Guardian article on sex workers and disabled people

[fllowtheyellowbrickroad]

m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/10/sex-workers-disabled-people

Has this already been done? Will put together something literate soon. An currently choking and splitting too much.

[Boosterseat]

Mousik - Is this your link or something? 2nd thread today you've posted this? 2nd zombie thread today!

[mousik]

I think you should read the articles on the blog www.loverlesson.com/

[namechangedatm]

Yeah, I just thought I'd share my story because I don't really fit into any typical stereotype of prostitute. I've worked in massage parlours at one point and my story is similar with other girls iv worked with, mostly they were working class mums, immigrants, the odd student and older woman supplementing their income from elsewhere. There were issues in some of the girls lives but they were working there of their own free will. I only worked with one drug addict who sadly passed away from overdose, I think drug addicts usually are on the streets so I haven't met any others.

But yes it all boils down to the fact that for many women its the best way to earn some money, and money brings choices and better quality of life. My family are ok with my job, except my dad. He came from a poor family and built his way up, and doesn't believe in something for nothing which is why he sends me money but not enough to actually live off, just to help me.

[grimbletart]

Sometimes I get annoyed things like this are the best way for women to make money. It shouldn't be like that.


There we have it.

[namechangedatm]

I get nice guys this way I meant lol! It's bad you can't edit your posts here ha :)

[namechangedatm]

I have name changed for this as i post on another section of the forum where I don't want judging for my job....anyway I'm a prostitute and I thought I'd give you some info from the horses mouth about how I ended up doing this.

I'm from a pretty poor area of the north west but my family isn't really poor, my dad is rich and lives abroad and my mum has a decent job, own house etc and iv been used to a decent standard of living my entire life.

I first had sex aged 13, it was a peer pressure type of situation but I did like the lad. He went on to seriously sexually assault me with a few of his friends a few months later. I was bullied about this at school, mostly by other girls. One of the lads went to my school and once he chased me with his school friends, they were trying to grab me and take me into the boys changing rooms as some kind of joke. Anyway I was that terrified after that and sick of the bullying i left the school. I hated school, stayed at home or out with friends and was out of control. This is how I ended up with no qualifications.

During my teens my mum was married to a man I hated and this made everything worse, I moved out at 16/17 and this was when I was skint even though my dad sent me money every month and I got benefits.

Anyway I started thinking about escorting and reading up on it when I just turned 18. However I was still with my first love I met at 16 so didn't go ahead. I spent close to a year reading sites like saafe and punternet as I didn't want to start without knowing what I was doing. I was living in a crappy council flat and just wanted nice things I suppose.

I've been doing this for 3 years now and TBH cant see me able to quit anytime soon, I have no qualifications beside a mere level 2 English. I tried studying at college at 18 before I turned to prostitution. I had to quit as I was going to lose my benefits for not being available for work. What was I meant to do?

Escorting is not that bad but then again I've had lots of casual sex and do enjoy sex. I've never been raped or assaulted whilst prostituting but my first love did rape me when I left him aged 19 (I was already escorting then) and my so called teen 'friends' did aswell. I was also sexually exploited by groups of Pakistan men when I was 14 and knew no better and was living with a friend in Oldham.

I make decent money from escorting and only see about 2/3 clients a day a few times a week. I mostly see regular and return clients which I prefer. I give a good service to my clients and if I don't like them they don't get to see me again. The men are mostly nice, just horny. I would like to work with animals or beauty but I can't make the same money I can doing sex work. Sometimes I get annoyed things like this are the best way for women to make money. It shouldn't be like that. I am planning on studying soon but I'm comfortable and experienced in escorting now.

I work from home, now I live in a nice house like one I wanted, I have everything I need and now money isn't really an issue. If I need money I just have to text back a client on my phone. It makes life easier. I've never caught an sti from work but I use condoms, I do give oral without though. I don't have to give it but I choose too, it's pretty low risk. Most clients are 30-50 and mostly married with kids though some are single too.

I get warning texts from ugly mugs when a girl is assaulted, the warnings always regard an incident with a street worker. I choose and vet my own clients before I meet them, certain types I avoid, I get nice guys this week. They simply want sex and for some reason not getting what they want. I'm good looking with a nice figure and this is the best option for me now. I wanted the standard of living i deserve and was used to when younger.

Anyway this is getting long so if you have any questions fire away.

[FloraFox]

Bonita's post is not evidence that the vast majority of women enter the industry willingly and with their eyes open. At best, it is evidence that some do. At best.

[freta]

I think I'm getting a glimpse in Alice's looking glass...you've all got it back to front

[freta]

Interesting that there seems to have been no direct comment on the post by Bonita12 - does it say something you don't want to hear? That the vast majority of women DO enter the industry with their eyes open.
And try this link....
thehairpin.com/2013/05/my-brother-my-mother-and-a-call-girl-named-monique?src=longreads

[NiceTabard]

Leith

1. It is not illegal to pay for sex in the UK.
   
2. At the moment the "general market" is being used to supply sex fairly widely across the entire community. the inclusion of a small number of people who want to pay for sex and cannot at the moment (or whose parents / carers want to pay for sex on their behalf which is another can of worms surely) will make zilch difference to prices
   
3. You say "the market will pay what it can afford" - you think that people with disabilities are more wealthy non-disabled clients?
   
4. "Nothing stopping surrogates from changing from one market to the other" - indicating that a surrogate isn't a specially trained type of professional as indicated upthread but simply that people who sell sex to disabled people will have a more "acceptable" name than people who sell sex to non disabled people??!!???
   
5. "If they just want to make loads of money" - surely if you can "just make loads of money" by having sex with disabled people then all prostitutes would do that as everyone will choose more money over less. Unless you think that women selling sex would be less inclined to have sex with disabled men (majority of transactions) just...because? Because what, exactly? You claim to be "on the side" of disabled people but you're not half coming out with some nasty stuff.

[FloraFox]

Leithlurker, arf at you trying to insult my logical abilities. It's economics, not dogma. If there is no illegal unregulated market, the price for the regulated one would be even higher. You're too busy dreaming of shagging all these cheap prostitutes you can't do the maths.

Are you now saying there would be a legal non-surrogate market? Try to keep your position consistent. It's getting tiresome with all your twisting.

[NiceTabard]

Agree with AF post there. Esp about cash changing hands not equalling real consent. Exchange of money means you agree to have sex that you would not otherwise consent to (in vast vast vast majority of cases before anyone nitpicks). That is not the same as the usual meaning of consent ie you want it because you physically want to have sex with them at that time. Esp in a one-time type scenario.

[Leithlurker]

There you go Flora nicely demonstrated, your lack of ability to even apply the simple logic of the market in relation to a specalist market means yours is a dogmatic anf fixed point of view, not interested or capable of thinking from diffrent perspectives.

One example and I am out of here.
"Regulated markets function differently from unregulated ones due to the cost of compliance. Regulated services will always cost more than unregulated ones in the same general market."
There is no general market because many people with a range of impairments cannot access it, just as I have said many times. This means ONLY the surrogates would operate in the market, not all sexworkers will want to or even can become surrogates, reducing the number and keeping the two markets seperate. No general market means your whole thesis fails apart. If you even thought about what you were saying you would realise that people who would use the surrogates would not have a need for any illegal activity so again your thesis fails, the market will pay what it can afford, nothing stopping surrogates from changing from one market to the other if they just want to make loads of money.

[AnyFucker]

There have been lots of digressions on this thread.

Indeed there is a long history of men and women choosing to have sex with people they are not supposed to.

However, this is where I take issue, and you apparently would disagree with me.

Multiple partners, infidelity, a hard time being monogamous still requires mutual, uncoerced consent

I do not, and never will, believe that cold hard cash exchanging hands is true consent

I could not ever, no matter what difficulties I had attracting a sexual partner nor whatever physical restriction I had in completing a sex act, pay someone else to perform it for me or to pretend to enjoy it so I could get my rocks off. The whole idea is a contradiction in terms for me.

[FloraFox]

LL: so are you saying only disabled people should be allowed to pay for sex but it should be illegal otherwise? How bizarre.

Regulated markets function differently from unregulated ones due to the cost of compliance. Regulated services will always cost more than unregulated ones in the same general market. This also creates a demand for an unregulated/illegal cheaper market. Even aside from that your example is the wrong way round. If there was no unregulated/illegal activity to meet the demand, the cost charged by the 100 "surrogates" would be far higher. Low supply + high demand = higher charges.

But the very notion that you are dreaming of women being in a position of having to charge less but have more customers is really yuk TBH.

You are right about one thing though. Sex provided for money is prostitution.

[Leithlurker]

AF: What would really drive the prices down, in fact what would drive prostitution to be less exploitative is for the whole of society to be much more open and honest about sex. You post a lot on the relationship boards in support of women who partners have been shagging someone else. We know that women, probably not as many, also have affairs, we know young people these days tend to have multiple partners and will if they do not form a pair bonding go on having multiple partners. We know from history that infidelity happened. My point here is that despite what we wish would happen humans seem to have a very hard time being monogamous.

Maybe as a society we need to think about that, and also about what we expect from each other given that we have a long history of both men and women choosing to have sex with people they are not supposed to. This though is a digression.

[NiceTabard]

Not to say that's always the case, but.

It's about the right of all people (usually men) to access prostitutes (usually women).

The rights of the women engaged in this work, their stories concerns backgrounds etc never seem to be even touched on.

It seems all one or the other, which is where the arguments come in.

Incidentally I know a bloke who told me about paying for sex on stags etc and when I asked him why he said it was due to his disability meaning he was too embarrassed to go to bed with a woman he wasn't paying. Bollocks, I thought at the time, this is an excuse. And now he's married and no worries there. For some people at least this is a justification. The vast majority of situations where this is arising, is not situations where people who are incapable of finding relief otherwise are finding it with people with a vocation for their work. That is all utpoia-ville and it's just not where we're at now.

[NiceTabard]

There is a range of situations between trafficked and vocation.

The people in the BBC report upthread were not at either extreme, which is where I suspect the majority of people who work in prostitution in the UK lie.

There is nothing terrible at all with people doing a job they love and earn enough at. The problem comes in that is not the case for so many people involved in this work that looking out for the people who are not there through vocation / genuine choice etc has (for me) to take priority.

The few things I have read and seen about disabled people (and they were always men) paying for sex (and it was always with women) were accessing the same pool of prostitutes used by the rest of the population (or going abroad to access them there) rather than seeking out ethical free-range type services.

[Leithlurker]

Prom: The two posts above mine prove the point spero and myself were making. I am sorry if I was short with you, again as the above posts demonstrate we spero and I have spent a huge amount of time making our case clear only to have to confront the same accusations all over again

No Flora I have not argued for legalised prostitution, in fact I have argued against prostitution. The reason you still cannot grasp that is connected to your inability to conceive of any service provided by someone that involves sex as anything other than prostitution. The splitting hairs as you call it is a difference in philosophy, it is not a difference in end result.

As for economics, forgive me for wandering in to capitalism 101, but I always though you charged what the market could stand? If in a city the size of London their was only 100 surrogates, the need to charge huge amounts would be negated by having a very large number of clients so ensuring no shortage of work and only minimal competition. The market then may not have much disposable income but the service provider would have access to large amounts of potential customers.

See my earlier response to mooncup as to why I am indeed saying this should be on offer to disabled people and not fat unattractive, smelly, able bodied people.

Whenthe red: Would you trust your child to someone with out any training at a nursery? I suggest you readjust your able bodied privilege and go and learn more about disabled people.

[SolidGoldBrass]

As I said upthread, there are some people who want to take up sex work because they consider it a vocation and themselves as therapists. What's so terrible about that?

Also, WRT the sex workers who were asked to attend clients in a care home, it's unlikely that these particular sex workers would have been trafficking victims. Traffickers generally want to keep their victims indoors, not let them make calls to customers, as that might give the victim the opportunity to ask for help or escape.

[AnyFucker]

Perhaps ALL prostitution could be replaced with this utopia of "sex surrogacy" ?

That'll drive the prices right down. What with there being no "danger money" involved'n'that.

[FloraFox]

LL: firstly, I think you've been fairly clear on a number of threads that you are generally in favour of legalised prostitution. Correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm not, you're splitting hairs somewhat in your response to Prom.

Secondly, if you are not generally in favour of legalised prostitution, it is nonsensical to argue there can be a legal "surrogacy service" available for disabled people but no equivalent for the many, many other people who are not inundated with offers of sex from attractive partners.

Thirdly, your financial arguments are very odd. You want specially trained regulated providers who will charge less? Economics don't work that way.