To think that it IS inconsistent to judge men who buy sex but not women who sell it (excluding women who are trafficked/traumatised/acting from financial necessity)?

[Carla786]

The thread today where the OP claimed to have been an escort had quite a few posters saying that they don't judge women who sell sex, only men who buy it.

Now, I think that most women selling sex are trafficked and/or doing so from financial necessity and/or suffering from sexual trauma.

So I don't judge them. But I do judge the minority of women, who DO exist, who sell sex when they have other viable options, are financially OK, often educated etc. Ditto men. They are all contributing willingly to an industry which devalues sex, intimacy and the human body.

It does seem inconsistent to exempt women (and men) who sell sex completely from judgement. Denying that women can willingly prop up harmful industries isn't feminist.

AIBU?

Hrtft but women who sell sex or work in that area are absolutely judged, not sure why you think they aren't?

Sarah Pascoe had a podcast and wrote a book, both called Sex, Power, Money which explored some of these issues and were quite interesting.

I don’t think any good comes from stopping adult women from being allowed to decide what they do with their own bodies.

If a woman wants to have sex with any other consenting adult she chooses, she should be allowed to do that because she is a grown adult with agency and what she does with her body is entirely up to her. If she wants to accept money for it, that is neither here nor there.

Selling sex is a completely different thing from buying it. The motivation is entirely different.

But it’s not about saying women don’t have agency, it’s about understanding the factors influencing her agency. This article gives some facts and estimations about the number of women who are now prostitutes who experienced CSA (50%) physical abuse (85%), are care experienced (70%), addiction (85-90%). I saw other statistics saying women who are raped as adults are 25% more likely to engage in prostitution. If you think about it many will have had multiple of these experiences. Sexual and intimate harm is also widely underreported.

Id argue that the numbers of women with no co-morbidities engaging in prostitution, free agency, the ones you want to be ‘free to judge’ - are vanishingly small.

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/64627/pdf

OP, you say that "I don’t believe any secure, emotionally healthy woman sells sex and we shouldn’t as a society enable this form of self harm and dress it up as choice". If that's the case why are you saying you would judge the small proportion of women who have had the agency to enter willingly. You write about misogyny but also judging women. Your argument seems to be sex work is horrible for women so you judge the small numbers of women there willingly. But what about the society they grew up in? A patriarchal society. Everyone makes choices but those choices are shaped by society. Shaped by attitudes to sex they grew up with. Shaped by an economic climate that offers more opportunities to men in many areas. Shaped by particular challenges for single parents. Surely you can see that noone has a free choice they make choices shaped by their environment. And in their position, having grown up as them and with the same information about the options available to you, you would have made the same choice.

This is shockingly naive, I have worked for a recruitment agency that also covered work of this nature, and you clearly have very little idea how many opt to do this.

But why would a women tell her recruitment agent about her past trauma? Especially a recruitment agency that is recruiting them into selling her body- is that what you are saying you did? As I can see why you’d be invested in saying it was her choice, to justify what you were doing.

Interesting framing of the Weinstein scandal from you there and it really shows you up that you picked up the bait I dropped for you there.

I agree

There's a disproportionate number of women who are exploited, enslaved - and let's not go into children suffering worst fate.

We all got that.

But there are also women who willingly decide to be an escort (better paid than your street corner hooker), women who famously move to places like I don't know Dubai to make it a business. When it's between 2 consenting adults, why judging?

Do we judge women who employ male escorts?

"I don’t think any good comes from stopping adult women from being allowed to decide what they do with their own bodies."

Shall we let people sell blood and organs too?

I actually don’t really have a problem with sex work (I’ve known several people who’ve engaged in sex work and none of them were trafficked).

But I think the levels of agency are different for men and women. We know men who use sex workers are not forced to do so. We don’t know if women are forced to do so without asking them individually. So it’s possible to make some assumptions about men’s agency as a whole, but not about women’s.

That said, I do think buying sex is more grim than selling sex, if I had to make a blanket statement.

You can do something with your body by being a heart surgeon, by building a house, by creating a beautiful piece of art.

Inserting things into my body to the command of strangers surely isn't really what the human body was designed for.

Of all the occupations in the world, consensual sex work is a curious one to reserve so much judgment for.

I was at a dinner party once where I met a man who told me he was a lawyer who specialised in corporate tax loopholes. Oh, I said, it must give you great job satisfaction knowing you're working against tax evaders and tax dodgers. You can guess where this is going. His speciality was helping rich corporations get richer by finding loopholes for them.

I judged him harder than I'd ever judge a sex worker or, frankly, even a client of a sex worker.

Others I judge harder include:

Anyone who works for oil or logging companies actively pillaging our planet
Anyone who works in the arms industry
Anyone who works for ICE or similar institutions whose job actively causes pain and harm on a daily basis
Robert Jenrick

Selling sex is a nothingburger, ethically, compared to some of the industries founded on amorality that are considered respectable in comparison.

It’s tricky. As with anything, if men didn’t create the market for sex work then it wouldn’t exist and the horrendous crimes associated with it wouldn’t either. So yes, men are the primary problem.Very few women choose to do this when they have other career options. It’s usually forced through economic necessity. Yes they could work in a shop but they have children and min wage doesn’t cover the bills, for example.

My best friend (gay man) is a sex worker. I have found it difficult to understand his perspective but he does it for money and the money he’s earned is insane. I’m considered a ‘high earner’ but he earns at least double what I do.

There couldn't be a male Bonnie Blue. He wouldn't find a hundred women queueing up for the very doubtful pleasure of having his penis in their bodies for a few thrusts. They'd all know where he'd been and wouldn't want to get acquainted with the horror show that was his mucous membranes.

Theresa May brought in a law where people traveling overseas to sexually exploit people and also men caught in a raid on a brothel which had trafficked women in it would be charged with people trafficking offences. I cannot find details of how many have been charged. I suspect I know the answer but does anyone have the facts?

Exactly, OF is a MLM and most people are not earning loads. Plenty of people are coerced etc too.

Your greatest asset is yourself and your skill in sex work, which is all down to you.. that can be very empowering.

• doesn't sound that empowering to me. I understand feeling powerful from earning money but at the end of the day you're still dependent on looking a certain way & doing certain sexual things to earn this money. How 'empowering' is that really,

Re documentaries: I get that, (can you recommend any titles?) otoh though they may be focusing on positive stories. Also be aware of Linda Lovelace type cases where someone claims to be happy with it but is being abused behind scenes.

I will, definitely, thanks for the recs. I'm not linking those to say selling sex is positive: I'm just not wholly sure if the 13 detail applied to the whole industry or only to trafficked children specifically. I have had Hot Girls Wanted on my watchlist for a while, and the other one sounds important too

Why do you think it shouldn't change?

Yabu

No she’s just smart and works hard for her money. Sex work is work.

I agree with this.

Interesting re your friend: I read a Reddit AMA once with a young man who was studying computer science (or so he claimed, it could've all been lies) and selling sex some evenings. He seemed smugly happy & to be earning a lot. Several men on the thread expressed jealousy he was getting paid to have sex! Significantly, this was to earn extra money, so he was able to pick his clients.

Men in the porn industry & sex industry suffer a lot too, but online at least there's often a jokey attitude. One thing I do think is that male 'happy hooker'/porn actor types tend to be taking the more active role, whether they're having sex with women or men. Thus they have more physical control, less STD risk if not using protection, and maybe more sense of agency. Women who sell sex are very often in quite a different situation. Dominatrixes often seem to have a similar attitude, probably because they are in more of the active role (and may have little physical contact)

Re your friend : does he find his job difficult emotionally/mentally? Or is he mainly happy with it?

Good point. There actually was (in that Drake Von, a gay male porn actor tried the same thing). Significantly, he was taking the penetrative role, which I think changes the equation. Not to mention he wasn't soliciting random teenagers but other gay porn actors.

That isn't positive though, re transactional relationships. Luckily women have opportunities now to get by using skills apart from beauty & sexuality. If you are not in desperate financial need there are other options.