Disabled 'deserve' the joy of sex.

[SmellsLikeTeenStrop]

www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/disabled-deserve-sex-rights/story-e6frea83-1226310720177

In brief, the Dignity for the Disabled MP in Australia wants the tax payer to fund sex workers for the disabled.

thoughts?

i think 'johns' is used because john is a common name, it's your average man on the street not someone remarkable or a tiny minority and there are always more johns behind him in the queue iyswim.

it is the faceless endless stream of men wanting to stick their cock into another human being for money and not caring what that means for those who are oppressed into serving his want.

it also reflects the fact that they get to preserve their anonymity in the process, nothing intimate is taken from them and they are not put in the spotlight for their behaviour - they remain just another faceless john.

Saf: Not all sex involves penetration with a penis. Not all sex work involves penetration with a penis. And honestly, not everyone finds the idea of being penetrated with a penis that much of a big deal. I would far rather be penetrated with a penis than clean a suppurating wound.

Removing the cruelty, exploitation and coercion from sex work is something there is not going to be a quick fix for. Removing cruelty, exploitation and coercion from the world is not going to be a quick fix. But raising awareness that sex for money should only take place with the person recieving the money being regarded as honourable, worthy of respect and exceptionally skilled might be a start.

exceptionally skilled?

Most people who are exceptionally skilled do not choose to work as prostitutes.

I am not sure that the average person who uses prostitutes is demanding "exceptional skills", I think it is a little more basic than that.

I also suspect that the vast majority of sex work in the UK involves penetration with a penis, with the person with the penis doing the paying.

SGB, would you rather be penetrated by 20 penises in one day, or clean 20 suppurating wounds in one day?

I would genuinely rather have the penises.

The thing is SGB I can accept quite happily that there will be women out there who could quite happily have sex with 20 people out there in a day and not only come to no great harm but actively enjoy it. For someone who's never been mistreated or hurt during sex, someone for whom sex is simply another recreational activity, that would make perfect sense actually. Why not get paid for something you enjoy doing?

But I have trouble accepting that this represents the 'norm' for either prostitutes or for their punters. Every piece of evidence out there suggests the opposite.

Given what we know about the number of prostitutes who have come from under-aged and abused backgrounds, and the proportion that have a dependency on drugs or suffer from MH issues, it's quite clear that the vast majority do not have the background and free-spirited approach to sex I described in my first paragraph. For every 'happy hooker' out there, there are many many more unhappy and traumatised ones.

Then let's look at the end users. Among them the number of rapists and abusers are completely disproportionately represented. Many choose to go to prostitues because they know that few sexually healthy women would allow them to perform the acts they want to do and they can't be bothered to take the more respectful approach of building a relationship with a group of like-minded people where such sexual practises are normal. Some choose prostitutes simply because they want to hurt someone and know these women are unlikely to fight back or go to the police.

Even though I'm sure there are women out there for whom prostitution on their own terms is a lucrative career option that they enjoy and thrive from, I can't sanction it when the effect is to condone the whole industry when most in that industry are suffering beyond all belief. No amount of legislation will ever change that, because there will always be a huge discrepancy between supply and demand.

Just to clarify, that doesn't mean that I condemn any woman who works as a prostitute, whether that's voluntarily or as a result of desperation/coercion. While we live in a man's world it's a survival strategy borne of desperation for most, and possibly a legitimate career choice for the tiny minority.

What I want to see is an end to the assumption that men have a right to do whatever they want, in whatever way they please, regardless of physical or mental harm, simply because they've handed over some cash.

The abuse of women is never justified.

The only women who 'choose' prostitution are the very tiny minority who like Elliot Spitzers escort earn thousands an hour (she was charging 3000 dollars an hour) to do men who you'd probably do anyway (if your earning that much you can afford to be discerning).

The vast majority of women in prostitution are trafficked/drugged and forced into it because the pimps can't find anyone to willingly condemn themselves to such a miserable existence. To have the government tolerate the abuse of vulnerable women is bad enough, to have them directly fund it is outrageous.

Shame on any society that allows that.

If sex work were properly percieved and sex workers properly treated, their clients would no more be operating under the assumption that they could do what they like as they were paying, than the clients of any other professional. You're not entitled to punch your hairdresser just because you are paying him/her, nor your accountant nor the person who pulls your pint or wraps your burger.
Because the service someone is providing is sexual, it doesn't mean that the buyer is entitled to mistreat the seller or indeed try and get more in the way of goods and services than was agreed. In a world where sex work was understood and valued, the sex worker abused by a client would get justice not 'Oh well what do you expect in that line of work?'

And the sex workers who speak out about having chosen the profession and not being victims, their message is not so much 'Everyone should do the same job as me' but 'If you are doing this job you should be as content in it as I am, and if you are not happy, then you are being abused and mistreated and should seek help. Sex work should not be a horrible experience'.

I think that's a more helpful message than 'Every sex worker is a victim no matter what s/he feels because every customer is a violent evil bastard.'

Because the service someone is providing is sexual, it doesn't mean that the buyer is entitled to mistreat the seller or indeed try and get more in the way of goods and services than was agreed. In a world where sex work was understood and valued, the sex worker abused by a client would get justice not 'Oh well what do you expect in that line of work?'

This is the thing though isn't it. Personally I don't believe that you will ever get sex work to be understood and valued like that while we live in a patriarchal society. And I simply don't believe that there are that many happy, healthy sex workers out there. Certainly not enough to meet demand, which is why as long as prostitution exists, it will be made up primarily by victims.

I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about this and you have a lot to say on it that makes sense and has changed some of my attitudes about some aspects, but I will never agree with you that prostitution can be made safe through legalisation. But I respectfully agree to disagree.

this supply, demand issue is the crux really. there will always be way more men wanting to fuck women for money than there will be women who want to be fucked for money therefore it will always be about coercing the vulnerable.

also there will always be way more men who want to fuck someone for a measly sum than there will be ones who want to go to an expensive 'escort' and definitely way less women who want to be fucked for a pittance by mean, horrible men than men who want to fuck them.

there will also be loads of men who specifically want to fuck someone poor, coerced and powerless because that's the kick for them.

etc.

very few women willingly want to be no one wants to be fucked by ten strangers in a night. zero women want to be fucked by ten strangers a night and earn a pittance.

ooh messed up sentence - meant few want to be fucked by strangers and none want to be fucked by strangers for a pittance.

yes if we get to a point of no rape, dv, murder of women etc and equal pay and opportunities in all areas then i'm happy to have a vote and see how many women want to be fucked for a living and how many men want to fuck them and see if it looks any more feasible then.

i actually think everyone who reckons they are pro prostitution and wouldn't have a problem with it should go down to their local red light district tonight and relieve a girl of her duties for the evening (obviously give her the money though so she doesn't get battered by her pimp or go into hideous withdrawals).

IAOS: Many people who pay for sex don't consider they have bought a person - rather than bought the person's time and a pre-set, negotiated amount of it, half as much as some corporations seem to think they can. The client who pays the sex worker for a sexual service goes home at the end of it and the sex worker either waits for the next client, or goes home. Quite a lot of corporations these days seem to run on an ethos of owning employees to the extent that they demand control over what employees do 24/7, even when not at work.

SaF: why should those of us who think that sex work could and should be made safer and more honorable prove our point by going and engaging in the riskiest and least pleasant kind of sex work? We know that streetwalking sex work is dangerous and unhealthy and only done by the desperate and the coerced.

because the desperate and coerced are an essential part of prostitution as demonstrated several times on here.

so you don't get one without the other. so why should you get to cherry pick?

i suppose if you really wanted you could get her to send all of her clients to you in your nice premises that night so long as you charged them the same amount as she would and didn't turn any of them as she wouldn't and did all the same 'work' as you put it as she would.

i wouldn't begrudge you that.

Saf: I still don't get your point. The aim is to improve the conditions under which sex work is done, so that no one is doing it involuntarily or in unsafe or coerced circumstances. People who are in favour of sex work are not in favour of coercion and harm and exploitation of sex workers. Your argument seems to be along the lines of, someone expresses a wish to raise freerange chickens and sell organic eggs, so you tell them to go and work in a battery farm.

i've explained it all above solid. you can't ignore the supply/demand issues that mean it will always need the bulk of it's 'workers' to be coerced and abused.

nope sgb - there is no shortage of chickens, you can just breed more. there is a shortage of women willing to be fucked by twenty men a night with a smile on their face.

Working on the 'supply/demand' issues that lead to coercion and exploitation should start with the issue of workers' rights, not an insistence on stigmatizing the entire line of work as beyond redemption.

so whilst it starts with that and tries to improve things so more women will want to be whores another generation of young girls is coerced, abused and exploited for what? to preserve men's rights to buy sex? i'm lost as to why/where/how the fuck it's worth it.