“Sex work is empowering”

[irresistibleoverwhelm]

I was marking a student exam essay today on French culture and the city in the 1860s, and the essay was really good until it suddenly got to historical representations of street prostitutes.

This suddenly diverted into a load of claims that the nineteenth century was full of “moralism”, but that nowadays we know that these “sex workers” were “empowered” by capitalism and by knowing that they were earning money for themselves!

(The texts were explicitly about the dirt and poor health of 1860s street prostitutes living in slums. Definitely NOT some kind of Moulin Rouge man-fantasy about rich courtesans.)

Jesus! Have the wits of today’s young people gone begging? Have they all been totally addled by this sex-positive anti-swerf nonsense? Being a prostitute in nineteenth century was not “empowering”, nor was it a choice. It was nasty, brutal, painful and dangerous, FFS.

This kind of discourse is just pernicious and wrong. We’re going backwards, not forwards.

There’s son much there, isn’t there?

So^

@thinkingaboutLangCleg

these “sex workers” were “empowered” by capitalism and by knowing that they were earning money for themselves!

Every kind of sexually transmitted disease, the dangers of pregnancy, internal injuries, and minor scratches/abrasions festering into sores, all with hardly any effective medicines and for just enough money to starve on. Much like prostitution in some poor countries now.

So empowering ….

What about something like OnlyFans? Many women (or couples) work from their bedroom putting out content. No direct (certainly no physical) contact with the men who watch.

To them, they're taking men's money and it's a win-win. Street prostitution is completely degrading, but I think this is a grey area, as it's obviously safer and many enjoy making videos/pictures. They're not desperate addicts with no choice.

Not something I'd do personally, but there's different types of sex work and some people regard OF as empowering

@secsee but drill down to why the (maybe only?) place these women can find power is by displaying their naked bodies to make money.

What is the power dynamic that is so pervasive throughout society that makes this feel empowering to the women who do that?

Hope you have them an F-

*gave

@secsee

It's perpetuating woman=consumable

I object because it does affect me indirectly

Did you choose that username especially for pro-sex work posting @secsee ?

Not starving =/= empowering.
Its not empowering for either the women that do it or for other women.
I used to live in a red light district and did not find it empowering to be hassled by johns every time I stepped outside of my house.

@secsee - because the culture of women as consumables, as objects, as having worth through male gaze alone - that damages each and every woman in society. Individual women profitting financially from something that disempowers women as a class isn't new and isn't acceptable.

I am fully of the view that for something to be empowering, the people in power have to be doing it/have done it. Where are all the former public school men throughout history who empowered themselves by prostituting themselves?

www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/onlyfans-sex-work-pornography-empowering-bella-thorne-a4545501.html

Only fans empowering?

I find much of the conversation about this really frustrating on a number of levels.

1. I find it very frustrating that there is a definite strain of current historical analysis which is apparently feels the need to filter history through a modern lens in order to produce ‘representation’ and pushes this ‘sex work is work’ mantra on 19th century women as if they were basically running comfortable OnlyFans accounts from the privacy of their bedroom, or just doing the odd bit of cam work. It ignores how those women might have seen themselves, the way they constructed their own lives and stories and that seems to me to miss the whole point of history.

2. I also find it a little frustrating that there is a counter narrative which tends to insist that Victorian prostitution was the WORST THING EVER and sort of buys into a 19th century narrative about FALLEN WOMEN and doesn’t really take into account that for many women in that period, there were very few options, and that for some women, sex work genuinely was the best option going. I think it also tends to lump all sex work into one category (the kind of very vulnerable women mentioned in ‘the Five’ book mentioned above) and ignores the many different forms that sex work took in this period, doesn’t hugely look at the contemporary definitions of sex work, which could mean that a woman in a long term unmarried partnership would be classed as a ‘whore’ etc etc and sort of falls into a very Victorian Madonna/Whore dichotomy.

Basically, I’m not a fan of history being shoved about in order to make a bunch of contemporary points and like nuance.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57255983

'British subscription site OnlyFans is failing to prevent underage users from selling and appearing in explicit videos, a BBC investigation has found.

Under-18s have used fake identification to set up accounts, and police say a 14-year-old used a grandmother's passport.

The UK's most senior police officer for child protection also says children are being "exploited" on the platform.'

So when there was no effective medicine for STDs and syphilis was relatively common and nasty way to die, these women were empowered?

I wonder how much is taught or known about this and how much general awareness is lacking.

I know it crops up in history documentaries and occasional period dramas that my older children have seen. HIV and Aids came up in my education due to time I was in school never anything else.

The information is out there but easy to ignore and gloss over I think.

Thanks for that post @Potteringshed

That's summed up my dilemma. 2) the worst thing ever does sit uncomfortably with the limited ways women could earn a living, restrictions and morality that are still in living memory for me. What bothers me about the dramatic presentation we are seeing now, in Harlots for example which I linked earlier, is the over emphasis on success to create an empowering story/ripping yarn, when in reality the two real women the series spun off stories died at 22/23.

You are less likely to die that age now but by 22/23 you have got decades ahead to live with the impact.

unherd.com/thepost/onlyfans-is-an-experiment-in-mass-grooming/

This is a good article and I think it's relevant/ interesting to note that

1. it operates a lot like an MLM

and

2. Young women/girls feel like it is other women/girls who are grooming them to be a part of it. Which of course is very MLM like.

Which is part of why certain demographics are targeted - students, single mums, anyone with low self esteem or financial problems.

The attached graphic is something that could have been lifted straight from Forever Living or LulaRoe. All very #bossbabe whilst downplaying the pitfalls.

There's a BBC podcast about the murder of a prostitute called Emma in Glasgow in the noughties. The presenter states that she'll say prostitute rather than sex worker because a lot of the working women prefer that. One is interviewed and basically says to call it what it is - prostitution. None of that glamourising of it. There's no glamour to what these women and girls went through and are still living through.

This article in, of all places, The Guardian, is pretty searing on the realities of prostitution 'even' in recent times www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/17/brenda-myers-powell-pimped-out-left-for-dead-survived

These paragraphs stood out for me:

"For many anti-human trafficking and feminist activists, “sex work” is now the preferred term for how Myers-Powell survived from the age of 14 until just before her 40th birthday, when a particularly vicious assault forced a change. But it is not a term preferred by Myers-Powell. “I understand why people [use ‘sex worker’] and I appreciate it, but, you see, I lived it. No one ever used those soft words about me. My arrest record, before it was vacated, never said ‘sex worker’. It said ‘prostitute’. The men never called me a ‘sex worker’, they called me a ‘ho’."

And there’s another reason this terminology doesn’t sit right with her: “It makes it seem as if it’s a part of normal society – but I don’t know any prostitute that ever got a 401k [pension plan] or a paid holiday, or benefits. Do you?”"

The thing that’s never acknowledged in relation to the liberal “sex work is work” mantra, about how prostitutes should be unionised and regulated and how then they would suddenly be safe and socially respected, is that if you tried to legalise and make prostitution just like any other kind of work you’d have to immediately outlaw it again. Because it would not remotely qualify as legal or safe according to the same health and safety and employment rights any other job legally must abide by.

It’s all a complete fantasy of very naive people. There are no “proper”real forms of work that involve the same kind of risk and bodily abjection that so-called “sex work” does. It wouldn’t qualify under any risk assessment for work in any other sphere. It’s always been a daft argument that liberals are able to indulge in primarily because they haven’t got much of an idea about actual employment law.

Sex work IS empowering, for brothel owners, pimps and the owners of OF.

Ovahere I think the below the line comments from that article from men show just how truly empowering sex work really is.

@TheWeeDonkey

Ovahere I think the below the line comments from that article from men show just how truly empowering sex work really is.

I didn't actually read those but yes they do!

I am finding this narrative that is increasingly peddled, a really disturbing one. It’s typically coming from privileged middle class (young) people who genuinely seem to think prostitution is ‘diary of a call girl’ style sexscapades for serious cash, and have zero awareness of the sad, ugly, frightening reality that ‘sex work’ is for the majority of women who are forced to take this route- the violence, danger, substance abuse, trafficking, this is the experience for the majority of women, who take or are forced down this route with no other options.
It’s worrying that this view is being normalised into society.

I just wanted to share your thoughts as they got me thinking.

The fact is that many women who are not extremely poor in terms of starving or homeless get into selling sex because they want nice things, sometimes essential things like a fridge, cooker or bed, sometimes because they want a holiday, new clothes etc. but cannot afford to buy said items.

Some women sell sex to pay for their higher education. They may get into sugar baby / sugar daddy type arrangement. They may open an account on Only Fans or some other cam work.

I understand that the situation is complex and that many different women have different motives and differing levels of poverty / privilege.

Your comment about the ‘diary of a call girl’ style sexscapades for serious cash interested me, simply because even within the "courtesan" type of sex worker women's experiences vary greatly IME.

Some women may be earning eye watering amounts of money but be handing over the lot to a violent and / or manipulative pimp. This is actually much more common than people realise.

Some women may use the money from sex work to fund their children's private education in prestigious private schools (I knew such a woman).

It seems to me that very often the situaiton for the non-starving, non-desperate (what some call survivial sex) type of sex work is that it is similar to that of drugs.

People are warned about the dangers of drugs at school and by their parents but many kids experiement with some kinds of drugs during adolesence.

Upon discovering that your life does not fall apart immediately and that much of the "drugs danger" information films and materials are inaccurate, kids (and adults) often fail to understand the real dangers of drugs.

I think that there are similar issues with sex work. Young women may sell sex to fund higher education to to help with bills and can experience a kind of "high" that is probably mostly relief that "yay! I can now pay those bills / buy that cooker / pay my uni fees / whatever".

It can feel like all of the warnings about abuse, expolitation and degradation come from people who have no idea about the reality (often the case to be fair).

However with both drugs and sex work, the damage often happens in tiny, almost inperceptible, increments. What felt like a fantastic thing one day feels like a trap months or years later and people wonder how they got there.

The same happens with heroin. People try it, they like it and, contrary to public information films, they do not experience immediate physical addiction (although some may experience immediate psychological addiction). So they continue using in what they believe is a recreational manner and end up addicted and in a really bad situation and wondering how it could have happened to them.

This is one of the reasons why I am uncomfortable with the "dire warning" type discourses around both sex work and drugs. I believe that it is better to provide clear, nuanced, reality based information as it makes it much easier for people who get into problems to seek help and support if they believe that services are available that have a nuanced appreciation of their situation.

Also, just wanted to say that re sex trafficking, much of this is organised by criminal cults these days. They are also engaged in labour trafficking and their victims are male and female. Usually the traficking victims have no idea that they have been trafficked. Most have an idealising transference towards their trafficker and believe that he (more rarely she) is a friend / lover / guru / therapist.

I don’t really understand what point you are trying to make. But as research points out, the idea of women ‘choosing or not choosing’ to go into prostitution does not typically reflect the reality that they find themselves in, where their options are so narrow, or are taken away, that this isn’t a ‘choice’. If you can’t afford a fridge or a bed, are you ‘choosing’ to go into sex work? Or are you finding a way to survive.

This is the reality for a substantial proportion of the women selling sex- it’s to get by financially due to the many other constraints, economic or social, in their lives. As has been the case for a very very long time. This is the very opposite of empowering.

N.B. Yes sure this isn’t the experience for all.