The invisible men project

[ArmyOfPenguins]

I think it's important that the buyers' choices in prostitution are highlighted and shared. This project was linked to on FB. Thoughts? I think it's a great idea.

the-invisible-men.tumblr.com/

SinisterSal Thank you for a good reply and for meeting me halfway again. :) As you've very nicely collated a lot of my responses there's quite a bit to consider so, as I'm going out now I'll come back to that and reply later if you don't mind. Thanks again.

scallopsrgreat Thanks for misunderstanding me and for the insults. "Quick to judge" was in respect of whether my reasons for being here are genuine or trolling, not whether they are of value. That's nothing to do with privilege and judging me on that score without clear reasons for doing so is stupidity. Of course you can judge whether or not you value my comments, and clearly you don't. Thanks for offering me a direction to take, I've judged it inappropriate so I'll leave it there thanks again.

Keepithidden Ok sorry so, most 'warm blooded' species?

"So choice is also in our Nature? How does that square with dominant women chossing something against their nature , or rather choosing to "deny" their nature?"

Yes I believe it is, but our nature is complex isn't it? So it's a good question and I think the answer must lie within the dominant bit. Those women have a dominant side to them which to them is natural and that drives them beyond anything they would do if they were without it. It seems to me that our nature is in levels, the base level is what maintains us in an autonomous way and then we have desire, ambition and so on. But men have this too, so the basic level of what comes naturally to us all is surely where men fail in the feminist view (and rightly so in modern society)?

I didn't offer you a direction to take?? I meant Fuck off with the condescending remarks. I wouldn't presume to tell you what to do sghueks. I'll leave that to you.

Ok sorry so, most 'warm blooded' species?

Well, if you're going to cherry pick then that's fair enough. Any population can be used to demonstrate your (or my point). Personally, I'd use the argument of the higher primates/apes and point out that the females don't all homemake and the males don't all go out and hunt (hopefully you'll excuse the paraphrase). Anyway, the point is that your argument does not demonstrate that all of nature follows a similar gender stereotype. Although I will admit that historically naturalists and those in the field have tended to anthropomorphisise the natural world to fit in with the human view. Unsurprisngly this resulted in a Patriarchical natural world!

Those women have a dominant side to them which to them is natural and that drives them beyond anything they would do if they were without it.

Isn't this contradicting your earlier point about dominant women denying their nature? And can it not equally be applied to men?

It seems to me that our nature is in levels, the base level is what maintains us in an autonomous way and then we have desire, ambition and so on. But men have this too, so the basic level of what comes naturally to us all is surely where men fail in the feminist view (and rightly so in modern society)?

Nature in levels - okay
subconscious/conscious levels - I understand
Men and women have these - yes

The "basic level of what comes to us naturally" needs to be defined. It is this that I think we differ on in our opinions. I believe that fundamentally there is very little different between genders. It seems that you believe our "natures" are different. Is that the crux of it?

If this is the case then I think you'll struggle to get anyone here to agree with you (certainly not in the terms you describe anyway!). Also, it's worth pointing out that this has been discussed over the centuries (Google - Nature vs Nurture) and public/scientific opinion seems to vary over the years and according to source, but my impression is that the "Nurture" side of things is the more powerful and the "Nature" side of things less so when it comes to social roles.

Interesting post DadWasHere. So basically if us blokes weren't so easy when it comes to sex and played harder to get, then it could result in more women paying men for sex and could balance things out? I am wondering if it would actually pan out like that or would biological differences come into play?

BasilBabyEater
Men who want to buy women for sex, don't want sex per se; they want sex that they control with a woman who has no choice about doing it with them. They want the power of the coerced sexual encounter.

Care to quantify that massive assumption?
It may the case for some but i am sure there are a fair few who want the opposite and are paying not to be in control at all, like a dominatrix for example.

FFS google some fucking books or articles on feminism dudes if you so genuinely want to understand

sg if your view of politics is primarily informed by the Flintstones, please bear in mind that it makes you look extremely foolish. We are not here to educate you so I suggest you put your limited time to better use by taking Yoni's advice. This was an intelligent discussion until you blundered in and now you've plumbed new depths with "it's human nature, innit". You can't even get your pedantic "corrections" right.

WhentheRed the power of the coerced control is that the buyer controls the experience. Therefore even in the dominatrix scenario, the buyer has chosen, sought out and dictated that experience. The very fact that he is paying puts him in control.

Again this is another assumption. How do you know that this is always the case? If the seller offers x y and z and the buyer chooses x then surely that is a mutual agreement or transaction? Coercion doesn't even come into it. If however another seller offers only x and y but the buyer wants z as well, and then tries to pressure them into it or offers them more money to do it, then this is coercion and could be deemed as the power thing you state.

If we look at the examples given in the 'invisible man project' then it is mostly the case of the buyers not being in control of their experience. Their negative reviews stem from the fact of them paying money upfront and the seller not performing what was originally agreed. So paying does not necessarily give them any control. Punter 33 is a particularly good example of this on page 2 - the one where he gets threatened with a large screwdriver.

Yes BasilBabyEater, that is exactly why the genderdised pendulum of prostitution would never be equal regardless of my observation, because the abusive behaviours you list are ultimately far more common in men than women. But in terms of prostitution being an extremely gendered activity it should be recognised that mens 'nature' extends both to demand- which is the recognised problem, and to a willing supply, which will never allow the bias to be anything but extreme.

I think its probably a self evident truth others would have picked up on? (...google..) well- that did not take as long as I thought it might:

blogs.smh.com.au/executive-style/allmenareliars/2008/07/29/themanwhoreso.html#comments

There are crackers from women in there...

?Why don't we buy sex? Because young, nubile, ripped, go-all-night boys are easy. All they want is no strings sex. It's like taking candy from a bebe.?

?Man whores everywhere. VERY good looking. You see them in the street, exchange mobile numbers, and call them if you feel like it. Tis what prostitution should be if you ask me!?

As to what you say about particular men, yes, working close to a brothel I met those kinds of bastards and I would have liked to help them outside and onto a bus... well... actually under a bus would have made me happier. Ultimately though they did not represent the full gamut of men I met. At the the opposite end of that spectrum were men I saw as dysfunctional and pitiable. They needed a doctor, the others needed a hammer. Between those two extremes were men who were variously either immoral, amoral, users or the deluded.

One man said he used their services so he could be 'good to them' because 'the girls must have hard lives and encounter a lot of utter bastards'. Those were his words as I remember them. At the time I did not know what to think... thirty years latter I still don?t, he said it with such sadness it obviously went beyond some form of shallow justification for him. I found it simultaneously maddening and dumbfounding.

WhentheRed, If you consider the term 'whore' to be derogatory you should note I used the word not to refer to women in the sex industry but to myself. Also, I never denied prostitution was gendered, I said it was deeply gendered and will remain so. What I offered was a conceptual opinion about why, in part, that is the case.

Libertarianj you should read this post regarding consent/coersion:

Beachcomber Fri 02-Aug-13 08:36:17

Plus the ones following, and the pdf and preferably the books mentioned and linked to.

Thanks Bitwildered. I'll check it out sometime.

Going back to your concept Dad Just stumbled on these from an unrelated Guardian article. Think they sum things up quite nicely really:

It's inhuman isn't.
faced with that misery and suffering and to complain that he didn't get to fuck her.

You are actually quite disgusting libertarianj to use that horrible scenario for your agenda.

And we are supposed to what - empathise with the punter here?

WhentheRed I read the post, I understand it and I agree with it. I am not in disagreement with you, I am in agreement. Pay for sex, regardless of the genders involved, regardless of whether the participants are all healthy of mind and OK with it, I detest the idea as first principal because even if it does nothing else evil it debases intimacy to a financial transaction, and that?s altogether quite enough for me. Living for years with a woman who was OK with the idea of paying for sex for herself was... a little difficult for me. Whether she actually ever did I don?t know, she knew how I felt about prostitution and, beyond that, its not the kind of conversation you can expect to have and hope the relationship prosper if the answer is yes, regardless of gender.

As to the invisible men I hope they stay invisible if the limited number of things I could stomach to read are how they think. But my personal contempt for the likes of the invisible men is irrelevant to what I wrote about, at least that I can see, which equates to the 'free vending machine' nature of male sexuality allowing prostitution be be as heavily gender biased as it is.

mmm interesting WhentheRed that you only focus on the video with the guy asking the women for sex and don't even mention the other video where the woman ask the guys for sex. I find that quite telling.

Yeah i admit it's a rather crude experiment. However i think the end result does demonstrate a certain dynamic between men and women, which i would say was fundamental to why more men buy sex than women.

And with regards to punter 33 we can only make assumptions to his resultant actions. There could have been more information included in his review, but it's obvious the Invisible Men Project is only taking snippets or cherry picking reviews to try and portray the worse case scenarios possible. So we are never going to get the full picture on that one.

I haven't watched either of L's videos but let me guess that the second video has a young, attractive woman asking guys for sex? Excuse me for being Captain Obvious, but I don't think most punters are young attractive guys. In fact, some of the men on the Invisible Men project seem to think it's an accomplishment that they have had a shower and the fact that a number of them comment on having a shower at the brothel indicates how many must show up failing even this most basic requirement. Can you show evidence that there is a free vending machine of sex available to women who are overweight, plain and possibly unwashed?

at "Captain Obvious"

im away again but reading thread and and still intending to start a mackinnon/dworkin discussion on consent when less busy.

There is an interesting and relevant article by Barbara Sullivan ?Rape prostitution and consent? Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 2007 40: 127-142 DOI: 10.1375/acri.40.2.127 anj.sagepub.com/content/40/2/127
p139 she says ?there is no doubt that consent is a difficult issue; economic and social
power clearly constrains the autonomy of sex workers ? as it does for all workers
under capitalism (and especially poor women workers). But the solution is not to
attempt to close down all possibilities for autonomy ? or consent. In radical
feminism, sex workers are seen as always already the victims of rape; this clearly
calls into question sex workers? stated claims that there is an experiential distinction
between sex work and rape.? (emphasis added) So are all sexworkers deluded ( no doubt by the ?patriachy?when they experience sex in exchange for money and say they consent?

Please present evidence that:

1. these statements from sex workers result from perfect free agency and are not influenced by abuse, addiction, mental health issues or poverty.

1. The sex workers in question and their views are representative of sex workers as a group.