Calling all prostitutes and former prostitutes on MN, as there seem to be a few around right now...

[Aitch]

I'm curious to know how it makes you feel to see threads on here from wives and girlfriends etc when they discover that their husbands etc have been visiting prostitutes? even if you are happy in your own jobs (and i hope to god you are somehow, because the alternative is intolerable), how does it feel to be confronted with the downside of your work on these pages?

(i think it goes without saying that the men are culpable in this scenario, but am looking for some insight into how your work squares with sisterhood etc).

On the subject of disability and sex,

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4490063.stm

takes you to the results of the Disability Now sex survey of 2005, which reported that only half of the thousand disabled people surveyed had sex in the last year, and that most of us felt that our sexual needs were almost entirely ignored by every single shop, product, service, book, magazine or otherwise. It also talks about the use of sex workers for disabled people and the statistics around it.
Only half of disabled people have ever been offered even basic sex education - people mostly just assume we're asexual.

evening all

is manda or watching on here at all tonite? Or anyone else in their line of work will like to give any further opinions on this.

Actually has any of the working girls worked in other countries, ie Holland or Australia and can tell us of their general experiences there

deb

'its quite simple, if the guys dont want to use their services they dont, they dont force anyone to visit them. If someone does it is their moral decision and ergo the impact that decision has on them/their families.

No one has any right to be anyone elses moral watchdog.'

This would be an interesting argument if applied to firearm laws. It would be easy to demolish in the UK, but not in somewhere like Texas, where gun ownership is seen as something of a God-given right, and right up there with eating and breathing on the needs scale. And guns do a lot of damage. Or is it people who do a lot of damage, with guns...

Taking up the 'sisterhood' notion and downsides of the job can I raise a question?

I don't work in the sex industry, never have but I used to work for a company in which unwanted sexual attention was the norm. For example, I was groped by one manager, propositioned by another who thought I might want to 'get ahead' in the company and grappled by a colleague who wanted me to sit in his lap and 'talk about the first thing that came up'. I didn't just put up with it but thats another thread.

My point is that the consequences of women choosing to work in the sex industry are not just massively detrimental to the wives of the men they are fucking, they are also perpetuating the idea of any woman as a commodity.

I just wonder how our resident prostitutes feel about this as you have been very generous with your responses so far.

tbh amber, you completely misinterpreted what i originally said, so i'm not really that interested in getting into the whys and wherefores of the 'rights' of a disabled person to have sex. i don't think a disabled person has any more right than anyone else, that's my point. i don't think anyone should feel they have the right to buy a woman's body so that they can ejaculate into it. (i think it's damaging to all women to be objectified in this way. that's ALL women, disabled and non-disabled, black, white, ginger-haired, speccy, spotty, young, old, fat, thin, gorgeous, ugly... all of us).

and more sex education? sure. let's all have it. we could all do with more information, but in the end our ability to flirt and make connections is so much more than physical appearance. if a disabled person lacks confidence, then work on confidence. we could all do with more self-esteem, let's have some training in that. don't just go along with the ethos that visiting a prostitute will do the trick, it's degrading to everyone concerned and doesn't actually solve anything. imo.

by the way can i just be completely clear that i very much view amanda, watching et al as having been polite and considered on this thread, and also having been kind enough to consider the many points that have been raised with them. it is hard to challenge them without seeming disrespectful of them, but i do think that it is possible not to respect their choice of career while still feeling respectful towards them as human beings.

shaken, how strange, you have just reminded me that i was once attacked by a man i worked for who had a massive sense of entitlement regarding his female employees. nothing mega-serious, a kick in the nuts sorted him out, but i was scared and we were alone in an empty building and i never went back to work there. don't know whether he visited prostitutes but he certainly boasted of lapdances and massages etc (suppose now that i think of it a massage probably was a prostitute, i was only very young at the time and pretty naive). weird that i had totally forgotten that...

Aitch, I think the vast majority, if not every woman will have experienced some level of sexual harassment in the workplace and I think that is down to the overall perception of women as an object, a utility, 'fair game'. Perhaps it is so commonplace it is utterly forgettable at times?

And I too do not blame any one woman for making a living where she can afterall, it is the oldest profession and so the blame is on society as a whole not with individuals. I found the personal attacks on this thread fairly uncomfortable reading.

of course, me too. i have not participated in that at all, quite the opposite.

the oldest profession just means that women have always been regarded as the property of men. i'm not sure it's such progress for society that some prostitutes are keeping the profits nowadays. it's not far to come in thousands of years of human history.

yes, thanks for that dittany. i must say i have been surprised by how many women have shrugged on here that it's the oldest profession as a way of justifying men's right to pay for sex.

I suppose weekends may well be peak hours for our ladies. I hope they will come back and resond. It has been an enlightening thread so far.

respond even.

Fair comment Dittany. I'm happy to be corrected.

I don't believe they do love what they do, deep down. I mean we all justify things to make our lives easier and make ourselves feel better but the fact that (I can't rememeber who) said that she would only recommend it to someone who was strong emotionally and self assured means that it is clearly a great deal of pressure.

If it was that great a job more men would be doing it wouldn't they?

Not all sex workers are women. Some are men. Some are gay men. Some are lesbians. Some are transgender. If we're seeing this purely as an affront to women, where do the other categories fit in?

lesbians are women, amberlight, as are many transgendered people presumably. from what i understand of the women i have spoken to, many prostitutes start having relationships with women because they cannot any longer associate men with love.

many female prostitutes i mean. and watching says there is no money in straight male prostitution so really it goes back to men again, doesn't it? perhaps we should be more specific each time and say that men shouldn't assume the right to pay for sex with either men or women?

All the categories you mention amberlight are now protected (I think) in law from unfair treatment/ discrimination.

Doesn't mean they are actually protected in fact.

posted by Dittany (re men's right to sex)

"It's just mindless kneejerking isn't it, Aitch. Anybody who put an ounce of thought into it would realise how specious that statemen is, but there is generally very little thought around prostitution and what it means."

I agree. A right to sex means, ultimately, a right to rape, and I hope no-one reading this thinks that rape can ever be justified.

Sadly, there are other oft-repeated statements that are just as bad e.g:

1. an act of prostitution is no-one else's moral concern as long as both parties consent.

1. When a man buys a woman dinner, he thinks he is entitled to sex afterwards.

Just want to say that everyone must do what is ok by them, so long as no one is disabled or killed by it. You may not think it is moral or correct but they have that right and it does not make them mean or nasty. It just means that you don't agree with it.

To the working girls here. What you do is up to you. You are not responsible for the morality of anyone else. And this is what I think it comes down to. If your DH/DP wants to pay a woman for sex and you do not agree then you have a severe problem regarding the compatability of morality. That is a problem for your relationship. It is not the OW or paid help.

Dione,

So do you think that it's OK for me to beat my wife as long as I don't disable or kill her?

If that's what she wants Toad. Prostitutes cannot hurt women, their husbands/partners can.

Well, on your POV you can't comment on the rightness or wrongness of it.

Why do you think that a prostitute "can't" hurt a client's wife?

Do you say that because you think that a prostitute isn't to blame if someone pays her to have sex with him behind his wife/partner's back?

All right. Another question.

Is it right if a man sells one of his kidneys to pay for expensive medical treatment? If this seems a bad thing, who or what is to blame?

Or is it just a private matter between him and the purchaser?