Call me Mary Whitehouse but this makes me sick

[Caligyulea]

number of men willing to pay for sex has doubled

In view of the fact that women from Eastern Europe are being enslaved so that dirty men can pay money to have sex with them, I think men who have sex with Eastern European prostitutes should bloody well be prosecuted for rape. That'd make 'em a bit less willing to take a liberal view of abusing women.

Here's another link

plight of the cellar girls

Normsnockers, at the end of the day for some of the adult women as well, it's rape, not "prostitution".

ruty - I don't know. And I wouldn't know where to send one of them if she asked me for help .

thats the thing dinosaur - the support systems are few and far between and mostly voluntary.

Norms, I can't help but equate prostitution with the abuse of women. Porn too. I've only obliquely been exposed to modern porn, through academic analysis but a huge amount of it is all about humiliation, pain and abuse. Prostitutes then have to act out these scenarios. Of course they're not going to say they're being abused. They have to convince themselves of that to have any idea of self-autonomy. But something other than this apparent pride in their work is revealed as they constantly trying to legitamise their actions with claims that they pay taxes or they're doing a public service. We all live in cloud cuckoo land to some extent, prostitutes and punters are no different I'd imagine.

whilst I agree that enslavement of women from Eastern Europe is wrong, as all enslavement is wrong, i don't think that men who pay for sex are "dirty men".

Why shouldn't person A pay person B for a service which they provide for them? I would pay someone to clean my house, wash my car, tutor my child, cook my food. Why shouldn't I pay someone for sex? Provided they are in a ligitimate position to offer the service (I'd contend that enslaved women or any children are not in a ligitimate position)then I don't have a moral problem with it. What I do have a moral problem with is a lack of acceptance of the sex trade which leads to the endangerment of women working within it. Legalise prostitution and create a segregation between those who choose to be on the game and those who don't, then target the abusers of those who don't.

In the meantime though, accept that sex isn't dirty and that men who pay for it aren't dirty either.

I think men who use women like rubber dolls are disgusting. And I agree that the idea of them teaching my kids makes me want to vomit.

Oh, that's always the conflation that blokes make about porn. If you say you don't like porn or have issues about prostitution they say 'why don't you like sex?' or 'you need a good shag obviously' rubbish designed to embarress/humiliate you and shut you up. Thank god some of us can see through it. Sex isn't dirty, your right, but porn and prostitution don't represent sex, they represent something much more pernicious.

I helped a prostitute with her website once. she was doing it voluntarily, I am sure of that.

As an industry, it's not nice, and yes, the enslavemnt of woemn is horrific. But fundamentally it's not immoral IMO. The are a number of women who work as prostitutes but who do not have much choice (eg because they are addicted to crack and cannot get the money another way) but that's a problem with society isn't it, not with the sex industry itself? I imagine there are a lot of people in other industries which I do consider to be immoral who only do it for the money and hate themselves for it. tobacco company executives? weapons manufacture?

mt - I don't think that prostitution is about anything more than sex. Someone wants to sell, someone else wants to buy. As long as they're both consenting adults making informed decisions, I really can't see what's wrong with it. I'm not saying that you need a good shag, telling you to be quiet, or trying to humiliate you. All I'm doing is disagreeing with your opinion.

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Thing is, if you legalise it, what's to stop pimps advertising for "staff" in job centres...and benefits being stopped for women who refuse "interviews"?

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Does anyone really think that legalising it would stop the abuses?

I think legalising it might improve things for some prostitutes, but it could also make it worse for women to some degree, as it would take some of them out of the control of the pimp and into the control of the state. They'd be tested every week for disease (the men who come and screw them won't be, of course) and it would be on their ID card that they're a prostitute (twenty years later when they're middle-aged knackered housewives, that data would still be there). Meanwhile, women who don't want to be so controlled, would still be prosecuted for being an unlicensed prostitute.

And there will still be a market for unlicensed prostitution, because how many men will want to go to a government-licensed brothel? Whatever people say about it just being a service, come off it, sex isn't a service like cleaning. If cleaners were paid £50k pa, does anyone think the women who prefer to be prostitutes rather than cleaners would still prefer the prostitution option? But some of the men who pretend it is "just a service" won't be quite so willing to put their money - and signatures - where there mouths are if they were required to in order to visit government licensed brothels. They're not going to want to blow their anonymity, so there is still going to be a market for illegal prostitution, even if it is legalised, iyswim. And that means that the abuses associated with the profession will still continue.

now there's a thought -all the men who visit brothels should be tested for STD s before being allowed in!

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I can see the point of both arguments and think the argument for legalising it is compelling from some angles but on reflection I mainly think legalising prostitution would be a step towards legitamizing abuse against women.

I think it would be disastrous for society if prostitution was legalised. What message does it give out to young women? That the state approves of women being nothing but meat to be used by men? Just anuses and vaginas and mouths to be penetrated by strangers? That this is fine and OK? This is not a message or a society I want for my daughters.

I don't want to "get over" my disgust at what prostitutes do or have done to them for money and I'm fully aware that many of them despise their clients (well who wouldn't?)and consider that they render a service like any other. But false consciousness is as prevalent in prostitution as any other area of life, and of course people who are engaged in the sex industry (as in any other) are going to rationalise their choices. That's not labelling them victims.

And I still don't think that the majority of women who "choose" prostitution, would choose it if the alternative options for earning money were as well-paid and flexible. There would of course be some, but the majority don't do it because they didn't fancy the job they were offered as managing director of the local big company - they do it because the other career options are crap and then they justify doing it to make it bearable.

I agree with those who say that actually legalising the trade (as opposed to de-criminalising the women who engage in it, and yes, there is a difference) is a very disturbing message to send out to society about the value of people, men and women. I agree with Aloha, I wouldn't want my daughter growing up in a society which says it's perfectly socially acceptable to reduce a person to the sum of his or her sexual parts. Although of course, if men's magazines are anything to go by, that attitude has already been largely de-stigmatised. There's a link here which summed up the way our culture is moving as regards this issue, and I found it quite depressing reading. Brilliant article though.

Excellent article, Caligyulea. I hate those bl**dy magazine and the article hits the nail on the head.

Can I just clarify that the 'disgust' I feel is aimed towards the men who use and abuse prostitutes - not about sex and not the women who provide this service. Neither do I see them all as 'victims'.