Sex: My British Job. Channel 4

[YouMakeMeWannaLaLa]

Anybody see this? It was just horrific. I really, really hope it reached the right audience: punters and their defenders. I doubt it, but I hope so

[Frodosmum]

“A counsellor is involved in socialising men by disseminating cultural and social norms, including the idea that men are entitled to have access to women's bodies for sex and/or that they have a ‘need’ for sex.”

There is no way in which such a strong and specific desire, such as sexual desire, could be conjured up out of nothing. It often arises in the body before the person reaching puberty has even been told the basic facts of life.

[mathanxiety]

I think perhaps Frodosmum believes a man's balls will turn blue and fall off unless he gets some frequently.

How does one give empathy without moving or talking?

[Frodosmum]

'Punters...they also want to control, dominate and abuse.'

How do you know? If you had said 'pimps', I wouuld agree.

[Frodosmum]

"How does one give empathy without moving or talking?"

It's a gift. Empathy is more a state of being.

The posters above must also think that I have time-travelling powers, in addition to my Derren Brown suggestion talents, because the clients came to the office with the problem already in their heads.

[GoshAnneGorilla]

Frodo - Flora has already explained that to you, our patriarchal society socialises men to believe that women's bodies are something they are entitled to.

Note that word: entitled.

I cannot believe any could be "poor, poor menz" after watching that documentary.

[CaptChaos]

Empathy is an active process involving a series of actions/inactions, it sure as hell isn't a 'state of being' and I am amazed that anyone would suggest or teach that it is.

Punters want to abuse, control and dominate because that's what they pay to do. To have sex on someone who isn't actively willing and wouldn't be if they hadn't been paid for is abuse. There is a whole website dedicated to making sure that punter's money is only spent where the woman is not going to make trouble/be unattractive/be upset/not allow the man to do whatever he wants. To suggest that punters are there purely for a sexual experience they couldn't get elsewhere merely shows that you don't understand the dynamics of prostitution.

[mathanxiety]

"How does one give empathy without moving or talking?"
It's a gift. Empathy is more a state of being.

LOL.
If a counsellor feels empathy but does not show it in any way then it is as useful to the other person as the silent workings of the counsellor's digestive process.

Empathy is no more a state of being than my desk is. Show it or it goes completely to waste. You seem to have the strange gift of completely ignoring the effect of behaviour (or complete lack of behaviour in the case of your weird take on empathy) on others as demonstrated by your view of people having a right to use the body of another as long as they have needs that must be met, and the bizarre view of empathy as a state of being, not in any way communicated to the other person.

In your callous perspective only the needs or feelings of one individual matter -- you seem incapable of accepting that everyone has needs that are equally deep and that those needs have to be reconciled and ordered.

[FloraFox]

The Empathic Mannequin

[ReviewsOffers]

but Red HIS BALLS WERE PROBABLY BLUE! Didn't consider that did you? Probably because you have no concept of desire, much less thwarted desire.

[minnehaha]

"Punters want to abuse, control and dominate because that's what they pay to do." CRAP!!

[FloraFox]

And when, the women would not be counted as coerced or trafficked - simply making a free choice to improve their economic situation. Unless of course you count the fact that they are £20,000 in debt to illegal moneylenders to pay for their trip, unable to work legally and subject to bullying and manipulation. But that's not important, they exercised agency so it's all okay.

[mathanxiety]

Can you elaborate on that, Minnehaha?

How is paying someone for use of their body to wank into or onto a sexual experience they probably wouldn't be freely given by that complete stranger not a form of abuse, control or domination?

[GoshAnneGorilla]

Because all Minnehaha's "clients" are luvvley men married to horrible women like us. Apparently

[CaptChaos]

Another erudite addition to the conversation, Minnehaha. Care to explain how using someone as a wank sock isn't abusive, dominating or controlling?

[Frodosmum]

I knew that I would regret the state-of-being joke.


“Frodo - Flora has already explained that to you, our patriarchal society socialises men to believe that women's bodies are something they are entitled to.”

Flora has, indeed, presented her theory with regard to this matter, without describing the precise mechanism of the ‘socialising’, or brainwashing, she suggests, or providing any evidence.

If you really believe that people can be so easily socialised you must surely allow the male theory that women are socialised to be sexually less active and more relationship-oriented than they would naturally be?


“Frodosmum you seem angry about the idea that men might be denied their access to women…”

I reject the idea that men think in terms of “access to women” and “entitlement”. This is a female construct.


“To suggest that punters are there purely for a sexual experience they couldn't get elsewhere merely shows that you don't understand the dynamics of prostitution.”

Your opinion of the dynamics of prostitution! Have you ever asked a punter?


“…as demonstrated by your view of people having a right to use the body of another as long as they have needs that must be met…”

Another misrepresentation: I have specifically said that I do not believe that. Please refer to the above discussion about people having no right to sex, love, relationships, children, etc. because they involve a second party.

[mathanxiety]

I thought it was funny, Frodo.

When it comes to the socialising of men to believe that women's bodies are something they are entitled to, you only have to look at the matter of rape.

Here's a quick overview of what society tells men about women, from Wikipedia, for your convenience.

The title if the article is 'marital rape' and it explores the context in which this crime was not considered to exist until very recently. If you were born before 1991 in the UK you lived at a time when the concept was held to be impossible.

"Problems in prosecuting spousal rape

The criminalization of marital rape does not necessary mean that these laws are enforced in practice, with lack of public awareness, as well as reluctance or outright refusal of authorities to prosecute being common in many countries. For instance, in Ireland, where marital rape was made illegal in 1990, by 2006 there had been only one person convicted of marital rape (in a case which involved a man who raped his wife shortly after she had given birth and when she was still bleeding).[130] In many countries, most often, in practice, there will be no prosecution except in extreme cases that involve a very high level of violence.

There have been many problems with prosecuting the perpetrators of spousal rape, chief amongst them has been the reluctance of the various legal systems to recognize it as a crime at all. However, criminalization has opened a new set of problems. To take an example in the United Kingdom, such a category of rape was only recognized by a 1991 House of Lords decision known simply as R v R (1991 All ER 481). While most parties agreed with the House of Lords' motive in making the decision, there were many who were of the opinion that the decision involved post facto criminalization, since the House of Lords were imprisoning spouses for doing what was once, according to the law, their right.

Another problem results from prevailing social norms that exist in certain cultures. In order for any law to be successfully enforced, the acts which it prohibits must be perceived by society as abusive. As such, even if a jurisdiction enacts adequate laws against marital rape, in practice, these laws are ignored if the act is not socially considered a crime. For example, in many parts of the world, where women have few rights, it is considered unthinkable for a woman to refuse her husband's sexual demands; far from being seen as an act of abuse of a wife, marital rape is seen as an incident provoked by the wife who refused to perform her duty: for instance one survey found that 74% of women in Mali said that a husband is justified to beat his wife if she refuses to have sex with him. [131]

Other problems arise from the fact that, even in countries where marital rape is illegal, many people are not aware of the existing laws. Because in most parts of the world marital rape laws are very new, many people do not know of their existence. In many cultures, traditional ideas about marriage are deeply rooted in the conscience of the population, and few people know that forcing a spouse to have sex is illegal. For instance, a report by Amnesty International showed that although marital rape is illegal in Hungary, in a public opinion poll of nearly 1,200 people in 2006, a total of 62% did not know that marital rape was a crime: over 41% of men and nearly 56% of women thought it was not punishable as a crime in Hungarian law, and nearly 12% did not know.[132] In Hong Kong, in 2003, 16 months after the criminalization of marital rape, a survey showed that 40% of women did not know it was illegal.[133]"

From the link..

[mathanxiety]

wikipedia overview

[Frodosmum]

Thanks for the link. I knew about that particular issue from academic legal studies. This is one of the many reasons why us older generation, 1970s feminists regarded marriage as a bad thing, along with the whole women-as-baby-making machines, etc. thing. We felt badly betrayed by later generations of feminists for sweeping that under the carpet and re-embracing these things.

In practice, men who committed marital rape could be, and were, prosecuted for other offences, such as sexual assault, although it must be said that, in the past, the police were notoriously reluctant to get involved in ‘domestics’ of any kind. That was a different nightmare.

Knowledge of marital rape, and this applies to those opinion polls, reflects, in part, the fact that the issue just wouldn’t cross the mind of most people. I regard this as a healthy attribute. We might have stumbled through the centuries with no legislators bothering to take responsibility for this, but it would not even occur to the normal male to force himself physically upon his wife. The bottom line, even with regard to crusty old British judges, was that you could get a divorce on the basis of “unreasonable behaviour” in a sexless marriage (the lack of sex could be seen as evidence that the marriage had broken down) or an annulment on the grounds of non-consummation. I don’t think that this led to an aura of "socialised" entitlement in the way it has been discussed here.

With regard to those parts of the world in which women have few rights, there is a deliberately instituted and maintained across-the-board anti-female prejudice. Most of it goes back to primitive times: animal values, you might say, but people in the power structures will find new ways in which to soil the mattress. In Iran, divorce courts will suggest, almost to the point of parody, that a woman who brings a case against her husband “behave more reasonably” toward the husband. Religion and marriage are two of the chief culprits.

[MsCarriage]

I recorded this programme and watched it last night. It was quite mild compared with some TV outings on this subject. The girls borrowed money from loan sharks at home to get to the UK illegally to do sex work because of the amount it can pay and because of the purchasing power of western money in places such as China. They worked in grubby suburban accommodation, with a psychotic madam, had some customers and were concerned about the lack of trade. The undercover reporter turned out to be a bit fragile for this sort of work and was constantly harassed by the other women to do sex work herself, probably because they, or at least the madam, would have got a percentage. We had the usual slightly embarrassing reveal/confrontation at the end, but nothing particularly surprising was reported.

I’ve seen darker stuff about sex work on TV, including underage prostitutes with male and female punters in Thailand, the Hardcore documentary with a British would-be porn star out of her depth with some aggressive pornsters in LA and a programme about drugs and sex work in Bristol. I felt strangely cheated.

We could also have done with some quality control on the production values.