To think that you can absolutely buy consent

[TheNewWasp]

Unfortunately, we have a constant influx of threads of posters that have caught their spouses having lap dances or spending money on a sexual worker.
Regardless of how hurting this may be, I can't understand why many posters argue that "you can't buy consent".
Not sure if the assumption is that every sexual worker/prostitute is being forced to do that activity. Many do, that is the sad reality, but not all of them.
In fact, we have the occasional poster that said they used to work as a stripper and they used to make fun of their customers but in the end it was just a way of making good money. Was not this person selling their consent for an interaction that otherwise would have not happened?

This is very ignorant. You should look up the arguments for the Nordic Model which will provide plenty of reasons - and accounts - as to why you're wrong

Another one who believes the 'happy hooker' myth.

Do you even know how widespread trafficking is,OP? Ever heard of coercion, blackmail, debt, usury, ‘protection’ rackets, or dishonest promises with strings?

Yet, all those women who have married for money are somehow exempt!

Oh let me guess, they're all miserable too . .

Your analysis is too simplistic @TheNewWasp .

Someone can appear to be consenting, but in a context where her self-esteem has been crushed, and their other options barricaded from them, until she appears to believe that having her body used as a thing to ejaculate into by a man who doesn't see her as quite fully human, is ok - I don't think that consent is valid. Prostitutes who are given unconditional access to a path which gives them the ability to earn and thrive and live without having to do that generally accept the opportunity once they have the confidence that they can. One of the main tasks of a pimp or brothel manager is to keep the women believing that they can't, or that the alternative life will be too hard.

A former acquaintance of mine is very clear that any man that wants to date her has to fund her lifestyle. I also have friends who are FSSW.

So yep some people’s consent can be bought.

As a society we have devised arbitrary rules around the circumstances in which it’s ok and not ok to have sex and for money apparently is not ok. (Out of boredom, revenge, curiosity, racial fetishisation, or just general fetishism etc are all a ok but don’t you dare have sex for money!)

Taking a data protection view (which is my day job. I’m on my lunch break), consent can’t be conditional. It has to be freely given, unconditional, represent a genuine choice, not have an imbalance of power, be easily withdrawn etc.

If you’re exchanging consent for money none of these conditions apply and the consent is invalid.

When men pay strippers/dancers/sex workers they’re buying acquiescence. That’s not the same thing as consent.

No. If they wouldn't sleep with you if you didn't pay them, then it's clearly not true, freely given, consent, is it?

This is what I don’t get. Most people set conditions for the contexts within which they will and won’t have sex with somebody. Why is money an unacceptable condition?

Yes, you're being very unreasonable. You go and have sex with strange men for money if it's fine for other women.

Judging by posts in this very same site, it is not a myth unless they are lying.

Of course, that would be your position. Most of these women need the money, so they're doing it under duress rather than of their own free will. It's as simple as that.

That’s rubbish. Theres lots of stuff I wouldn’t do for free but I would do for money. Why should sex not be one of them? All the many many women who marry or are in relationships with rich ugly men wouldn’t look twice at them if they had no money. You think eg if Jeff Bezos or Harvey Weinstein were bin men that their wives would have been interested (I realise HW is now divorced obviously as the serial rapist stuff was too much even for his wife)?
It’s unpalatable but there are so many women who don’t give a shit and want to sell their bodies - eg Bonnie Blue and Lily Philips are doing this themselves and are not being coerced.

Well yes sex under any kind of duress should not be considered consenting. I am not talking about that.

I am talking about the idea that sex where money is a condition can never be considered to be consensual. But sex where other conditions are stipulated can be considered consensual.

Does someone like Bonnie Blue who is by now a multi millionaire doing it because she needs the money?

Totally agree that under the circumstances that you so graphically describe there is no consent but abuse if not outright rape. But is that the kind of environment that the majority of strippers, for example, find in their workplace in the UK ? I think that is a stretch.

Oh ffs. Of course you can't fucking BUY consent. Look at that sentence even!

Round of applause for this post.

I worked for a charity who supported women who worked in sex work and one of the first things I was taught was the difference perspectives on sex work and choice, I think people believe different things. I think fundamentally anyone who has someone profiiting off of their sex work - a boyfriend/pimp or an organised gang probably has very limited choice in that senario so that’s not consent. A lot of the women I worked with were being put out to work by intimate partners. The ones who weren’t had drug and alcohol issues, well actually they all did. But this was street sex work and ‘massage parlours’. I don’t know that someone can buy consent from someone who is that desperate that they don’t feel they have any other choice,

On the other hand my cousin was at uni, very much supported by her family while she was at uni so no desperatation, she started stripping, she used to do party buses and brag about how much money she got. She deffo didn’t sell sex, but it was a sexual service and she was consenting. No doubt in my mind. She’d be mortified now if anyone found out, 20 years later she’s very well to do and I doubt anyone knows what she got up to back then

I agree with this, and I agree that it's mostly damaged women who enter sex work freely.

However, I also agree that, theoretically, you can buy consent. My work bores the pants off me, but I consent to spend hours a day doing it, after all.

I think you can if the sex worker has genuine choices and chooses this over other occupations but that’s not often the case

What about the 12 year olds 'married' off for money? There is an exchange of cash and the 12 year old doesn't complain... so consent right?

Like what? The only conditions I put on having sex is that I find the person attractive and I feel like having sex with them in that moment.

I'm sure there are other conditions that I would consider to involve a lack of consent, but I need to know what you're talking about to take a view on it either way.

Some people can never have enough money, so maybe she wants the money? I actually think there's a whole lot more going on with her though, to be honest, none of it good, and actually, when she was doing her various stunts, she told the men to stop at various points, and they didn't so not a poster girl for consent in any way.

You are missing the point entirely.
My observation is that there is an abundance of situations where consent is bought. The example you mention does not fall in that category.