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.

I agree, it's definitely a capitalism issue, at least partly.

I agree, gosh.

An important aspect of LRD's arguement is the actual context in which sexual services are accessed (including porn for instance). Since there are no checks you can undertake to ascertain how somebody has become a sex worker (previous sexual abuse, often child, relationship abuse/dv, poverty, drug addiction, trafficking) then unfortunately you are condoning abuse in an industry which makes no secret of its ugly side! My sister works with prostitutes and only ONCE has she EVER met somebody who said it was a concious choice she made as she wanted to put her son through private school, not state and her decent and stable job would not pay for that! NEVER has she met somebody who enjoyed it. She works closely with police and in some areas prostitution is made up of 80% once trafficked women! The 'facts' are there and whilst I can see why anybody would naturally want a sex life I can personally not condone paying for it when you can NEVER know what your paying for and quite often who your actually paying! Having sex with volunteers is of no issue to me but something about that rings odd and I hope it's not some sought of reverse exploitation! Hopefully these are just nice people but I wonder what the response would be if a regular man offered these services to single mothers for example?

Xenia, I'm very tired, so correct me if I have misunderstood but are you comparing married women who have less money than their partners to prostitutes? You do realize that a married woman has no legal binding obligation to fuck anyone, don't you? Or is this just the last straw in your trolling? is it time to admit your plumber named Wayne from Croydon?

episode - interesting you say that. My brother used to work with homeless people and asylum seekers, and occasionally therefore with prostitutes (although he wasn't supposed to as he didn't have the training, which made it pretty horrific for him and probably wasn't ideal for them at all, but that's another story). He is a pretty open-eyed person and as you can imagine you don't get the lovely fluffy side of life on a job like that, but he found pimps far the scariest and creepiest people he had to deal with.

I agree with you that this is the issue, you cannot know. And I think that this is something that almost certainly won't ever change. I do believe (possibly this sounds old-fashioned or plain naive) that sex is fundamentally something that you cannot commercialize without hurting people.

Hullmum Ha ha I've often found her opinions a bit basic compared to all her 'success'. At least I'm not alone in thinking she is not real! If you are I apologise for any offence caused but I can't believe your not Wayne from Croydon

Hullmum - Xenia is real, but I just ignore her.

LRD my mum works in a similar industry but she gets to see the 'international' side of this sought of thing! I challenge anyone to hear some of these daily stories (often including children, boys and girls) and think that feeding these industries in any form is not harmful. Some stories have made me physically sick and when you know what these people go through, paying for anything with even the slightest chance of being related to abuse (current, previous and potential) can never be justified for a gratification which is NOT a human right when taken before somebody elses!

I totally agree (though I obviously know a heck of a lot less about it than you). You must be proud of your mum. My brother stuck his job our for three years then got signed off with clinical depression, and at the moment in all honesty I am really hoping he doesn't go back. Which is selfish, I know, and utterly absurd in the context of what people go through, but I think it is tough to see it all, too. Good for your mum.

It's not selfish! Your of no use to anybody depressed and I say that from experience. I'm a strong strong woman but I am not strong enough to emotionally detatch from such situations which you need to do to be of use and do your job effectively with clarity! I always wanted to work in related industries but it's not 'professionally' for me! I'm the type if person who would temporarily foster a child and three years later have a house of 20 cause I can't switch off when 'needed'! My mums very proffesional and my sister is too! They can draw the line whilst caring and being effected but seeing the bigger picture and getting on with the next job iykwim!

That's true, yes, it would not be good for him to work if he wasn't up to it - good way to put it. And these people deserve the best.

If the women who choose sex work are so wicked and such supporters of trafficking and exploitation, and so uncaring about the fate of other women, that their voices must be silenced and their experiences dismissed, then given the amount of domestic violence, marital rape and women being killed by their husbands and partners, shouldn't those of you who are in happy/satisfactory relationships take a bit of a look at yourselves and consider whether or not you are propping up and condoning institutionalized male violence against women?

No one said women sex workers are wicked.

No one said they are uncaring.

No one said their voices must be silenced.

Where are you getting this from?

I get that you are frustrated, but FFS, how about addressing what other people are saying and not what you wish they were saying because you don't like the debate?

To be fair, a large proportion of contributors have been saying that ANY prostitution is condoning and 'propping up' the evil of the worst aspects of the trade, so I don't think she is being unduly over the top. You must logically therefore be critical of a woman who claims to chose prostitution, because you say her choice provides validation for the suffering of many others.

So her other example I also think is worth consideration. As so many women are beaten and killed in relationships by men then isn't any woman who enters into a relationship an apologist for the whole thing?

Of course I don't believe that but it parallels the argument that sex therapist = condones trafficking and rape, which I think is just wrong.

My knowledge of feminist history is shakey but wasn't this precisely Andrea Dworkins view? All men are rapists, all men are the enemy?

No, Dworkin never said that - like today's rad fems she is much misrepresented.

Couple relationships can be genuinely equal - whereas a prostitute/client relationship, however carefully managed, is still a commercial transaction with the resulting power imbalances.

I have little knowledge if feminism but I do have knowledge of the sex industry, particularly prostitution and trafficking! I second LRD in that your fighting a minor part of an arguement that to my knowledge was not the principal part of the point made! No one is saying sex workers are evil and have to be silenced????? In fact, If they were listned to more often I am 100% sure your arguement would hold less weight! Having skimmed the thread I seem to gather the general consensus of those against it, is it has very little to do with accessing prostitution for those disabled OR able bodied but about accessing paid for sexual services when whether you like it or not there IS a high (actually probable) chance of abuse in the prostitutes present, future or previous life as well as drugs etc! My morals dictate that blind sex (because I was more concerned with my gratification than the situations which would have occurred to bring a prostitute to being one) is not and could never be worth it! It's sex not breathing and your personal situation has nothing to do with whether you have a right to access a fucked up, abuse ridden industry! Look for accounts of previous prostitutes online and see whether you think you'd want to be viewed by them even, the way they view there customers! 99.9% of the industry is nothing like belle de jor (or whatever her bloody name was) or pretty woman ffs!

Excuse any typos on phone!

Andrea Dworkin had sound reasons to criticise men. She was a battered wife, a fugitive to get away from him after he stalked, harassed and attacked her repeatedly and worked for a while as a prostitute. She was quite vocal about the abuse she suffered throughout that time.

I would say she knew what she was talking about.

She called pornography "woman hating dehumanisation" and I agree with her. Many of her early warnings about the rise of pornography in popular raunch culture have come frighteningly true.

Somebody will come along to discredit her in a moment, however. It's how it goes. She was campaigning from before I was born, and before her time in many ways.

Campaigning against the sex industry, for abortion rights and the rights of women, I should have added.

So what did Andrea Dworkin say? I thought she said all sex was rape.

Am on my phone so can't link, but she was much nuanced than that. You can google it.

Apparently she said 'a commitment to sexual equality with men is a commitment to the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer insteadof the murdered'.

Which sounds a more 'literary' way of saying all men are rapists.

Or am I missing the nuance?

I found the following short precis of Dworkin and some of her work;

rationalwiki.org/wiki/Andrea_Dworkin

It is doubtless unfair to judge the works of someone with a large academic output against a few choice quotes. They are always subject to twisting and misinterpretation. Apparently the 'all sex is rape' mis-quote came from actually saying "Violation is a synonym for intercourse" (there is a reference for this quote, so I assume it's true.)

AFAIK, she never said "all sex is rape"

her detractors attributed that quote to her, by twisting and mashin gtogether some of the things she did say

she had a problem with only heterosexual penetration being classed as "real sex" which many feminists still subscribe to (and so should anyone with half a brain cell)