Should it be illegal for men to pay for prostitution?

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

Should we criminalise all men who pay for prostitution, alongside help for women to leave prostituion?

A handful is correct - that's how many are found. There will be more, but you're the one assuming it's a huge amount. You see convictions for trafficking more often but, even then not a huge amount. How many are convicted of Kidnap, False Imprisonment, making threats to kill, blackmail or facilitating sex without consent?(I did hear of that last one ONCE). If you can find me more than 5 per year, in the UK, that relate to prostitution then I'll apologise for using the word "handful".

If there's a victim you could be arrested? If only- you already stated in one if your posts that police turn a blind eye to these things. Are the police there when you make your dubious transactions? Do they sanction it?

How do you know you're not paying for sex with coerced, underage, drug addicted girls? You don't. So you just close your eyes to it and carry on. You know you're wring to do this- so you try any old diversary tactic to try and make your point.

The bottom line is you are coercing girls to have sex with you for money- it's an imbalance of power and you know it. They don't want sex with you- or you wouldn't need to pay them.

ARRGGGHHH. Are you semi-literate or are you deliberately trying to wind me up so I'll stop proving you wrong. The police do not turn a blind eye to underage girls. I soddin' SAID that they ignore brothels UNLESS they believe there's underage or enslaved workers. They visit all new ones to do the test purchase/make excuses and leave routine. They don't ignore the possibility of sexual slavery - they just can't find what you feminists keep insisting is there.

I worked as an escort for six months at the age of seventeen. Never got beaten up or raped.
But it was shit, it destroyed me mentally, would not be something that I would recommend to anyone. I was damaged when I started and even more damaged when I finished and that was in spite of the fact that I had some enjoyable experiences along the way. It's not a good industry and it does not promote rights or equality for women.
During that six months, not one single man asked to see proof that I was over the age of eighteen.
I made a lot of money over the six months but again being a clueless seventeen year old, it was all frittered away.

Frida- thanks for sharing that. Perhaps that's the sort of the sort of thing realitychecker needs to hear.

Reality - I'm neither of the things you accuse me of- I'm merely talking of uncomfortable realities that you don't want to hear. Because once you hear them, you cannot, in good faith, carry on using prostitutes.

Frida, I'm sorry you did not have a good experience. But at least you were able to make that choice down the line to step out of the profession when you realised what it was doing to you.

Do you support banning prostitution?

And you act like prostitution is EITHER sexual slavery OR a mutually beneficial transaction with a hooker who makes a fortune and goes Christmas shopping in new York (and sells a book about her exploits). There's a massive grey area inbetween these that also needs to be recognised. That is the girls who are coerced due to their circumstances, drug addicted, runaways who slipped into the trade and people in debt who feel they have no other choice. It is not the glittering career that some would have people believe.

I would imagine,from his posts, that it is people in that 'middle' area that reality is having sex with - and reality they dont want to have sex with you. They don't want the money- they NEED the money and and sex with you is the only choice they have.

Running: 'They don't want the money- they NEED the money and and sex with you is the only choice they have.'

So the right thing to do is to take the choice away from them?

The problem is realitychecker that you are being naive in reducing the issue to a simple case of the market exchange of goods. It is a lot more complex than that because sex will never be like any other service you can just order. The fact that you can't see that shows how naive you are, either that or you just don't care.

Your name isn't apt.

Absolutely- but as in the op states, the swedish model won't work unless you give the women the support to leave the profession.

Running, how do you explain ex-sex workers like hedidit who were able to leave the profession and still support its existence?

Blueshoes. I believe on the brothels thread she said she met a rich man- and that working in a brothel was an absolute hoot. And they all used to laugh at the punters (take heed realitychecker).

Therefore, hedidit's experience supports reality's position. Not all sex workers have been coerced into it and some apparently do quite well out of it. So why should they not be allowed to continue?

The issue is to clamp down on forced prostitution and trafficking of women. That is the crime, not prostitution per se.

What about frida's post? She wasn't coerced - but she posts about how it damaged her. My question to realitychecker was how can he, in all conscience, pay women for sex when he freely admits that he can't be sure if they are underage or pimped. 'Some prostitutes are ok' is not an answer to that.

Here you go again, claiming I think something which I've actually posted the opposite of. I never claimed it was either sexual slavery or a mutually beneficial transaction with a belle de jour. I said in my very first post the exact thing that you're now trying to say. Sexual slavery is one extreme, Belle de jour is the other and I SAID that most are in between. But they made a choice.

Someone who got into prostitution at 17 is not a person who I would expect to have a good time and come out saying good things - it's a self-selecting example; that's why the law was changed.

It has only been illegal to pay under 18s for sex since 2004 (which is when the 2003 sexual offences act came into force) so perhaps it wasn't actually illegal when these Frida was 17, or perhaps Frida looked like she was well over 18.

At the end of the day if she's over 18 and makes a bad decision that's up to her. Yes it's unfortunate but we all make bad decisions; like in my earlier example of a person over 18 being able to go to Afghanistan and get shot at etc. Read that and it pretty much answers this point anyway.

Oh and it's "most" not "some" are OK. Don't twist it.

Running, I don't think 'a bad conscience' (not saying that reality has a bad conscience at all) is in itself ever a good enough reason for criminalising a behaviour. Nor is the fact that some people (frida) are harmed by the activity is, if others (hedidit) think it is fine and well within their rights to consent to.

You are beginning to sound like the morality police.

That sort of thing - morality police/moral has already been thrown around on the thread- and seems to be the final refuge of those wanting to defend prostitution.

Morality has little to do with my argument- men using prostitutes don't know of they are of age, they cannot be sure of consent- so why do they go ahead with their 'transaction'.? Ignorance is no defence.

How do you know, for sure, that the 'in-betweens' are consenting and of age reality? You don't. You can't. What sort of man has sex with women who don't want it?

Morality has everything to do with your argument. My ability to assess a girl's age is not altered by paying her. I could get it wrong in a club. There's no difference at all, yet having a one night stand with a girl in a club is not suggested as being illegal. Also, that's just it ignorance IS a defence where age is concerned as far as the legal situation goes. I can't be 100% about a lot of thing but we can't make it all illegal, we'll never leave the house for fear of breaking the law.

I don't think you're a 'poor misguided soul', reality.

I've already posted what I think you are (and I'm quite surprised my post is still there).

'Feminist' is not a dirty word. I'm proud to call myself a feminist, as are the majority of posters in this section.

Since when were 'morals' a bad thing to have? Maybe we should legalise murder and theft too.

You can't know if the apples/trainers/football or anything you buy was made with slave labour abroad or picked by trafficked workers in this country. But you go ahead. How many Chinese restaurants and Indian restaurants are employing illegal, trafficked workers? Do you check and satisfy yourself 100% as to their status before getting your curry on a night?

All those things are bad and many of us do a lot to avoid buying those products/services as well as campaigning for workers' rights - but the apples will still be nutritious, the trainers will still keep your feet dry and the football will still work as a football.

I think being able to get turned on and have sex with someone when you know there's a fair chance they are not freely consenting is a special kind of wrong. I don't understand how anybody would not just be turned off under such circumstances, at which point the 'product' (unlike those other industries, the prostitute is both the worker and the product) would surely cease to 'work'.

Hi reality

Out of interest, how much would you expect to be paid to be anally penetrated by another man? What level of earnings would make that worthwhile and acceptable as an occupation to you, day in and day out?

I'm not a male prostitute and the fact I wouldn't want to be does not mean that others are automatically being abused. There are lots of jobs I couldn't stomach.

Murder and theft have victims, every time. Prostitution doesn't. The fact I have to explain this proves how blinkered you are.

When I left the flat this morning to go to work I used my car, I didn't give it a full mechanical inspection and for all I know there could be a dangerous fault. Same with the bus I drive at work, I check tbe tyres, the fuel cap and other such obvious bits but can't check everything.

John Mann MP who is a recent addition to the list of MPs who would like to see prostitution banned, was in the news recently as someone had removed all the screws from all his wheels and then replaced the hub caps to disguise it. He drove 200 miles in a car that was a death trap, but I'll bet he still doesn't refuse to drive without a full mechanical inspection. He still isn't 100% sure he's not a danger, but he still selfishly drives his car. As he's entitled to.

I also do my best to avoid forced/underage women. The only difference is your moral objection to prostitution. So you expect the impossible from me.

Really? It's impossible for you to stop paying for sex? There's probably help available for those sorts of problems.