thelondonpaper - apparently visiting prostitutes is a perfectly normal thing to do...

[ChukkyPig]

Yesterday they ran a piece in the "columnist" section where people can send stories in.

It was a piece by "john" who basically justified his use of prositutes on the grounds that modern women are awful and won't look at him so what's he supposed to do.

here

I was a bit but thought, never mind, the letters page tomorrow will be full of letters picking holes in the piece.

Today the letters page was crammed with responses to the article, ALL of which said that it was sad the guy was so lonely, it was understandable that he used prostitutes, that it was fine these days, and that anyway modern women are shallow bitches so what do they expect men to do.

I was a bit shocked TBH that the paper didn't print a single letter mentioning exploitation, trafficing, that women aren't awful and what's he on about etc but no.

Anyway the paper had picked this as a "hot topic" so I go online expecting to see some anti-prostitution comments. But there aren't! One person (out of about 30) mentions trafficing/coercion but that's it. The rest of the responses are sympathetic and understanding, mostly saying that there are decent women out there.

Where's the moral outrage? I know it's a rag but this is bizarre all the same.

I have posted a comment but oddly it hasn't appeared yet - maybe it's being moderated - or maybe for some reason they are only displaying sympathetic responses.

I am having an outraged moment - please feel free to join me...

And - do publications have to give a balanced view on their letters pages? or are they allowed to just print one point of view? Guessing the latter...

You put it better than I did weeonion.

I agree with what you say.

And I'm guessing that 'acceptable' publications like Nuts and Zoo are merely affirming the 'right' for men to have sex. As you say, very depressing.

when you have the lads mags calling for readers to take secret mobile pics of unsuspecting womens breasts and encourage them to be posted online - it shows how much respect there really is.

Very well put weeonion. I think you're right that it's about power, and also that women are being encouraged to think that all this crap is unremarkable.

And yes, I think that Zoo and Nuts and all those shitty junior-porn mags are a part of the same process.

Actually, some disabled women do pay for sex. (I have only anecdotal evidence, not hard statistics, but it is something I have heard of happening).
And do you (those of you who think that exchanging sex for cash is always unacceptable) really believe that you have the right to tell the physically disabled that they can just do without sex, tough luck? OK the issues around sex and disability probably do need a whole thread on their own but in brief: many people with disabilities suffer quite a lot from the fact that many other people see them as somehow sexless and are appalled if they indicate that they have sexual feelings and want to experiment with those feelings.

While no one has the 'right' to have sex with an unwilling individual (and trafficking is an abomination whether the trafficked individual is made to work in a brothel or abandoned to die in quicksand to benefit the catering industry) exchanging cash for sex with a person who has chosen to do sex work is not the same as obtaining sex by force - or by deception ('Of course I love you, now suck my dick and I'll marry you').

People pay cash to have food cooked for them, to be listened to patiently and unquestioningly, and to be touched (what is the big difference between a consenting sex worker who has made an informed choice to do sex work and an aromatherapy masseur? Is it really just the way some people freak out at the thought of genitalia?). People who pay for sex are paying for a service to take place during a certain amount of time, they do not obtain ownership of the sex worker's body or body parts for their money (you only get ownership rights over someone else's body by marrying them).

solidgold - you know many prostituted women????

You don't get ownership rights over someone else's body by marrying them! A very weird view of modern marriage.

Weeonion: I know several sex workers. SOme of them are good friends of mine. BTW sex workers who are not trafficked and who have consciously chosen their work, find being referred to as 'prostituted women' a little offensive. this article (the relevant paragraphs are near the bottom) might be of interest to you.
BTW the link is a feature on the feminist website The F-Word, I am not mischeviously redirecting anyone to a picture of a big cock or anything.

'a consenting sex worker who has made an informed choice to do sex work'

You cannot possibly believe that this is a representative description of the average prostitute. You might know a few sex workers who love what they do, but the vast majority of prostitutes are powerless, miserable and undergo what amounts to rape several times a day.

Thanks for the link SGS, that looks very interesting.

A lot of them are feeding a drug addiction.

i know there are great debates in feminist circles as to whether sexual exploitation or sex work. i could equally quote references and websites back. I dont want to reduce this to a feminist arguement in a teela sanders / julie bindle style. what i know from the women i work with, is that they find it offensive when others think there is a valid choice to make and that some people would accept the harm that is done to them, by individuals who buy them, from pimps/ boyfriends and dealers who use them and from a wider system of inequality that means they can be exploited. It is a survival behaviour and so- I will refer to women as being prostituted or prostituted. i do not mean to insult or offend women like your friends who have entered into the sex industry and think of it as their choice but they may not be representative of the vast majority of women and girls who end up exploited.

correction!!

"It is a survival behaviour and so- I will refer to women as being prostituted or prostituted." should read -

It is a survival behaviour and so- I will refer to women as being prostituted, expolited or involved in prostitution.

PW: I don't have hard statistics on how many sex workers there are in the UK nor how many of them are willing or unwilling. Do you?

What I do think (from discussions with my sex worker friends etc) is that a punitive, stigmatising attitude towards sex work which treats all sex workers as victims incapable of making their own choices and all clients as scum is not necessarily helpful to those people who are being exploited.

i agree that a punitive negative attitude towards women is deeply damaging. punishemnts should go on the criminal side and stigma needs to be removed from wider society. I think the men / punters/ johns etc who buy sex are the ones who should take responsibility for their choice.

No one on here has expressed any punitive attitudes towards sex workers though.

Solid, we could spend all night swapping URLs. If you are prepared to argue that the majority, or even a significant minority, of prostitutes are happy, wealthy, healthy and in full control of their destinies then I think that's immensely curious.

I would like to see more sex workers' customers develop an awareness of exploitation the same as I would like to see more consumers of consumer goods develop an awareness of exploitation ie that lovely little frock for £1 was almost certainly made by slave labour; if you are paying less than £100 for the services of a sex worker it's a lot more likely that she is a victim of trafficking or an addict than someone who has chosen to do the work.

or for under £100 they could then be the vast majority of prostituted women and girls in the U.K.

I used to live near a prostitute hang out corner

to say it was sad is an understatement

thin, young, drugged up woman, standing in the rain in short skirts

yes, there are those that charge £1000 a night - you read about them in the News of the World or equivalent rag

but the vast, vast majority are from care or crappy backgrounds, abused or drug addicts

PW: I'm saying that I don't know. From anecdotal evidence ie the people I know personally and the people they know there would seem to be quite a lot of willing, consenting sex workers. But if they have so far managed not to be convicted of prostitution, and have not 'gone public' about what they do, how could anyone obtain hard data about how many of them there are?

hard data can be gathered to a certain extent from the justice systems, from liason teams, from specialist service providers, from GPs, from sexual health clinics, from midwives / health visitors, from research on escort sites, from research and comparisons across small ads, from research on phone box cards, from the variety of punters sites, from numbers of saunas / massage parlours, from intelligence gathering etc etc.

this information is compiled and is compared so there can be some pretty good guesstimates made whilst acknowledging that it will still be an underflection of the real scale.

evidence is also gathered from sources and services who will pick up some women who were never prosecuted, never had an addiction or suffer direct physical violence. these women tend to come forward after they have exited or remained free from prostitution. this can be years later.

weeonion: take your point with the first post, but WRT to the second, those sources/service which only see women in distress have nothing to compare their data with so run the risk (like those mental health professionals who reckon that all gay people are messed up because they have never been consulted by a gay person who wasn't messed up and have never thought that non-messed-up people don't consult helplines etc).

I think the best question would be, would women working as prostitutes continue doing so if they had the option of earning the same money in another way.

My guess is that the vast majority of women would gladly address envelopes rather than service clients for the same time and cash.

SG would your friends still work in the sex industry if they could earn the same money in the same time doing something else?