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

MsC...not explicit enough for you ? You felt "cheated" by this programme ? If you mean because there was no apparent conclusion to it, that is fair enough...but I don't think that was what you meant by "cheated" did you ?

if you are after scenes of sexual abuse on your screen, thankfully watching a channel 4 doc is the wrong the place to look

try the www, it's there in abundance with two clicks of your mouse

Distasteful. Hardly horrific.

Because you didn't "see" it, it didn't happen

ho- kay

Fucking hell.

First we have 'animal values' in 'Iran, for example'

then women in China deliberately choose to be prostitutes in the West and then get themselves in twenty grands worth of debt to a criminal in order to follow their dreams in the manner of a Disney Princess. Do thy have any clue how many pissing bargaining bastards (though - hey - he could be my hubby) they will have to fuck for twenty grand? But it's not that bad eh, they are probably just a bit fragile if that upsets them. I mean grubby suburbs - urgh

I am not buying this "men can be suicidal through sex starvation" one minute and then claiming to have been a 1970's feminist the next.

Words are currently failing me with regards to MsC's comment.

I have worked in this industry for TWENTY years and have yet to meet an example that fits your stereotype......and then you wonder why I'm angry at your back to front attitudes?

Do you wonder why WE are angry minnehaha or do you think you already know?

Another revealing documentary on ITV right now. The murky world of child sex tourism. It's their agency though, innit

Minniehaha - so because you've never seen it, (it being the abuse of women), therefore it doesn't exist?

Or therefore it shouldn't be allowed to impede "the sex industry" being seen as something benign and marvellous with it being great for a man to pay a woman to have sex with him?

Have you got any points to make other than to huffily call us names?

I have been viewing similar discussions on other sites. If I have understood it all correctly, the new radical feminist theory on prostitution holds that paying for sex is an act of abuse in itself, as opposed to the abuse being the poor working conditions, violent pimps and the presence of organised crime, etc. When pressed for details, the proponents say, more specifically, that it constitutes abuse by definition because the person doing the work would not want to be there doing it without these payments.

For example, on this thread a poster defined the problem thus:

To have sex on (sic) someone who isn't actively willing and wouldn’t be if they hadn't been paid for is abuse.

Given that this applies to most jobs, in fact, all jobs in which the person does not actively enjoy the work, there must be some special element in sex work to the exclusion of all other forms of work which makes it a special category to be regarded as ‘abuse’. Non-enjoyment of work cannot be the sole basis. I rarely actually want to be in my office, and the average miner would rather be doing something else than chipping or blasting at the coal face.

What is this special element? Does it come down to a subjective view of the nature of sex? There is widespread disagreement over the issue. Most men find this definition of abuse difficult to take seriously, and women disagree on the matter, some complaining that this gets them thrown out of certain feminist groups because they are not following the ‘party line’. Even women who disapprove of prostitution for other reasons draw the line at this new definition.

If opinions depend on the person’s overall view of sex itself, it is legitimate to put this forward as an objective theory?

Springrite if you mean "objective theory" in the sense of objectivism, I'm sure radical feminists don't give a fuck about whether it is "legitimate" to put forward their views in that way.

HTH

springrite thanks for quoting me.

Firstly, there is no need for the smug little (sic) in the quote, the phrase have sex on is a legitimate way of describing the difference between the sex that two willing partners have and the sex a punter has with a prostitute. (sic) usually denotes a spelling mistake.

Secondly, my post was about coerced consent, are you seriously conflating coerced consent where, under British law, lack of consent for the acts which follow constitute a crime with not particularly enjoying doing some photocopying? Seriously? The special element is that lack of consent within sex is a crime, it is called rape, this has nothing to do with my or any other person's view of sex. Your miner may well rather be elsewhere than down a mine shaft, but his job was freely chosen, the women in this programme have not freely chosen and are being forced to pay off debts using their bodies, can you now see the difference?

Thirdly, Most men find this definition of abuse difficult to take seriously, and women disagree on the matter...

I agree that most men find this definition of abuse difficult to take seriously , as it is men that are generally, within the scenario depicted in the TV show, the abusers. No one wants to think of themselves or their friends as abusive, so they ridicule and disparage the idea that they are. Women disagree on the matter , 'women' are not a homogeneous blob, they are capable of thinking and discussing what they like.

I have no clue what you're talking about with party lines and new radical feminist theory. I don't identify as a radical feminist, so I am ill-equipped to comment.

Well, I was rather hoping that someone would fill in the detail for me. Prostitution (and porn) debates in the past tended to feature, on the one hand, people like Mary Whitehouse and Malcolm Muggeridge presenting the Biblical view and, on the other, a couple of liberals bemoaning the horrors of sexual repression.

Florafox, if that is true, it is disappointing. I hope that you are not exulting in it.

Frodosmum, 70s feminism had a very different face at that time. Many felt that the system was ‘down’ on female sexuality to the point of air-brushing it out of existence. That’s why you had feminists like Germaine Greer and Shere Hite posing naked in porno magazines such as Hustler and Screw. Today, of course, they approach the matter somewhat differently.

I thought Germaine Greer now said that she realises the sexual revolution was just another way to exploit women?

CC, ‘Sic’ is generally to be read as simply: ‘thus’, signifying either an error, unusual usage, etc.

Your second paragraph makes no sense.

“Your miner…his job was freely chosen…”

On that point: no, he is down that pit out of economic necessity, like almost everybody else in whatever dire job they are doing.

The women in this programme chose to borrow money in the full knowledge that they would have to use their initial sex work earnings to repay the debt. They created the situation. This was not a case of trafficking.

"I thought Germaine Greer now said that she realises the sexual revolution was just another way to exploit women?"

She did later come to this conclusion, at least with regard to the free love/swinging, etc. aspects of it, which are much more of interest to men.

Springrite what the fuck are you talking about? Exulting in what? The realisation that objectivism is utter bullshit? Not sure how that is exulting.

"The women in this programme chose to borrow money in the full knowledge that they would have to use their initial sex work earnings to repay the debt. They created the situation."

There is no evidence of that. A number of the women worked as waitresses first, indicating that they did not think they would need to become prostitutes to pay off the debt. Did they create the crippling poverty and lack of opportunity that would force a woman to leave her family and move thousands of miles to fuck disgusting creeps who pee all over the place? Your conclusion is not supported by the programme but is a result of your biases and desired outcome.

If you don't know the difference between working in an office / mine / factory / whatever and being fucked by a parade of strangers, maybe ask your mommy.

Spring - Where I live 95% of the women in prostitution are on class A drugs. I know many women who have in the past been prostituted. None would say it was a "free" choice. They were homeless, or coerced into it, or had suffered lots of childhood sexual abuse and so were "primed" to be abused by others.

There might be one or two "happy hookers". But the vast majority are not.

You can’t fix the entire world, mate, including the fact that billions live in third world poverty. She could have stayed at home and got on with it, like the other 99.999%. It was a choice in the natural meaning of the word.

Grennie, I am aware that there can be actual bodily coercion, particularly in street prostitution which is related to drug abuse. There is no argument there. Of course, society goes for the easy target – the punter, leaving the pimps and higher organised crime figures to carry on.

But you can fuck 'em, eh?

You aren't seeking an education. You have a viewpoint.

Perhaps I do not have a viewpoint. As I said, the perceptions and theories on the thread are comparatively new.

Whether a gentleman will receive an education on this thread among the swear words and truly appalling sexual metaphors is another matter.