Had never considered this aspect of the sex work is work movement

[miri1985]

Was reading this excellent article by Mia Döring about her memoir and I had never realised that we only ever hear from prostituted women that sex work is work, its only ever them who put their names and faces to that idea. If its just a service thats being purchased why do men never come forward and say I'm a punter, I'm just buying a service, I'm going to let everyone know its a choice I make.
She writes really well in this article and I'm going to be very interested to read her book

www.independent.ie/life/health-wellbeing/mia-doring-on-the-irish-sex-trade-seeing-you-is-a-hobby-they-feel-entitled-to-indulge-41360309.html

Why are we not talking about these men? Why are they not talking? In the debates about prostitution, we do not hear from them. They don’t ‘come out’. They don’t create associations or campaign for ‘punters’ rights’. If punting is the legitimate and harmless hobby they claim it to be, why not?
There is a lot of money to be made from operating brothels and running an escort website. Advertising is very expensive – one ‘online directory’ of women in prostitution had a turnover of €6m in 2015. The men pay around a €100 for 30 minutes of sex with a woman, around €200 for an hour. And with more than 100,000 punters, there is obviously no shortage of male demand for women’s bodies.

We know that most women in the sex trade are not there voluntarily, and when we understand sexual consent to be freely given, voluntary and reversible, it is inarguable that when people defend the sex trade in Ireland, they are defending the daily rape of women and girls. The pimps who run the websites become multi-millionaires by serving up a literal rape market.



She also did an excellent interview with Roisin Ingle about her book

www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/irish-men-are-raping-women-for-money-all-across-the-country-1.4797680

"Her argument is that paying for sex does not legitimise the act or make it consensual. “You can’t pay someone to be your friend,” she says. “You don’t have a ‘rent a friend’ scheme, because it’s never going to be mutual. Our expectations are on the floor when it comes to men’s behaviour, especially sexually. We say, ‘Ah, that’s just men, they pay for sex.’ But prostitution sex is not sex, because sex cannot be paid for. And sex is not work.”

She knows there are people, sex workers and their advocates, who argue strongly that it is indeed work, but she has a very different view. “They can call themselves sex workers if they want. I don’t care. I care about the vast majority of women in the sex trade, and that’s all I care about. The vast majority of them are coerced or there by trafficking or there out of desperation, poverty, abuse and addiction.”

She says in the book that as long as we’re all distracted, arguing over whether prostitution is ‘work’, we’re not thinking of the choices of the men running the sex trade for profit. As the debate rages, “these men can sit back and laugh, knowing they have nothing to fear.”

Some sex-worker advocates, she maintains, describe men who want to “connect”, who are in need of touching. The lonely or the elderly, the socially isolated. But, she says, in the four years she spent ‘servicing’ random men, she never met anyone who just needed to talk or needed a hug. These are the men she met: “In their 40s and 50s, middle class, self-assured and entitled.”

“Even if 100 per cent of punters were wheelchair-ridden, chronically lonely, altruistic philanthropists, they have no right to use a woman’s body to have an orgasm. Nothing gives anyone that right. To achieve orgasm is not a right. Sex is neither a bodily need nor a right.”

[jennywhitehorses]

@yellowtwo

What study is there from the 1990s about prostituted Women who were delighted with being in prostitution Jennywhitehorses

I have copied-and-pasted something from one of Ann Marie O'Connor's reports about what Irish sex workers told her in the 1990s.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Working in Prostitution

“The bad thing is having to hide, the good thing is that it keeps you independent”.

“I have been able to provide for my children without being dependent on any man”.

When asked about the advantages and disadvantages of working in prostitution most of the women interviewed felt that the money, the standard of living it provides and “the freedom it gives” was the main advantage. “The financial rewards are great, the children don’t have to go short of anything”. “It gives you a better way of life for your children”. Flexible working hours and being your own boss were also seen as positive aspects of the job.
Women working in prostitution: towards a healthier future
Ann Marie O’Connor University College Dublin page 12

You can say that this is not the reality of prostitution. It's not the reality of prostitution in Ireland now, but it was in the 1990s. Whose fault is it that things are worse now?

[Quirkyme]

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

Wow, yes, that's well written and she makes an interesting point.

Men don't die from lack of sex. They just pretend as if they might. Which is self indulgent and manipulative.

They don't see women as human. It's grotesque.

Agree.

[MargaritaPie]

"It doesn't say that. I'm wondering why yourself and Jennywhitehorses keep lying about Rachel"

If Douglas Fox is a "pimp" then so is Rachel Moran.

[nightwakingmoon]

I don’t think you understand very well how academia works. Before you read anything else, I’d suggest going back to some basic feminist and social theory, and starting from first principles - all the usual, from de Beauvoir onwards. Plenty of reading lists in introductory feminism and sociological analysis available everywhere online.

[jennywhitehorses]

So have you got a study that we can read?

[nightwakingmoon]

I’m an academic and I know the field. There isn’t much point in recommending mediocre stuff to me. It’s hardly going to convince me any more that it did when MargaritaPie recommended exactly the same old (very limited) stuff.

[nightwakingmoon]

Me!

[jennywhitehorses]

@nightwakingmoon

I’m afraid there’s not much point quoting mediocre academic work at academics who know the field.

When you say 'academics who know the field' who are you thinking of? Melissa Farley?

[nightwakingmoon]

[quote jennywhitehorses]@nightwakingmoon

Your disingenuous pro-sex-trade shilling for men who buy women's bodies isn't loaded though, I expect....?

If MargaritaPie is a shill then there are many others who are shills. Have you heard of Emily Kenway the expert in trafficking? She is the author of The Truth About Modern Slavery. She believes in decriminalisation like MargaritaPie.

Have you heard of Oxford Professor Amia Srinivasan? Or researchers
Professor Belinda Brooks-Gordon and Professor Nick Mai? They all believe in decriminalisation. Are they all shills for the punters?

Men don't buy women's bodies. They pay for a service. A lot of the time it doesn't involve penetrative sex. If a masseur uses her hands to massage a man and then uses her hands to bring him to orgasm, when does the buying of a body come in? She's using her hands just like lots of people in their jobs. They still own their bodies.[/quote]
Yes, I’ve read those people (MargaritaPie is often recommending them around these parts). Not sure why you’re including Srinivasan with them, as she works in a very different field. (She’s one of my colleagues in fact, and I don’t like her work either - it’s quite poorly thought through and really doesn’t remotely deserve the hype.) For the others, yes, they are equally disingenuous shills for men’s rights. I’m afraid there’s not much point quoting mediocre academic work at academics who know the field.

The exact same things too that MPie recommends on numerous different threads. You seem very much in sync.

[jennywhitehorses]

@yellowtwo

What study is there from the 1990s about prostituted Women who were delighted with being in prostitution Jennywhitehorses

I remember reading in one of Ann-Marie O'Connor's reports that some of the women said that they weren't doing it because they were desperate for money. They said they could earn money in different ways but they were fed up with scrimping.

If you like I can look through all 3 of her reports and find all the positive statements about prostitution made by Irish sex workers in the 1990s and quote from them.

In Rachel Moran's book she said she had a friend who saved up ten thousand pounds and could have saved more if she hadn't spent so much on overheads. She also writes about the 'advantaged middle-class women' she met in prostitution. She said that they were unhappy but that is her opinion and you have to give people credit for being able to choose for themselves how they wish to earn their money.

People can be unhappy in any job they do but less unhappy in some. Everyone has to balance amount of money earned, number of hours worked and how much they dislike the work when they choose what to do. Just because you would hate it doesn't mean all women would hate it.

[jennywhitehorses]

@nightwakingmoon

Your disingenuous pro-sex-trade shilling for men who buy women's bodies isn't loaded though, I expect....?

If MargaritaPie is a shill then there are many others who are shills. Have you heard of Emily Kenway the expert in trafficking? She is the author of The Truth About Modern Slavery. She believes in decriminalisation like MargaritaPie.

Have you heard of Oxford Professor Amia Srinivasan? Or researchers
Professor Belinda Brooks-Gordon and Professor Nick Mai? They all believe in decriminalisation. Are they all shills for the punters?

Men don't buy women's bodies. They pay for a service. A lot of the time it doesn't involve penetrative sex. If a masseur uses her hands to massage a man and then uses her hands to bring him to orgasm, when does the buying of a body come in? She's using her hands just like lots of people in their jobs. They still own their bodies.

[jennywhitehorses]

Yes MargaritaPie you are correct. If you take what she has written at face value then that first sentence says it all. However, there are ambiguities in that which gives her some wriggle room.

That is why (I guess) when Molly Smith and Juno Mac addressed this issue in their book Revolting Prostitutes they didn't mention the two places in Rachel Moran's book where she wrote that she had her own escort agency. They did though point out the last sentence in the paragraph: 'I'd made money that way when I had my own apartment'.

So she stated that she had taken money from women so that they could use her apartment. That is clearly illegal, and it continues to be illegal in Nordic model Ireland today. So much for decriminalising the women involved in prostitution.

We know from the Ann-Marie O'Connor reports that there were men who could afford an apartment and a mobile phone who exploited sex workers who could afford neither and were desperate after the 1993 change in the law because they could no longer work on the streets.

There is another passage in Moran's book which if you take it at face value is condemning.
"I remember on one particular occasion a man asked: 'How much is she?' in a very smarmy and condescending tone. I knew immediately the type of man I'd have been dealing with had I been foolish enough to meet him, because I'd met the likes of him enough times before. I responded that, 'She isn't actually for sale; she is renting her time by the hour', before hanging up the phone." page 178

What this says to me (apart from that she doesn't believe women ever sell their bodies) is that she was pimping another woman in her 'escort agency'. The only way you could avoid that conclusion would be to suggest that she was pretending to be someone else on the phone, and only pretending to be a pimp. There is nothing in the text to suggest that.

[yellowtwo]

MargaritaPie

It doesn't say that. I'm wondering why yourself and Jennywhitehorses keep lying about Rachel?

[MargaritaPie]

First sentence.

[yellowtwo]

MargaritaPie

Maybe you can point put where it says Rachel "pimped" other women?

I rented an apartment in Terenure for a short time and opened an escort agency of my own. I was seventeen at the time and I'm quite sure I was the youngest person advertising an escort agency in Ireland. It was a very simple thing to do and only required an apartment, a mobile phone and an advertisement in the back of In Dublin magazine, but when I had to deal with the reality of the ridiculous overheads, I soon got rid of the apartment and advertised for call-outs only. I worked mainly in the brothels and escort agencies of others from then on and did my own call-outs to homes and hotels. If I'd get a request for a call-in on my agency line I'd use a bedroom in the brothel of one of the women I was associating with at that time. I'd pay them a fee for the use of the room, which was common practice. I'd made money that way when I had my own apartment." Paid For by Rachel Moran Chapter 10 page 93.

I have the ebook in front of my btw.

[MargaritaPie]

@yellowtwo

Jennywhitehorses "But then again after 1993 things did change and it all became more violent." Right so it's no longer "not particularly violent before 1993"?
Can you post where Rachel says in her book that she pimped out women?

She already did. See her post on Fri 25-Feb-22 15:31:39

[yellowtwo]

Jennywhitehorses "But then again after 1993 things did change and it all became more violent." Right so it's no longer "not particularly violent before 1993"?
Can you post where Rachel says in her book that she pimped out women?

[MargaritaPie]

If Rachel Moran is a former-pimp, then does that mean any org she's gave input to who supports the Nordic Model should be discredited?

[yellowtwo]

MargaritaPie
To be supportive they have to lie? Odd that. Quite like insisting the earth is flat, should I believe the world is flat if a human rights org says so?

[yellowtwo]

What study is there from the 1990s about prostituted Women who were delighted with being in prostitution Jennywhitehorses
What comparable study about this cohort do you have?

[MargaritaPie]

yellowtwo, yes that's correct the world's largest International human rights org are also supportive of trans-people's rights as well as sex workers' rights.

[jennywhitehorses]

@yellowtwo

Again Jenny, this doesn't say what you think it does. She appears to be using the phrase 'escort agency' as renting an apartment so punters can visit her rather than go to them in this context.
She may refer to other women renting a room from her as a one off just as she did from others...if that makes her a pimp then she has also been pimped. Something you seem to be trying to deny. You can't have it both ways.

No. When she was running her escort agency she put adverts in the In Dublin magazine and then she answered her mobile phone to get men to come to the flat that she had rented to see women who were desperate because they could no longer work on the streets.

One of the punters asked her 'How much does she cost?'. That's what she wrote in her book. I have never said that she had never been pimped, what I said was that she has little to say about pimps in her book except that she used to be one. She certainly didn't hand over most of her earnings to a pimp.

[jennywhitehorses]

@yellowtwo

Again Jennywhitehorses Anne Marie O Connor's study is specifically about prostituted Women who are drug users, the studies are not representative of all prostituted Women and nor does she claim them to be.

Exactly! That's my point. Ann-Marie O'Connor in one of her excellent studies wrote that 38% of a group of 77 Dublin drug addicted street based based prostituted had attempted suicide and 25% had been diagnosed with depression.

So why did Ruhama say that this applied to prostitutes in Ireland in general? Ruhama did this because this is a tactic used often by people who support the Nordic model. They use a statistic that only applies to drug addicts and then pretend that it applies to all sex workers. It is dishonest.

Now you could say that it wasn't Rachel's fault that she repeated the false statistic in her book. Or that she repeated the false statistic about 127 sex workers killed in the Netherlands after legalisation. It was the fault of religious bigots. But if she can't even be bothered to check her statistics then I cannot believe that she cares about the welfare of Irish sex workers.

[jennywhitehorses]

@yellowtwo

Where does it say she was "pimping" put other Women?

Do you know what pimping is? Running your own escort agency is pimping. Taking money off women to let them use a room of yours is pimping.

When you take money off women who are desperate because there has been a change in the law which means they can no longer work on the streets and they can't afford an apartment and a mobile phone that is morally reprehensible.

She used them then and she is using them now. When sex workers agreed to be interviewed by Ann-Marie O'Connor and her colleagues they did it in good faith. They were hoping that the authorities would take notice of their plight and do something to alleviate their suffering.

They didn't realise that decades later one of the people who exploited them would falsify this research to bring in another restrictive law that would harm them. It is true that 38% of the 77 drug addicted Dublin street sex workers interviewed by O'Connor had attempted suicide. It is not true what Moran wrote in her book, that 38% of Irish prostitutes have attempted suicide.

If you know how many drug addicts have attempted suicide then you would want the state to spend millions on rehab. That's what the Nordic model is supposed to do but doesn't. Read what Dr Shannon wrote in the official report.

If you mistakenly think that 38% of sex workers have attempted suicide then you would want sex work to be banned. At least you would if you mistakenly thought that prohibition means less sex work. Dr Shannon has not said that there is less prostitution in Ireland now compared to before the Nordic model being introduced. If you look at the corresponding report for Northern Ireland it says that the amount of prostitution has increased. If you take an impartial look at the statistics from Sweden you would conclude that it increased there too.

I have told you what Moran has written in her book. The pimping and the drugs. I have also said that some people have said they don't remember her on the streets of Dublin in the 1990s. I have not said I don't believe she was on the streets. When I started reading the book I thought she might have made it up - there have been people like Valerie Lempereur who have made it up. Then I realised that if you were going to make up something you wouldn't make up that. Her experience doesn't really support the cause of prohibition.

What she writes in Paid For is that she didn't have penetrative sex for the first two years in sex work. She never had anal sex ever. She only did penetrative sex 'sporadically' after the 1993 law which made life more difficult for sex workers. Oral sex was with condoms and one of the women she knew didn't ever do oral because she didn't want to. So what she wrote is completely different from some people's ideas about what prostitution is. But then again after 1993 things did change and it all became more violent.

[yellowtwo]

MargaritaPie Amnesty talk out of both sides of their mouth. This is the organisation that has stated that "there is no such thing as a biologically female body", so forgive me for doubting anything they say about Douglas Fox, when that transcript shows he had input in the policy development.