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?

It's never positive to trade sex for material things, that goes for men and women.

If you're replying to my OP, I started the thread precisely because I know that some people in the sex industry aren't victims.

How did the women who did sell sex feel about it, from what you heard?

I’m not saying it’s positive , but it happens.

The overwhelming majority of women involved in the exploitation industry are abused and deserve support.

All men who buy women or exploit them in other ways are abusers and deserve to be treated with contempt. Their behaviour should be criminalised.

The very small number of women who exploit other women without the excuse of being victims themselves should be treated in the same way as exploitative men eg Ghislaine Maxwell.

Yes, definitely.

Yep could not agree more. Bonnie Blue is a predator.

Eh? Drug dealing is actually illegal. Accepting payment in exchange for sexual services is not.
Can't quite believe you said that out loud tbh.
Generally speaking, I tend not to judge anyone unless/until what they're doing affects me personally. You should try it.

So only legality matters to you?

So if drug dealing was legal, and prostitution illegal, your judgement would magically shift in line with the law?

Right, so if someone is abusing a child, you don't judge them, because it doesn't affect you personally? How strange. Generally speaking, I try to have good judgement based on personal ethics. You could try that.

Surely though there is a difference in say doing only fans where you are not being touched by some random bloke. And say being a prostitute. A prostitute who has sex with maybe several random men simultaneously.
Would posters say that a woman who has a random man punch her in the face whilst another one chokes her and rams his dirty, unwashed dick up her backside and then rams it down her throat until she is almost sick, then sits crying, enjoys this?
Do women who do this really think actually, I’m pretty well off, I can work as a solicitor but I’d love to be a prostitute as well.

What on earth are you talking about? Yes, of course legal Vs illegal changes things.
We are talking about one consenting adult paying another consenting adult for sexual services. Nothing wrong with that arrangement as far as I can tell. The only 'issue' appears to be how random on the internet feel about that which, IMO, is neither here nor there.

Child abuse has always been both abhorrent and illegal. And is also nothing to do with THIS particular discussion.

often the men are married
they also don’t seem to care that the women likely don’t want them or kid themselves that they do, would you want sex with someone who didn’t want you? Or pay someone to sleep with them? It’s not something I’d get off on
and there is the huge issue of not knowing really if the woman is trafficked or vulnerable or addicted

So if racial slavery was legalised, you'd be morally in favour of it? If abortion was made illegal, you'd think that was morally right? If it was decided that marital rape should be legalised again, you'd think that was good? Gracious, you sound like a very morally bankrupt person, if you base your morals entirely on legality.

And I'm afraid, my dear, you're the one who said you didn't judge people for things that don't affect you personally, and that includes child abuse. Perhaps you should pick your words more carefully in future.

You don't know that some people in the sex industry aren't victims. Do you believe all the women you know, who sell sex, trust you enough to tell you that stuff?

I don't know anyone personally who sells sex, I know I'm relying on things I've read.

Lots of 'whataboutery' going on here.
We are talking about two consenting adults giving/accepting payment for sexual services. Nothing else.
I don't judge because it's none of my business. The End.

Yes. You've said. Of course, that doesn't count if a consenting drug dealer sells to a consenting drug buyer, for instance, because apparently you base your moral judgement entirely on legality, as well as whether it directly affects you. That's up to you, but personally I think it's ethically very poor.

Agreed @OtterlyAstounding ethically very thin indeed! I suppose if you base your moral judgement on whats legal or what directly impacts you, it avoids the need for thinking more deeply about context, motivations etc. Its out sourcing your moral thinking and asking the legal system to do it for you. I can see this would be beneficial to some people, mainly oppressors or people who dont enjoy their capacity for independent thought 🤔

I mean it's your opinion, so your not unreasonable for that but in my opinion I think yabu as it's their life and their choices

There's a whole world out there you know nothing about, think fetlife, adult work.com, Manchester chambers, torture garden ect, townhouse...... these sort of people have sex with everyone and each other... for free 😅 is there any judgment on

Selling sex is empowering to a lot of women

I commented on the post your talking about, my old fwb is a male escort, his partner is a female escort, they worked together/ separately, both started in uni and both had fantastic lives from it, have a nice house, own other properties ect

They have a circle of friends who all do the same and all keep their own money for themselves,

They all have beautiful huge homes, nice cars, multiple properties

None of them would or do care about other people's judgments 😅

'Selling sex is empowering to a lot of women'

I always wonder why it's empowering. What's empowering about it? Do people tend to say, 'selling sex is empowering to a lot of men'? No. They don't.

If it's 'empowering', does that mean that people think more women should give it a go, in case they find it empowering too? Do they give it a go? If not, why not?

And for those who think it's morally fine, legally fine, and just 'work', do they think that unemployed women should be required to take on work as prostitutes? If not, why not? It's just work, right?

And why is it unreasonable to judge someone for financially benefiting from something that contributes to men viewing all women as potential purchasable wank objects, there to be used for their sexual pleasure? Would they think it's unreasonable to judge a 52-year-old man for dating his daughter's 16-year-old friend, considering it's all legal and consensual?

Those people you mention @EyePieSky seem to fall into the rare category of "ive got loads of lucrative career choices and I choose to have sex for money'. I think thats astoundingly rare. Ive worked around the sex industry in a couple of ways, when ive had NO choices about how to pay my bills. Both times I only met women who were similarly damaged and devoid of choices. Ive got a friend now who would suggest to others thsts she's happy selling sex, but actually feels deeply undervalued and unhappy. She would say she has to pretend to like it, if her hatred of the men was obvious, she'd lose clients.

@OtterlyAstounding if it was truly empowering, we would know because men would be clambouring to do it.

Isn’t escort just a euphemism for prostitute?
Are there really that many Johns who pay a woman just to go to an event with them and expect nothing else? No sex at all, no touching, no having to listening to their boring monologues. If women can earn huge amounts of money for simply turning up to an event with a lonely man, then why aren’t we all doing it?
I just don’t believe it. Let’s face it the male escort mentioned above who already has fwb will not be in the same position as a woman, ever. Simply put men are not in huge danger from women. Lots of female sex workers are attacked by the Johns. Most of it unreported.
Again web camming, stripping, modelling are in no way comparable to having sex with some random man or multiple men and being at their mercy.

Women tend not to put men in categories the same way that men do.
The whole Madonna/whore complex us still alive and well.
Men do still think of women as not wife material but fine to fuck. Women don’t have this mentality.

Women are generally more open minded agreed, but there's plenty of men i have enjoyed having sex with. None of them I wanted to marry despite a few proposals. I dont disagree that the Madonna/whore is a patriarchal tool, im just trying to work out how it fits into this debate

Hah! Exactly! There's no way to argue with that, frankly.

If it was truly empowering then men would be out there selling themselves to men and women alike (because sexuality doesn't really matter when you're not attracted to the person either way), and trying to stop women from doing it.

Being paid money to be used by a man who sees you as nothing more than a masturbatory prop in his sexual fantasy, a piece of meat and not a real human (because that's how they all see prostitutes - just read any website that has punters comments, and you'll see that's the case), doesn't give a woman, or man, true power.

It may give some of them enough money to invest, and do well financially, but they are a tiny percentage - for the vast majority, even those who are well-paid end up using drugs to cope with the reality of being repeatedly used by people who see them as less than human, and expect them to pretend to love it. That kind of degradation and dehumanisation has a way of wearing away at a person.