Men viewing all women as potential sex workers

[OtterlyRidiculous]

In uni, guys in my class (my choice of optional modules had classes that were sadly even more male-dominated in an already male-dominated course) would blatantly scroll through nudes on Reddit in full view of everyone during the lecture and make 'fuckability' spreadsheets complete with ratings and how much they'd 'pay' for nudes of women from my school.

Employment prospects was an especially hot topic at the height of COVID but anytime a female student posted about her worries in the school-specific sub, her concerns would be dismissed with, 'women can do OnlyFans, I don't see the issue here' or something along those lines.

I'm currently doing my internship at a fairly prestigious firm and at lunch the other day someone was talking about this news article that showed up on his Apple News feed a while back, and the main takeaway he got (others agreed with him) was that the best thing a woman can do for her life 'if she is not stupid' is to open an OF page the day she can and 'milk her youth because it fades fast'.

I'm in a regional programming group on Discord. There's an 'entertainment' section where they discuss movies and content creators on YouTube and when an actress or female content creator turns 18 or when her viewership starts declining (it doesn't matter what content she does) there's always this 'joke' as to when she's going to start selling nudes.

Is this just how women are viewed these days? I am so sick of it and it never seems to fucking stop. In fact, it actually seems to be getting worse as some of the boys in my sister's classes almost seem to believe that it's a given that the girls will at least do OF on the side when they're older! Jesus wept.

I was at uni in the 80s and the guys were all assholes then too - sitting outside their dorms with signs rating all the girls that walked by, a couple cases of gang rapes of girls who got too intoxicated at parties. The uni set up a group to escort students between buildings if dark - this was a campus university so basically protecting students from students.
Sad to see so many adult males continue in the vein though.

Yes. You can thank the world wide web for all that.

Hi Op.
The Uni sounds awful, did the lecturers know what was going on?
I know you said you are an intern but what your colleague said is definitely reportable.

@OtterlyRidiculous so grim, and not okay. I suspect it’s the pornification via online media effect, presumably lots of these otherwise normal young to middle aged men have been exposed to/used a lot of violent and demeaning pornography centred on female victims since they were 9 or 10 years old. This in turn has normalised a default level of sexualisation of every female which does not reflect real life at all, much to their confusion. It’s the pits, it dehumanises women, but it also brutalises their own capacity for connection, intimacy and frankly, respectability.

IMHO this is leading to the creation of an underclass of incel men wondering why they have appetites that can’t reasonably be satisfied with the average woman and a warped perspective on the role women could and should play in their lives and society. They will become the underclass, because the truth is society and the workplace is set up in such a way that people who are out and proud with these attitudes and predilections 1) won’t be put in charge of people 2) won’t be left alone with children because they are too much of a liability. The older men currently in still charge of most things mostly find this stuff pretty alien too, and a couple of high profile complaints and lawsuits will be all it takes to make default female leadership the sensible calculus.

I suppose what I’m saying is, it’s grim, it’s horrible and it’s sad- but make no mistake- it will make women the default safe pair of hands in society and the workplace which you will soon benefit from in your career at least. Look up Female Dating Strategy podcast, you might find it relatable and entertaining- covers a lot of the issues you’ve raised.

Yep and I'm wondering out of the people who aren't happy with Universities offering support to student sexworkers, if they've read the Uni's sex work tool kit and what they have to say in response to criticism?

le.ac.uk/-/media/uol/docs/offices/edi/student-sex-work-toolkit-final-december-2020.pdf

web.archive.org/web/20211205230640/www.durham.ac.uk/about-us/notices/sex-worker-support/

And her comes Margie proving OPs point for her.

This thread isn't about supporting university students to use their education to become sex workers. You don't need an education for that. It's about men like you who think all women are potentially available for your own sexual satisfaction and you've never said anything that makes me think you see women as more than orifices to be filled.

I don't think you read the links.

There are very good reasons not to support the Leicester university toolkit @MargaritaPie

Any idea why funding has been withdrawn by the ESRC and the updated version of the Staff toolkit is no longer available?

nordicmodelnow.org/2021/05/01/whats-wrong-with-the-leicester-student-sex-worker-policy-and-toolkit/

On the question of OnlyFans, it always seems to me that everyone - 'creators' and 'consumers' alike - is deluded in thinking that it offers an easy route to a decent income or that it represents some form of empowerment. The media hasn't helped much, picking out vanishingly rare stories of easy riches. So the crasser type of man, and the naive type of woman, see it as a genuine alternative to gainful employment, and one which is almost exclusively available to young women. It's toxic nonsense.

My post has been hidden. Either the person I @ named set off a trigger or maybe the link. So I'll just post this screenshot.

Grim but not surprising. So glad I’ve left my career in tech, it’s been toxic for women for decades but at least I went through it without the constant OF promotion

I hope all this doesn’t further deter girls and young women from careers in male dominated stem subjects.
DD did a maths degree and works in risk analysis/IT development for a major bank. She is autistic, her colleagues are all male, but they are also mainly autistic, endearing old geeks who are v supportive of her.
When she was off work with a depressive relapse, one of the older chaps who suffers with anxiety came out for a ten mile hike with her, during which they shared coping strategies. She has been promoted and head hunted, and her male team
leader fought to get her a pay rise. Apologies, I know this is a “namalt” post, but decent chaps do exist even in stem!

It certainly sounds as if things have got worse, but in some ways women have far better protection from sexual harassment in the workplace by all the legal provisions in place to protect women... Yet thirty years ago I rarely heard men talk about women so badly but that didn't stop sexual harassment in workplace. My only advice is that In your life you will come across sexual inequality and be subject to negative sexist views, but that doesn't mean you have to put up with it. For your college you should look up the policy on sexual equality and harassment... Report any inappropriate offensive conduct... If you are subjected to unwelcome comments in the workplace make sure you are in a trade union and report it if it is offensive ... Most good companies these days are pretty strict on sexual equality and also professional conduct of employees. Hopefully gone are the days when I used to go in warehouses and the retirement would have nude calendars on display... I reported a guy for sexual harassment in my twenties and the company protected me..he was sacked... Women need to speak out about poor behaviour ... We don't need to put up with it

I have had a similar reaction when I didn't want to go into a strip club when a group of women wanted to go in to look. The WOMAN made a mock shock face and went "errrgggh errgh ugggh oh nooooo a strip club' as if trying to do an impression of me, as if I was scared to go in or something. I didn't want to go in because I don't agree with it, not because of anything else. She saw nothing wrong with it.

@whatsup00
What a sad woman she was.

This reminded me how so often it’s women who try and push women boundaries.
Or try and shame them, I’ve gotten my fair share of prude shaming - all from women.
It doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t know what that is about.

Sorry OP that you have to deal with all this sexism. It is gross. I know a young woman whose hair dresser said lots of the women she meets are on OF. The internet is forever and the exploitation of women is so awful. I don't know what it's doing to their mental health in the long term.

Sex "work" ffs it's prostitution. Call it what it is. Calling it "work" harms women and it only helps men to make their sleazy pastime look more acceptable. These women wouldn't be doing this "work" if they had any real options. A policeman who worked in stopping sex trafficking wrote an article saying that often trafficked prostitutes start off on OnlyFans.. Unfortunately I can't find the article now.

We're talking about prostitution in the context of female students. You can't say that they don't have any real options. They could do bar work or waitressing.

That's why people get worked up about student sex workers. The very existence of student sex workers shows that sex workers aren't all drug addicts, pimped/trafficked or desperately poor.

Students aren't stupid either. If you tell them that prostitution increases rape, as both Janice Turner and Libby Purves have said, they will ask you for the evidence. They will be suspicious when a reference is not given. They won't believe you unless you come up with the evidence. And it will have to be better than the poor quality 'research' that Melissa Farley has done.

Appealing to their sense of duty isn't going to work because they are not going to believe that what they are doing is going to increase rape or 'objectification'. They are going to weigh up the pros and cons of sex work, how much it pays and how many hours you have to do just like any other job.

Ah yes, let’s find these young women who think there’s no real difference between carrying plates in and out of a kitchen, and letting a strange man stick his dick into your body risking STI and pregnancy. Where are they?

It’s all offensive pro-men’s-dick-rights propaganda. We know it, you know it. Don’t piss on our legs and tell us it’s raining!

Thanks for pointing this out, SunshinePie. It always irritates me when people make that stupid comment. Not a shred of evidence to support it, but it belittles women so it goes on being trotted out.

@theclangersarecoming

Ah yes, let’s find these young women who think there’s no real difference between carrying plates in and out of a kitchen, and letting a strange man stick his dick into your body risking STI and pregnancy. Where are they?

Dr Petra Boynton has written in the Lancet that sex workers have lower levels of STIs than the general population. They don't suffer higher rates of unwanted pregnancy. They are very careful with condom use unlike many young women.

A student can find this very easily just by Googling it. They can find out the facts and are not going to be persuaded by people like you.

This is clearly some kind of elaborate fantasy, because I know plenty of student-age girls (I teach university students), and I’ve never yet met one who seems like she would be even remotely interested in this.

In the real world, they are clever, nice and sensible young feminist women who work hard and have ambitions for their lives way beyond your sordid imaginings of fruity young popsies selling sex for fun and giggles. Why would they need to?

@theclangersarecoming

This is clearly some kind of elaborate fantasy, because I know plenty of student-age girls (I teach university students), and I’ve never yet met one who seems like she would be even remotely interested in this.

In the real world, they are clever, nice and sensible young feminist women who work hard and have ambitions for their lives way beyond your sordid imaginings of fruity young popsies selling sex for fun and giggles. Why would they need to?

If that's what you really believe then there isn't a problem, is there? Why make a fuss about a university giving female students information about sex work if none of them are going to want to do it? Libby Purves and Janice Turner have wasted their time writing in the Times that it's a big problem.

I'm not encouraging young people to make money from sex work and I'm not encouraging young people to take drugs. I think it's a good idea that a university should give information about both of these things. I think it would be a good idea for young women to sit down together, talk about it and look at the research.

These women will not be considering sex work as a career any more than they will be considering waitressing or bar work as a career. Some of them might be thinking about how sex work compares to waitressing in terms of how much money they can make and how long it would take to make it.

Well we have a bloke on here comparing bar work to prostitution, so I'd say your conclusion is correct in many cases OP.