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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think that being an escort is a valid career choice?

300 replies

whatkatydidathome · 26/05/2010 13:41

I have a friend who is 19, unqualified and attractive. She was a lap dancer but is now considering escort work. She has tried it a few times and appears able to earn £200 an hour working for what appears to be a reputable (well as reputable as you can get I suppose!) agency in London. I have been thinking about how I feel about this (and discussing it with dh) and can see why she is doing it and I sort of think that I do think that it is a valid career choice (as long as she sticks with the agency who provide back up etc).

OP posts:
dittany · 27/05/2010 19:43

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whatkatydidathome · 27/05/2010 19:45

I'm not being involved in her financial decisions. She has told me what she has decided (and how much she earns), I have tried to talk her out of it but it didn't work. Once she hit 19 (actually once she hit 18) it became impossible to do anything to help as any charity/agency I rang said that she was an adult and that it was none of my business. Mum's new boyfriend is a pig but they did try to get her to stop seeing the older man. It is actually not that easy to stop a determined 15 year old doing anything unless you chain them up. They did involve the police but as she was nearly 16 and as she refused to say that there was any sex involved they would not act (and said that they could not act). I suspect that they were just happy that she was no longer shop lifting and so not pushing up their crime stats but this may be too cyncial .
I am certainly not defending men who sell women. Simply saying that if an adult woman wants to sell sex, and an adult man wants to buy it, and they both agree on terms, then I personally think that this is up to them.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 27/05/2010 19:54

OldMac is now showing his true colours

OldMacEIEIO · 27/05/2010 19:58

Carry on ? - ok.

I would slap this young woman, if she asked me my opinion ftf, because of her circs.

On the other hand, I know a lady, who was engaged to a friends son, who broke it off and joined a cruise ship as a masseur (sp?)
She went, and came back with, a huge smile on her face. She recently bought a house near here, cash - no mortgage. She would be about 30 now. Of course, she has to live with it, live with the momories, live with herself. etc , but thats her problem.

and, as I repeat for the third time. I know of a fair few marriages that are not much different to sex for cash.

But hey, lets have a dogma, lets blame it all on the guys

dittany · 27/05/2010 20:01

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dittany · 27/05/2010 20:04

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OldMacEIEIO · 27/05/2010 20:13

It's dogma that provides the intellectual straighjacket though. That makes it difficult to think freely and for yourself.

There are more ways to look at this, just free your mind, think outside of the taboos and fashions

AnyFucker · 27/05/2010 20:27

what a load of tosh

OldMacEIEIO · 27/05/2010 20:33

'what a load of tosh'

which bit ?

dittany · 27/05/2010 20:36

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OldMacEIEIO · 27/05/2010 20:45

ok

the big brains of the forum need to get hold of this.

I will leave it to them

AnyFucker · 27/05/2010 20:59

OldMac...your pseudo-intellectual posturing is a load of old tosh

oh, and that chip on your shoulder is dragging you down...you should ditch it

OldMacEIEIO · 27/05/2010 21:02

please, lets wait for the big brains

you can have your snipes later

dittany · 27/05/2010 21:03

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SolidGoldBrass · 27/05/2010 21:08

For centuries, marriage was a straightforward transaction: the woman provided sexual and domestic (to a greater or lesser degree depending on social status) servicing and bore children, the man provided her with food, shelter, clothing, protection and status. Some marriages still run pretty much along these lines, some of them happily, some of them not. Sex work (outside of those cases where there is coercion) is the same transaction only at a much hourly rate, with more free time.
This is, of course, one of the reasons sex work is so stigmatized, it's seen by some as 'spoiling the game' if women are 'permitted' to negotiate the rate, see however many clients they choose, take the money and not have to do the household shitwork as well.

And there are other jobs which are psychologically demanding and distressing, or physically very dangerous. Some of these are percieved as noble (which may help with the mental stress, or not) some are also stigmatized (think debt collector for one of those 1000% APR doorstep lenders, for instance). Many of the most mentally and physically exhausting jobs are paid fuck all and involve a lot of physical contact with people one may find unappealing (think care worker, cleaning up human shit on a regular basis for just about the minimum wage).

I do think that the stigmatizing of all sex work does serious harm to sex workers both willing and coerced, in that as/when/if they move on from sex work, they have to hide their pasts or they are seen as tainted - this is one of the things that keeps some women doing it when they have really had enough, the fact that they can't afford to give up the high level of income they are getting because they can't get a well-paid job.

OldMacEIEIO · 27/05/2010 21:08

Well there are seven or eight posters here who are well capable of weighing in with top quality analysis and common sense

I dont see any reason to go to your punty thingy web thing

OldMacEIEIO · 27/05/2010 21:08

ah, heres one

dittany · 27/05/2010 21:10

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Nellykats · 27/05/2010 21:10

Prostitution is a form of slavery, and I certainly don't believe in the myth of the happy hooker. The content ones that do it as a pleasurable or at least harmless pastime is a myth created by those men that like to keep women subordinate.
If a man wants sex, they should find a willing partner, or simply masturbate.
If a man thinks being a prostitute is perhaps pleasurable they should grow a vagina and see how it feels to be penetrated without desire. Because don't fool yourselves, it can hurt sometimes even with one you actually freely want to have sex with.
Any woman that considers escorting and prostitution as a "right", slaps all of us in the face who don't want to be a piece of meat to buy and fuck. It's a horrible side to patriarchy prostitution, as it allows (some) men to get on with their business of self pleasing sex, while keeping the "chaste" women virginal and locked indoors. As long as there are whores, women don't have real sexual freedom. In a society where it would be illegal to buy sex, men and women would actually have to get along and be of equal status.

dittany · 27/05/2010 21:14

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LeninGrad · 27/05/2010 21:19

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OldMacEIEIO · 27/05/2010 21:21

dittany - free your mind.

you are like a tape recorder
argument # 1 press rewind to 1984 - press play
argument # 2 press rewind to 1987 - press play
argument # 1 press rewind to 1984 - press play

think for yourself woman

SolidGoldBrass · 27/05/2010 21:22

Dittany: I am not advocating or praising the original transaction of marriage when women's only options were marriage, domestic service for pay/keep (and probably unpaid sexual service to the master of the house as well), life in a religious institution or sex work.
But there do seem to have been, over the centuries, times and circumstances where some sex workers had a better time of it than 'respectable' women, earned their own money, had more autonomy than wives etc.

Nellykats · 27/05/2010 21:23

OldMac

Dittany does think for herself, you just don't like what those thoughts are

OldMacEIEIO · 27/05/2010 21:26

NellyCats - in my opinion, she doesnt, she is dogmatic.
However, she and I are debating how the debate is conducted, not the content.

You , however, are concerned with the content, and I happen to agree with you.