the teenager who sold her virginity to the highest bidder to fund her further education

[pottycock]

I can't decide whether this is very sad or quite enterprising. A bit of both I think.

What did amaze me is that a medical professional endorsed her virginity at a press conference!

story here - warning, it's in the DM!

No, I am just correcting details, should I also add that this is in St Albans? The man is black and wearing a suit? I think that is all the detail needed,

well,muffle dont talk in definitives and assert your global theories of women,BJ,shoes

i take issue at sweeping derisory statements directed at a women as a mass.as if fact.

Actually tattifer I was surmising more along the lines of spread of STI's, unwanted pregnancies, instances of rape and assault, links with organised crime, drugs, people trafficking etc.
But I'm not an expert on such matters, you may well be correct, tis all a conspiracy to keep us under the thumb.

I directed my response to muffs comment about "for centuries"

Your actually agreeing with me - the church as a political institution is patriarchal. Prostitution was not seen in the same way prior to the advent of the old testament. Stretch your brain a little further - think concepts. The church as a young organisation needed strengthen its power base - so it weakens century by century those traditionally powerful roles held by women - givers of sex, medicine, etc.

You cannot really believe that anyones opinions have sprung out of the ether and are not coloured by this just because you don't go to church?

Manatee - I was never in that situation, but I suspect that if had been I'd have been a wimp and got myself arrested instead. Not out of morals, just cowardice - I lived in fear of a bunch of women disapproving of my actions!

True tatt (well you are calling me muff ) that I am a product of my culture of course, and centuries of christian-influenced values and laws.

I don't judge or demean the prostitute though and I have on this thread said I can see her POV and I was not one to hound her or call her a tramp. It is the inequality of the prostitution set-up, and very much the actions and attitudes of the men involved, that I think is wrong, and I'm not interested in weakening and ostracising women.

Your view of ancient times does seem a bit rosy to me. If there wasn't an inequality, why are you just talking about women as being the prostitutes back then? if they had equal status and money, wouldn't there have been just as many male prostitutes? - after all women want sex too...

I'm not sure I'm saying there wasn't any inequality, I was simply looking at this perception of prostitution that seems so negative - i.e where that negative/lowlife/tramp etc comes from or rather where that imagery has its roots. I don't think life was easy at all. In fact I would imagine it was hard enough for esoteric arguments about feminism to not exist - survival was probably more the watch word for the day!

Mind you if you go back far enough (pet theory here, not to be taken seriously) I think that a lot of the average guys mindset is probably rooted in survival when hunting mammoths while female mind seems better suited to staying at home looking after the cave...

someone who is feeling horny can just masturbate

Oh dear, it's just not the same!

tattifer, I'm certain that almost all opinions are second hand. That doesn't make them incorrect though. Thus far I'm sticking with the "prostitution is wrong" set of opinions, but by all means educate me.

Masturbation isn't the same as a good hard fuck

Dittany - masturbation is not the same as sex with a n other. There was a touch of irony there

My point is that the buying and selling of sex isn't a moral problem until the church says it is.

Previous civilisations don't single out women for slavery. The romans were very egalitarian when it came to using both men and women in the arena

Why is it that these moral outrage threads always turn into women slagging other womens opinions off - shame. I think we should all have a group hug for having opinions in the first place

ooh violet - you took the words right out of my mouth

In fact the dh has been handcuffed to the bed for over an hour now, i'd best be off and use and abuse him. night all

If a man is paying £150+ (a not-unusual fee for a consenting UK prostitute) for an hour of a woman's time/sex, he is unlikely to be gaining any thrill from exploiting her. But I agree that at the £30-£40 for a 10 - 15 minute quickie end of the scale that could be a factor.

Are you really arguing that men get more of a buzz from getting a woman-bargain than if they have to pay the going rate?

Really?

And people are so ignorant of history that they think that "the church" just showed up fully formed one day with an entirely new set of rules completely at variance with the culture of the time?

Some men, those who don't have a particularly high regard for women in general anyway, and who have to pay for it because they're so fucking obnoxious that no woman would ever shag him for free, get an extra buzz out of cheap, exploitative sex, yes. However, the vast majority of men (even those using the cheapie walkups in Soho etc) are not like that - as has been said earlier in this thread, most punters are just ordinary blokes, with a range of ordinary attitudes towards women, including respectful ones.

Why have we had this series of threads that seem to be celebrating prostitution as some some of empowering act? One of the previous ones had a link to a very powerful piece by someone who had been a prostitute describing just how degrading it is to have someone shoving their dick into you for the sake of a few pounds. It really wasn't pleasant.

I wonder if the "Annie Sprinkles" of this world are written by those with experience of providing sexual services at all.

I suspect that at one time or another most of us have had sex when we really weren't in the mood. It is not a great experience, even when it is with someone you love and find sexually attractive let alone someone who you wouldn't ordinarily be seen dead in the same room as, let alone be intimate with.

Men (and occasionally women) have been exploiting women, other less powerful men and children for as long as recorded history. I see very little to suggest that that was a good thing. Whether you are forced into it by circumstance of birth (slavery, poverty), battle or poor choices doesn't make selling your body to the highest taker a good thing.

This girl hoped to be rescued from her existing life by meeting a rich man who would fall in love with her (Pretty Woman is a lovely fantasy, but probably as likely as winning the lottery) or making a lot of money. On both fronts she was incredibly naive at best, and she failed to be successful at either aim. If you accept her story at face value, the best one can say is that nothing bad happened.

On the DM front, looks like another bit of anti-women propaganda to me, and I bet the girl in question was paid a pittance (but I'm sure the DM isn't the only place to feature the story). I do wonder about the veracity of it though - if you get yourself all over the internet saying:

"I want the first time I have sex to be special so I wouldn't want it to be a quickie. I want it to be something I will remember forever. After all, it is my first time. And who knows what may come of it? I'm not ruling out falling in love."

Then coming back afterwards and saying that actually it was a bit crap (which it probably was in truth) isn't likely to sell to anyone is it?

posted this and went straight to bed last night. Some really interesting arguments....my objection to prostitution (however the prostitute came to be in his/her line of work, be it through desperation or selection) is that it relies on the custom of those who are able to impose themselves physically upon another human being, all the while knowing its not consensual - in the sense that one of the partners is not participating with lust or love. It's an intrinsic physical abuse of another body in my view and I believe there are serious moral and emotional deficiencies in someone who could divorce themselves from that awareness sufficiently for them to be able to do what they do.

That is of course a total indictment on a larger scale of how some of us relate to other human beings in contemporary society - I realise prostitution is an age old tradition and refer specifically to contemporary society because we are hypocritical and insidious enough to drape a thin veil of equality and political correct exteriors over everything as though we are somehow more developed or aware, which makes it worse imo.

The posters who have said this would have been a different story had the highest bidder been a one eyed, smelly, abusive man are right - the girl (and she is a girl) would have been traumatised. Maybe she still will be, who knows.

On the other hand, the girl seems extremely philosophical about this so perhaps it's something she will not look back on and regret. She got what she wanted from the exercise after all.

What I found most questionable about this story is that the medical profession and the media acted as her pimps - a press conference to authenticate her virginity?? That's what we should be debating here imo.

Dittany I went to bed

The women is not homeless, and just has nowhere to sleep that night. She is not 'some poor homeless women'.

Of course he could masturbate, but then the women would not have the opportunity to exploit his desire for her own financial gain.

Nooka 'Annie Sprinkle' (all her work) is written and performed by...Annie Sprinkle! And she started out 'providing sexual services'.

Someone else did this. I remember a red haired lady doing the same thing a few years ago.

Why is it seen as expoitation if someone is using someones body (paying for it). And 'being exploited' if someone is using their own body to use someone elses money?

Bodies get exploited, but money is just money?

I do totally agree that a lot of prostitution IS based on exploitation of women, BUT I really don't believe that is always the case, and what I am REALLY objecting to here is the way in which some people are labelling prostitutes as 'Tramps' and such like, now THAT makes anyone feel crap, whether they are a prostitute because some vile pimp has them hooked on smack, or because they like getting money for sex, why should they be made to feel crap???