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.

But I don't want to ignore people just because they have different views to me. I am genuinely interested in how those views come about and how they are sustained. Never before in the history of human endeavour have we had this opportunity to be exposed so widely and so quickly to others experiences.

I think it is such a shame it often degenerates into swapping stereotypes.

Fair enough, I got the impression you were a bit fed up and I don't think any of us has a responsibility to engage. Not saying you shouldn't if you fancy it.

If I am fed up with a discussion I will just leave it and go and watch a bit of Buffy instead.

I have found this thread very interesting, not just because of the topic but also as an illustration of this rather odd mumsnet thing that engagement in discussions is somehow forced upon people - for eg LL getting ticked off for mentioning posters by name and therefore pressurising them to respond? I really don't get that. Is this common response on other sites?

But possibly an interesting topic for whole other thread....

I do bloody wish however I had had the Internet whilst growing up. It would have made sharing experiences, getting advice etc so much easier.

I don't think engagement in discussions is forced on anyone, no.

I thought, since you were complaining about the thread on the other site, you might be feeling down about it. It is a fairly nasty, misogynistic thread on that site. However, god knows, if you're absolutely fine and just complaining without wanting anyone to reply in any way whatsoever, that is fine too.

Thank you for being worried! But as I regularly venture on similar sites nothing really shocks me any more. Although it does make me sad particularly as i have a daughter. The amount of hatred out there for women, particularly women over 40 is disturbing.

Yep, it is.

I have a real problem with the statement that being paid for sexual activity makes it impossible to consent. That's basically saying that a woman who chooses to do something you wouldn't want to do is incapable of knowing her own mind, and that therefore you want to make her act as you would rather than as she chooses.

It's a fairly fundamental human right to choose to sell your labour/your skills for a fair price. Exchanging sexual acts for cash is selling your labour and your skills, not your body. The person who pays you has no rights over anything you do once the agreed time is up, the customer doesn't get to take the seller home in a bag after the money has changed hands, any more than the client of a builder/hairdresser/accountant gets to keep the supplier in a box after paying for the service agreed.

Some jobs are more dangerous than others, and the healthy response to this is to insist that safeguards are in place as much as possible, not to insist that the job not be done. Some jobs involve bodily contact with other human beings eg physiotherapy, medical professional, care worker. If you are a care worker looking after a patient who can't attend to his/her own toilet needs, then your job may involve touching his/her genitals and anus. Not everyone would choose to do such a job, and most people would say that if you find the idea of doing that disgusting or distressing, you should seek another job. It's worth considering, at least briefly, that care work is badly paid on the whole, and mostly done by women, and often done out of economic desperation.

'That's basically saying that a woman who chooses to do something you wouldn't want to do is incapable of knowing her own mind, and that therefore you want to make her act as you would rather than as she chooses.'

No, it really, really isn't.

This is a really common response which I think people make purely because they like how it sounds, as if it's terribly cool and laissez-faire to be supportive of women being abused. It isn't.

I know you don't think all prostitution is abusive. I am even willing to believe there are women out there who are joyful and fulfilled or even just plain workaday fine, with selling sex. However, there are demonstrably also many women who are not. I fail to see how legitimizing the whole industry helps them.

It isn't that I think those joyful and/or fine, happy women are poor shrinking violets whom I don't trust to know their own minds. It's that I really can't bring myself to care that they are joyful and happy while they're propping up an industry in which many women are abused.

(This argument, btw, reminds me of the same arguments about 'but how dare you be mean about men who cat-call women, I love it so I don't give a shit that you feel threatened' ... 'you're all mean to criticize men who enjoy surprise sex, I love doing it and I'm not a rapist so you have no right to feel raped' etc. etc.

I do not understand why it is so important for the people to bang on about how perfectly A-OK they are with something demonstrably misogynistic and crappy, as if that somehow cancels out other people being really not ok with it.)

There is an argument that allowing women to be paid for sex and exploit their sexuality to generate work more widely is a more honest transaction than the 4 in 5 women who live off male earnings in marriage perhaps. If you take away the ability to sell the sexual services and require that instead they must provide them for nothing in return for a man deigning to marry them in a way you deprive women of one of their assets. In some cases it is their most valuable asset - their sexual capital.

That's pretty misogynistic though, isn't it? The Catherine Hakim stuff about 'sexual capital'.

Most women I know enjoy sex, and I think this is because women generally enjoy sex just as much as men. Most married women I know enjoy sex with their husbands. They don't sit on the bed making 1950s big eyes and hoping it'll all be over soon so they can go out and spend the pin money. Isn't it a little insulting to suggest that's what it's about?

Sorry LRD, I don't think your examples stand up. You are talking about someone doing something potentially nasty to someone else - surprise sex- or someone being subject to possibly unwanted and certainly unrequested attention - cat calling. It is irrelevant how I feel about these things as to the impact on the woman subjected to them who does not want to be.

That is not the scenario for a woman who decides to engage in a commercial transaction, that she feels safe with.

I do not see why this is necessarily or automatically 'propping up' or condoning the rape, exploitation or trafficking of other women.

Isn't the answer to go after those who do rape, traffick etc. I agree with SGB - protect people from dangers rather than prevent people exercising autonomy.

Ok, look, you say 'something potentially nasty', right?

Then you talk about 'a woman who decides to engage in a commercial transaction that she feels safe with'.

Sure, those two things are not the same - but only because you've only focussed on one side of the issue. Which is precisely what I have the problem with.

Yes, if you ignore the women who are not feeling safe, then prostitution may well seem fine. Just as my other examples feel fine for someone who feels safe and happy.

But the point is that the experience of the person who feels safe and happy doesn't really help the person who feels upset, threatened, or abused, does it? The person who gets a warm glow from being cat-called, and who insists on telling the person who feels threatened and upset by it about that, is only being smug and insensitive. They're not cancelling each other out.

I do think that supporting one kind of prostitution supports all kinds. Sorry, but I do. We do not currently have an extensive system for making sure prostituted women are safe and healthy and happy, do we? So there is no possible way anyone can currently be confident they're with someone who is happy with what is going on, let alone consenting.

It's not like you're going to find a woman who says 'shit, I've just been trafficked across from Romania, someone has threatened my children if I don't pretend to be consenting and happy, but, hey, I'll spill my honest-truth story to the nearest punter', are you?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic with that (I know I come across as sarcastic sometimes when I'm not) - but I do think it's the basic important point.

All that happens when someone promotes one niche area of prostitution as safe or valuable or pleasant, is that unscrupulous people will make their brand of abuse look as much like that as possible, and people who don't care to enquire too much will happily give up their minor qualms and go ahead with abusing women.

I think this is the one bridge we will never cross. I simply don't accept that one woman exercising her autonomy is allowing others to say well then, my trafficking and raping of this 14 year old is ok.

Well, I am sure some would say it it that doesn't make it true nor would anyone with half a brain cell agree that it was ok.

Prostitutes are not safe on this country because a lot are vulnerable and desparate and have little choice but to work in dangerous and isolated areas. Again, I simply do not see why a woman who had the economic power to work in safe and comfortable environment (say a therapists office?) could ever be held up as someone encouraging or legitimising dangerous and lonely street work.

That is why I think we can't agree. I am not trying to be deliberately obtuse for the fun of it. I really, really don't see why a woman can't make a choice because some men behave in inhuman ways. I would rather go after those men.

Linus, what is your take on Operation Parameter I and II as mentioned by OldLady? Oh, and, I was giving an example of the kind of patronising tone you had used, which is why I didn't use quotation marks.

Fucker, when I suggested sex was freely available to the able-bodied surely you understood that I meant able-bodied people who want sex are not thwarted by a disability which the rest of society would see as off-limits in a sexual context.

Yes, I can see this is why we can't agree. I don't think you're being obtuse and I don't think (I hope) I'm not either.

I would much rather go after those men, too (obviously, I hope). I just have to address the 'happy hooker' side of it because it completely bemuses me that it is brought up time and again.

I think we have adopted different positions after a genuine examination of our views and the evidence - and that is perfectly legitimate. As long as people continue to examine their views then disagreement is healthy - it pushes us to carefully define and consider our arguments which is never a bad thing.

I have certainly had to think about my arguments more fully, so that's been good for me. I don't think his has led me to any fundamental shift but hopefully I can also now appreciate more fully the nuance of the opposing stance.

It bemuses me, LRD, that you would wish to wipe out all prostitution but happily allow degraded and underpaid cleaners and sweat shop workers to continue under some of their horrific circumstances.

Just because the penis is the ultimate weapon of destruction for you feminists does not mean that female autonomy can not be exercised within the sex industry.

Cuckoo, why are being so antagonistic ?

You seem unhappy the conversation has reached a conciliatory tone.

LRD and spero perhaps for the first time in the history of these debates you have arrived at the central point of departure between the both sides, thank you both. The barrier is fundamental as it would always have been, however actually exploring what the barrier to agreement is, has often been made impossible by blanket assertions from both camps.

I am not saying before anyone jumps on it that a great truth or secrete has been uncovered all I am saying is that for a change calmly and with tolerance both sides come to the point of knowing what they disagree about.

It bemuses you, cuckoo, because it's not true. You've made that up, haven't you?

It doesn't tend to speak well for your position (whatever that may be, other than having cracks at feminism) if you have to make up stories in order to find something to disagree with.

This is the point at which everyone on the thread, despite their own stance, tells cuckoo that level of vitriol and aggression is jarring and unwelcome

Off you hop, little bird.

On the sex deficit I agree that a lot of women like sex and plenty want more sex than their husbands provide however on the whole in just about all cultures and perhaps caused by the conditioning of girls or mothers being tired, more men than women want more sex. Men often pay for sex and women rarely do so and that is not just because men control their wife's sexuality and women have less money than men to pay to buy it in.

Now there may be a way to change things so that there is just as much demand from women as men but it does not seem to be changing any time soon. Many women marry men who are good providers. They may feel it is about love but the reality is that he also had a car and house and he will be a good provider who will keep them. There is a commercial transaction in there.

I really tire of the prostitution is similar to care work argument (I've seen it used a lot elsewhere) as I find it demeaning. Care work is attending to people's needs without which people would not be able to live. It seems to be ok to compare virtually any job that mainly women do to prostitution, yet people never seem to mention miners and plumbers in these comparisons.

I also think it helps to normalise prostitution, because if prostitution is just like cleaning, care work etc, then why don't women choose prostitution if it is so much better paid? There is also the fact of prostitution having far higher rates of PTSD and assault for those who work in it. Some might argue that legalisation would alleviate this, but I think that ignores the violence and contempt inherent in a man thinking he has the right to use someone's body in that way. You only have to look at punternet to see that.