“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.

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.

Of course everyone should be able to have a bed or a fridge.

However some people want to upgrade their not very nice bed / fridge for something much better.

The point I am making is that people's situations are nuanced.

Some people will tolerate having a less than wonderful bed / fridge and not feel poor.

Some people feel that they absolutely must have the best of such items.

Some people don't even have a home to put a bed / fridge in if they had one.

Some people engage in survival sex for food and basic necessities. Some people (a minority) earn huge amounts from sex work. Within that minority some (a majority IMO/IME) are exploited.

My main point is that we cannot hope to have a realistic discussion about the issue unless the complexity and nuances inherent in the situaiton are thought about and talked about.

It might be nuanced but what other activity which includes groups who are to all intents and purposes slaves , either because they have been trafficked or they are a slave to an addiction and can thus be compelled to do this, is called " work" by any decent society.

I think considering that the majority of women are in prostitution because of the hopeless circumstances they find themselves it seems grossly dismissive to be talking about the nuance and complexity of the situation, on the basis that a minority have only fans accounts or sugar daddies.

What sort of realistic discussion do you think we should be having on this? Apart from how can we as a society better support those who are so economically and socially vulnerable that they feel like they have no options other than prostitution, to prevent them from getting to this place.

It might be nuanced but what other activity which includes groups who are to all intents and purposes slaves , either because they have been trafficked or they are a slave to an addiction and can thus be compelled to do this, is called " work" by any decent society.

My point is that people are not all are slaves or compelled when they start.

To allege that they are is simply not true.

Not all users of heroin are slaves to it or addicted from their first use, contrary to what many public information films and children's educational material claims.

Enslavement comes in many guises and it creeps up on people unawares, whether it is to do with addictive drugs or selling sex.

To attribute slavery to prostitution and not to say, working down mines, on ships, in printing presses, on building sites, in nail bars and in various other areas where slavery is a common feature of many discourses around prostitution.

Slavery takes many forms and not all sex workers are enslaved and not all enslaved people sell sex.

I think considering that the majority of women are in prostitution because of the hopeless circumstances they find themselves it seems grossly dismissive to be talking about the nuance and complexity of the situation, on the basis that a minority have only fans accounts or sugar daddies.

Is it a minority?

There are many grey areas and overlapping categories around what is sex work and what is not.

The fact is that nobody knows how many people are involved in selling sex and this is partly because people can engange in transactional sex in so many different ways.

Also there is so much skewed reserch on the issue, such as the widely derided and debunked Big Brothel "research" for example.

I am not claiming to know everything and to be right about everything but I know enough to know that there is much that I do not know.

It is the claims made, with absolute certainty, from people who are cluless about some of the most widespread forms of trafficking and exploitation that concern me.

I just wish that people would hold on to uncertainty and listen more before making sweeping claims about what is essentially a very complex issue

Speak for yourself about being clueless and making sweeping claims.

Surely the biggest change from 18 century prostitution and modern prostitution is that moral outrage doesn’t begin and end with the woman (or child)? In the past they were harlots who lured men into sin and now at least we can all accept that men have the choice to use or not use prostitutes. Maybe that’s where the student was starting, that the moral dialogue has changed. Although I would argue that it’s changed on paper only. Prisons aren’t bursting with Johns and pimps.

However some people want to upgrade their not very nice bed / fridge for something much better.

Lots, or even most, of us want to upgrade our things for something better. In fact most people probably would like that. Why aren't we all selling sex, then? Why is prostitution not actually very common (even pro-sex work activists think there are around 100,000 prostitutes in the UK, IIRC, so why aren't there so much more, in a population of 70+ million?) Why isn't every second woman you meet on the school run doing it?

Probably because the fantasy that it's all really terribly complex, because lots of women are selling sex from comfortable suburban semis out of choice just to buy a nicer car or exotic holidays, is just that -- a fantasy. When women don't have to in order to live or feed an addiction, the vast vast majority of them don't actually want strange men's cocks being stuck inside them for cash. (Funnily enough.)

I dated a man who I found out was a prolific spender on "sex work" to the extent that he boasted he had spent a quarter of a million dollars on his pastime. (I dumped him)

He bullshitted himself that he was in relationships. He was outraged when one woman he had handed over 1,000s to had nothing to say to him other than "the sex is good" when he asked her what she liked about him. He thought she should like him! I told him she probably despises him.

I can't quite make out what to think about this to this day (other than he was a stupid arse).

Any thoughts on this? it still perplexes me years later.

Ugh. I knew a man who had a threesome with two prostitutes and his fiancee found out and dumped him. Apparently it was worth it as it was a fantasy of his and what's more the women really loved it. I was like, no, you were paying them to pretend they loved it
I also don't get it. So much denial. So weird.

@QuentinBunbury

I think this is at the root of why male prostitutes (and strippers) have never been as successful as female equivalents.

Women wouldn't be able to maintain the denial that men have in those encounters. I know that's a blanket statement but I think it's true.

I'd know it was all an act and that would put me right off. Alongside the sheer weirdness of handing over cash and then being like 'shall we?'

It's something that really divides the sexes.

I wish we could make a rule that anyone who says “sex work is empowering” has to spend 6 months actually doing “sex work” .

The message would soon change.

@lespionniers

I dated a man who I found out was a prolific spender on "sex work" to the extent that he boasted he had spent a quarter of a million dollars on his pastime. (I dumped him)

He bullshitted himself that he was in relationships. He was outraged when one woman he had handed over 1,000s to had nothing to say to him other than "the sex is good" when he asked her what she liked about him. He thought she should like him! I told him she probably despises him.

I can't quite make out what to think about this to this day (other than he was a stupid arse).

Any thoughts on this? it still perplexes me years later.

It's all part of the fantasy isn't it. He's so wonderful that the person he pays to allow him to have sex with her actually really likes him and wants to be with him.

I remember a poster on AMA who was working from her home as an escort and offering the 'girlfriend experience' (which I believe involves the man staying for a while to chat etc as well as sex). It angers me that these men probably think that an actual girlfriend should behave like this (ie. available to do what they want, when they want and pretend to be happy). We digress, but I felt really sorry for this woman who got in to the 'business' at her boyfriend's suggestion when she had a very young baby and she her boyfriend were struggling for money. She seemed to be desperately trying to persuade herself that it was 'empowering' and safe despite the fact that she was inviting strangers from the internet in to the home she shared with her child, most of the clients liked the fact that she looked very very young, and her boyfriend had long since moved on to someone new

It angers me that these men probably think that an actual girlfriend should behave like this (ie. available to do what they want, when they want and pretend to be happy).

That's exactly how he treated me. It all made sense once he admitted most of his previous "girlfriends" were paid.

@TrifleCat

I wish we could make a rule that anyone who says “sex work is empowering” has to spend 6 months actually doing “sex work” .

The message would soon change.

Brilliant

'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'

And this is relevant to women working in prostitution in France in the 1860s how, exactly?

'Victorian prostitution was the WORST THING EVER and sort of buys into a 19th century narrative about FALLEN WOMEN '

Anyone who said it was the WORST THING EVER would be very silly as so many horrific things have happened over the world through history.

Do you genuinely think that's what posters think?

Worse than literally anything else ever.

The point about fallen women is odd as well.

I think it comes up because the forced 'examinations' of street prostitutes for 'disease' is something that is known by a lot of people in the UK.

The point about fallen women is absolutely relevant- it buys into the idea that it’s ok to treat ‘bad’ woman as vessels for sex.

No woman should be a vessel for sex. Ever.

secsee, these students were writing about French culture and the city in the 1860s, and … historical representations of street prostitutes.

Students, like anyone else, are entitled to form their own opinions, but not make up their own ‘facts’.

I see this is as middle class privilege thinking that they know about what it’s like to be poor or vulnerable. It’s insidious and wrong. I’m middle class and I don’t know. I wouldn’t presume to know. However when I was younger I read a book about a sex worker who said it was fine and great, and I also peddled to my friends that maybe we are just being snobby, seeing female sex workers as vulnerable. Maybe we are patronising this really empowering work.

I was just young and ignorant. And totally wrong. Older and wiser people know different.

It’s still insidious though. My very lovely friend once worked with sex workers. And she also peddled that ‘sometimes... you know if they aren’t addicted to drugs (most were)... it’s an admirable way to make money and kind of ok’. Again just wrong. I do admire the toughness of women finding themselves having to do it, but it’s never ok and it’s never fine. The abuse that goes with it is appalling.

I think OnlyFans is a similar just wrong and harmful set up, lulling young women into feeling that they are protected. They aren’t. Their relationships in RL are screwed. They could be videoed and put on any porn site. They can be degraded and humiliated. Without the mental resilience to cope with that. The empowerment model is just an illusion. They aren’t being given money for something that they can do as a person. They are being given money to be subservient to men who couldn’t care less. Mentally damaging.

@TrifleCat

The point about fallen women is absolutely relevant- it buys into the idea that it’s ok to treat ‘bad’ woman as vessels for sex.

No woman should be a vessel for sex. Ever.

It's not what the posters on this board think though. In general.

So it's a pretty shitty accusation.

@Rejoiningperson

I think OnlyFans is a similar just wrong and harmful set up, lulling young women into feeling that they are protected. They aren’t. Their relationships in RL are screwed. They could be videoed and put on any porn site. They can be degraded and humiliated. Without the mental resilience to cope with that. The empowerment model is just an illusion. They aren’t being given money for something that they can do as a person. They are being given money to be subservient to men who couldn’t care less. Mentally damaging.

It's the backlash from women getting more opportunities and freedom. It's always the same. We make a gain. It's turned against us somehow.

Eg

The pill. Free from worry about pregnancy. A great thing for women, to be able to control when we get pregnant.

Then. Women seen as 100% responsible for contraception. We can have casual sex without risk, so men push boundaries. Pregnancy and babies become seen as woman's choice, men walk away from responsibility with no qualms and even now with little action to get support for their children. Abusers can get young girls put on the pill with seemingly no questions asked eg Rotherham.

The push to reduce the stigma, the lack of knowledge etc around female bodies and their reproductive and sexual functions. The clitoris. Women should enjoy it. Etc etc. A big thing for women.
Turned into. Sex positive means trying anything and everything. Pressure to do this or that. It's all liberating!

Body positivity. Women's bodies come in all shapes and sizes. The pressure to look a certain way causes a lot of harm. Rock your look, love your body etc.

Turned to. Love your body, show your body! Pole dancing, burlesque, stripping. Gok wan, take all your clothes off! Now you are a confident modern woman! Porn, lads mags etc. Isn't it great! These are empowered women who show their power by taking their clothes off...

As we've got more access to jobs independence and power, we become more and more objectified. The 'look' for young women now is expensive and time consuming. No coincidence.

@Rejoiningperson

I think OnlyFans is a similar just wrong and harmful set up, lulling young women into feeling that they are protected. They aren’t. Their relationships in RL are screwed. They could be videoed and put on any porn site. They can be degraded and humiliated. Without the mental resilience to cope with that. The empowerment model is just an illusion. They aren’t being given money for something that they can do as a person. They are being given money to be subservient to men who couldn’t care less. Mentally damaging.

Oh and it's got children on it.

The reports were awful.

Headlines-

Children selling pics on onlyfans

Should have been

Men paying for pics of children on onlyfans

And

Each time it was really really important Apparently to say that the men got their money back (!!!??)

And no mention of the police being after the men who paid children for pics/bids with nudity / sex acts.

It's all so fucked up.

@NiceGerbil The things you mention have always been the case one way or the other. Men have walked away from pregnant women from time immemorial. The only thing that has changed is that non married women are now expected to give their children these men's surnames on the birth certificate. Also, provided you meet certain social criteria there is a lot less shame attached to being a single mother.