

It's not about it being sex. It's about how the men behave and think about and talk about the women. A lot of what punters say on UKpunting.net is awful.

I don't think this poster was lying.

If everything worked out ok for you and the men didn't hit you and always used condoms then that's great, I'm really glad for you that you had that excellent luck. And I'm being sincere when I say that I'm glad for you because Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell, Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, and Annette Nicholls were all murdered by the same guy who was, or pretended to be, a punter.

If abortion was banned, and you were still a prostitute, and a punter got you pregnant, how would that work out for you?

Do you not recall Savita Halappanavar dying because she was denied an abortion to clear a septic miscarriage? And the four other women listed here who have died because of abortion restrictions?

No woman benefits from abortion restrictions.

I do not have a problem with women having sex. I have a problem with how the men who buy it treat women. I cannot be clearer than that.

The arguments about how women can get sex from any man on OLD are such a red herring (putting aside the fact that both men and women are capable of using their own hands and/or toys if an orgasm is all they need).

It might be the case for straight women but I’m a lesbian and cannot just log onto OLD and find a woman up for sex immediately. I still don’t have sex with prostitutes and neither do the vast majority of lesbians. It isn’t about how much someone “needs” (wants) sex. It’s about how you view those that are selling it and I can think of nothing worse than having sex with someone that doesn’t genuinely want sex with me. Most women, of every sexual orientation, also feel this way. The male entitlement is not to do with men being able to access sex less easily than women, it’s a societal view or men feeling entitled to sex no matter what that women just don’t have.

I used to be a prostitute as well so I’m well aware of the reality of it. I had couples pay me but not one single woman by herself. Of all the other women that I knew doing it I can only remember one instance of someone having a woman pay her. It’s extremely rare. The men I knew that did it were also being paid by other men.

But I'm not in that position.

You were a few years ago. Classic "I'm alright Jack". And you accuse me of hating prostituted women? I don't want them to stay pregnant by their punters.

If you had an abortion that you now regret, that was still your choice to do that and your regret doesn't mean other women shouldn't be allowed to make that choice. I regret going to university at 18 but I'm not going to advocate that everyone else be banned from going to uni at 18 and made to wait until they are 23.

The thing with abortion restrictions in law is that the law cannot distinguish easily between a woman dying of a septic abortion (Savita), a girl-child suicidal because she's pregnant after rape (the X case), a woman ill with hyperemesis gravidarum, and a woman who is miserable because she doesn't want a baby. When does misery become depression? For every pregnant woman, an early termination is safer than carrying to term and giving birth, so permitting abortion for the welfare of the woman tends to become de facto on-demand abortion, as has happened in most of the UK. The other option, " only to save the mother's life", gets interpreted too strictly and women die, as happened with Savita.

I trust women to decide whether they are able to continue with a pregnancy because experience around the world tells me that laws cannot be trusted to keep women alive.