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?

Ikwym, but I think this logic is a bit dangerous.

Using this logic, couldn't you potentially say that women with an abuse history can't consent to sex even if no money is involved?

I doubt many women here support Onlyfans on escorting (both of which are sex work). You're strawmanning, women aren't a monolith.

Sexual consent is emotive and can have very serious legal ramifications, as we witnessed during the height of the Me Too movement.

It seemed that the consensus at that time was - if you were a woman and had had sex with a man you wouldn’t have, given the option, you were on the same footing as women who were actually threatened and intimidated into having sex.

There is a world of difference between agreeing to have sex with a man who is blocking your exit, towering over you and forcing himself upon you in a way where you feel the safest option is to have sex as a means of appeasement to allow you to leave as quickly as possible without physical violence or worse - which is co-erced consent and therefore nullified, and consenting to sleep with a powerful or influencial man you are not physically attracted to bc he has the influence to positively affect your career and future prospects - this is more transactional consent, which might not necessarily be ‘enthusiastically’ given, but is nevertheless consent as the woman is set to gain something she wants by it.

This is also different to having sex with someone who threatens to do the reverse and actually damage your career etc, which is blackmail and a criminal offence.

The thing is if someone pays for sex then they have no idea and no real way of knowing if the person is freely consenting or not, so someone who does that doesn't care about consent.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people just solemnly repeat this claim, even though it's so easily proven false. People only consent to work because they need the money, especially low wage work. Does that make it coerced or slavery?

https://nordicmodelnow.org/

I think I would argue that there are vanishingly few situations that anyone gives truly free consent to anything-it suggests a decision and choice is made free of all outside influences, without power imbalance and is not transactional. That isn't how life is.

I don't think "true" consent can be bought for sex, because the power is with the buyer and is clearly transactional. That is before you consider the obvious potential for abuse, coercion and exploitation.

However, I do accept that there will be some people engage in sex work by their own choice and under their own control. Their motivation is money and are prepared to have sex to get it. I would still argue this is not consent in the true sense of the word. They aren't re enacting Pretty Woman.

I was a happy stripper (not a fully nude club & no touching but I also did work in other clubs that were) & so were a lot of my friends. In fact I look back on the whole time (5yrs) with fondness. Quite a few of my friends still do it & if I needed some extra cash, I’d go back. I’m just too tired & perimenopausal tbh to deal with the late nights now!. I was actually on a good wage for most of my time I worked as a stripper but started initially as was short of cash & needed a 2nd job after a breakup. I thought if I could just make an extra £500 a month… well I was good at it & was making £2500 a month working an average of 7 nights a month. So I carried on long after I didn’t need the money. It was fun, I loved seeing my friends, it was like a girly night, gossiping before the customers came in. I did consent. I generally enjoyed the customers. I had a regular who was a bit handsy but I always handled it & told him off. Must of the time we took the piss out of our customers. We saw them as money only. Most just wanted therapy!
There was a time the council tried to shut our club down with all the reason mumsnetters come up with. Us girls were furious. I did it as a side hustle on top of my regular job, for others it was their main job & fitted around the kids, degrees etc. it was like our consent was being taken away to do the job we loved by people who had no clue & had not thought to ask us, the girls doing the job, what we thought. I’m not saying that there isn’t a seedier side of the industry, or that sex trafficking doesn’t exist but that’s not true of all sex work & quite frankly I get irritated by the view that all sex work is bad & non consensual.

How does the punter know FOR A FACT that the prostitute isn't trafficked?? She sure as hell isn't going to tell them she's trafficked.
Also, what kind of man will have sex with someone knowing full well the woman is only doing it because they are getting paid?

Let me guess, I bet a lot of you that are so against sex work due to reasons of trafficking, go get your nails done at one of the Vietnamese nail salons, or your husbands or sons go to the wall in Turkish barber shops. Most workers are trafficked or the shops are fronts for money laundering. But that’s ok cos it’s not sex work?!

You only have to read what punters say about prostitutes on ukpunting to see how little respect they have for the women.

No, not at all.
You know what they say about assumptions...

So absolutely none of the woman on here against sex work for reasons of trafficking have used, or do use Vietnamese nail salons? Ok.

Doing nails etc is quite a bit different than sucking a smelly cock and being raped

I think your question is completely irrelevant to be honest OP, because ultimately there is no way of knowing if the woman is trafficked or coerced, so any time you pay, even if you believe you can buy consent, you are potentially raping someone, and if that's something you're OK with, then you don't really care about consent anyway.

How do people consent to participate in (and give their data to) clinical trials that they’re getting paid to be a part of then? Genuinely interested in your answer from this POV.

So although these people may have been trafficked & be working against their will / without true consent that’s ok. Cos it’s not sex. Therefore it’s ok for the woman that use these nail services without truly knowing if their nail lady is working after having been trafficked but it’s not ok for their husbands or just men in general to go to a lap dancing club cos they can’t possibly know if that lap dancer is trafficked.

And quite frankly we had little respect for the men! As I said we saw the men as money. We took the piss out of them. Who were the stupid one’s? I’d say the men that kept coming back because they thought we had a real connection & would fall in love with us. i counted my money at the end of the night & was very happy. Consent given, money made.

So if you have a daughter, would you be ok with her shagging dirty old men ...because she'd be having the last laugh?

Agree. My lived experience. I’m from a middle class background, no poverty or trauma or addictions. I worked a corporate 9-5 job earning £30k plus at the time. A lot of my fellow sex worker friends (lap dancers) were studying degrees & are now lawyers, work in finance, are nurses. Some are SAHM, for whom the job works for them around the kids and pays well. We weren’t coerced. The club I worked at has a lot of the same girls that were there a decade or more ago! I went back myself once a couple years ago for a laugh & a reminisce. I’ve on occasion gone back just to have drinks with all my friends. Honestly best days of my life & made life long friends.

And you and your friends negatively impacted other women as a sex class.

How?

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We all have our boundaries. I was a lap dancer not an escort who had sex. But mumsnetters like to lump all sex work in as the same. My consent was to dance partially or fully nude in exchange for money. I declined to have sex for money many times. Some people are more comfortable to offer those services & that’s ok for them if that’s their boundaries. If my daughter chose to do the same I’d provide my support & advice from my experience. I could hardly be a hypocrite now could I?

I don't think there's a simple straightforward answer here because consent and its conditions are going to be highly personal to each individual and what they're being asked to consent to.

There are then wider moral / philosophical and legal layers on top of that of course.

For what it's worth, my opinion is that it is theoretically possible for women to consent to sex work but that is very sadly going to be a small minority.