is there and 'official' feminist view on prostitution? and what is it?

[ohnoitshimagain]

hi, just signed up and want to get to the bottom of this issue

ok, I'm sure there's not an official view as such, but how about a consensus or just your own personal view on this topic

1. Should prostitution be fully legalised including brothels?

I believe it should in the modern day, because of freedom

and I'm talking here about female prostitutes and male clients

hope to hear some responses, thanks, btw I"m a man

[scallopsrgreat]

"but how about for people who are unable to find a willing sexual partner?" So what is the alternative to a willing partner then?

[AskBasil]

God can I just interject here how much I despise men who go on about how xyz is OK as long as women "consent" to it?

You do realise that consent is the lowest bar you can possibly use to excuse the fact that you are a fucking shit lover and a rapey git, don't you? Consent in a sexual context is something you get from someone who isn't really into whatever it is you're doing, but you want to go ahead and do it anyway and you don't want to think of yourself as a rapist but you don't much care if the other person enjoys it or not. In other words, you want to act like a rapist without thinking of yourself as one or having others think of you as one.

I give consent to financial authorities to access my financial notes, to internet companies to access my personal data, to medical authorities to carry out necessary (but not enjoyable) procedures.

I don't give consent to sex. I actively participate in it. Consent has no part in sex as far as I'm concerned, because nobody should be having sex with someone who is merely consenting. Sex should be had with someone who is enthusiastically, willingly, joyfully or at least actively participating because they want to have that particular bit of sex they are having right now (even if it's only because they want to get pregnant or get their partner pregnant - it may not be particularly joyful, but it is at least active, willing and participatory). If you are only looking for consent, then my god your bar is fucking low and you are telling the world that you are a terrible lover.

HTH.

[AskBasil]

If you can't find someone who wants to have sex with you, then you will have to remain celibate.

Because other human beings are not there for your use.

HTH.

[SolidGoldBrass]

I still really don't get why paying for sexual services is so much more wrong than paying for any other kind of services where the seller is being paid to put (for the length of the transaction) the buyer's needs and wishes ahead of his/her own. Therapists/counsellors (whether legitimate or woo-peddling) are paid to give the impression that they care about the client, even when the client is a bore, an arsehole or an idiot. If your job involves physical contact with clients (massage, chiropody, dental care etc) you may well have to deal with clients who are unhygienic, rude, or continually make their own problems more difficult by refusing to follow advice.

If you want something that other people are not willing to provide you with out of affection or admiration for you, what's so awful about paying a fair price for it? Sex is more important to some people than it is to others, but it's not inherently sacred, or more special than any other form of recreational activity. Not everyone would like or even not mind engaging in sex for money, but lots of people would dislike or be freaked out by (eg) listening to someone talk at tedious length about his/her anxiety, or dealing with open wounds or incontinence. Not everyone has the right temperament to be an undertaker, either: that doesn't mean that choosing such a profession is wrong or makes you peculiar.

[CuntyBunty]

Why did the other thread get deleted please?

[AskBasil]

SGB you're deflecting from men's behaviour here and focusing again on the choices of women. Also you're ignoring the fact that in the society we live in at the moment, sex is different from any other activity; it can cause pregnancy and / or disease and it has a different social status to any other. I think you can argue that it's a job like any other when we live in a society where women and men are treated as if they are both equally human and where women are not assumed to be there for men's use. Until then accepting that men have the right to use women as objects for their sexual gratification (instead of sex being an equal, happy experience for both men and women) is simply re-inforcing inequality IMO.

[AskBasil]

Also I'm always more interested in the motives of people who are happy to inflict sex on people they know damned well don't want it with them (in other contexts known as rapists), than in those of the people who accept money in return for enduring these awful people.

[CuntyBunty]

YY to Basil's post and also, it's like why the sale of human organs is banned; it's damaging to society to put a monetary value on such a thing. It's much more intimate than any healthcare or counselling job.

The men's behaviour thing; I said this on the other thread (the deleted one ); I can't imagine wanting to have sex with someone who didn't want to have sex with me, I would feel so gross, so repulsive. We need to look at creating a society where this is not ok in men's heads. They know it's not ok, because how many men do you know who admit to using prostitutes? It will be none, or a very few, because they know it is wrong and deemed to be abusive, grubby and repulsive by wider society. We are repulsed by the very notion of a man who would use a woman in that way, by someone who could have sex with someone who didn't want to with them.

I certainly wouldn't knowing sleep with someone like that.

[thisismyYuleTimenickname]

Let's get to the bottom of the issue. I have an 'official' feminist view on prostitution -

if there are a lot of sad lonely men who can't get any women because of evolution but are absolutely desperate for sex then they can all meet up and suck each other's dicks. It'll even save them money!
"But I'm not gay!!" I hear you say. No? Then you're not desperate enough. Happy holidays!

[CuntyBunty]

and YuleTime

[TheDoctrineOfSanta]

at Yule.

SGB - is it ok to pay for blood donations or for surrogacy? Those are things that touch someone's bodily integrity without in themselves being "risky" activities. Yet society outlaws payment for these things.

I see prostitution as more like these things, you see it as more like being paid for care work.

[DadWasHere]

I can't imagine wanting to have sex with someone who didn't want to have sex with me, I would feel so gross, so repulsive. We need to look at creating a society where this is not ok in men's heads.

Look, as a man the idea of having sex with someone who does not sexually desire me, I feel the same way as you, the idea repels me. Nothing to do with morality, it simply repels my sexuality. I, sought of, understand and accept the perspective of some men who are dysfunctional and deluded, but the bulk of men who use prostitution services seem to be those I would happily pack on a rocket ship and send off planet.

But that said I lived with a woman for three years and, as an idea, it was quite 'OK in her head' to pay for her sexual satisfaction from a man (although whether she ever did or not is unknown to me). I have met other women who felt the same way. I suspect (purely personal speculation) that the proportion of women who would 'feel OK in their heads' about the idea would be very similar to men. I think that the 'thinking' you are talking about is not nearly as gender biased as you might believe. I think its simply far more rarely acted out in women because men are commonly more compliant in providing sex when women seek it, as well as women being more cautious in terms of behaviour and safety about seeking paid services. Also the supply of services to women is far less prevalent, and the uncommon nature of it further suppresses use of it.

[AskBasil]

Dad I think those women's views are also influenced by the constant message that men want sex all the time and are always up for it.

So in their minds, by paying a man to shag them they're doing him a favour - he would do it for free anyway, the thinking goes. (It's not thinking I agree with because I don't buy the myth that men are always up for sex - I don't think they would have been able to rule the world if they were such slaves to it - but that ridiculous attitude is extremely widespread and encouraged by a media which appears to believe that it's desirable for everyone to believe that men are more obsessed with sex than women are.)

Whereas men who are OK with paying for sex are having their ideas and attitudes shaped in a society which sends out very different messages about women. Women aren't supposed to enjoy sex, just gatekeep it. Except when they are supposed to enjoy it otherwise they're fridid. Or something. So the implications of them handing over money to a woman for sex, are different. Some men get positively turned on by the idea that the woman they are using actively dislikes what they're doing, while others kid themselves the women they use enjoy it because that fiction preserves their sense of themselves as decent men. I wonder if the women you knew who were OK with the idea of buying sex for themselves, would be quite so keen on the idea if presented with the notion that they would probably be buying it from a young man who had been raped or sexually abused, was emotionally vulnerable and really didn't want to do it but was forcing himself to for the money. Not such a turn on for most women, while for many male punters, not such a problem?

[AskBasil]

There's a Sheila Jeffreys Facebook page which posts little snippets from her writing. This is coming up today which is so aposite:

“The effect of legalised prostitution on women outside prostitution is to lower the status of all women. Women are recognised by the state in this system as the appropriate objects of male penetration with no consideration for their personhood or pleasure. This teaches that the penetration and use of an unwilling woman is ‘sex’, an idea that lies at the root of sexual violence against women in general. There is no chance of developing a sexuality of equality in which women’s pleasure, right to say no, and bodily integrity are respected whilst the violence of prostitution is allowed to continue with state support for men’s behaviour.”

• Sheila Jeffreys, from interview on May 13, 2012

[FloraFox]

OP the Catholic Church has had zero impact on evolution. In evolutionary terms we are the same beings now as we were 2000 years ago. Don't use evolution to excuse your desire to pay a woman who does not want to have sex with you. The fact that the Catholic Church is mispgynistic and opposes prostitutuion is not a good reason to be in favour of having sex on someone who does not want you.

Your views are typical of men who want women to be public property rather than private property of one man.

Also, not all libertarians approve of prostitution. Ayn Rand's view was that it was immoral. So don't use your cod knowledge of imaginary "free markets" or libertatrianism to justify having sex with someone who does not want you.

If you can't find a willing partner for sex, perhaps reflect on why that is so.

[FloraFox]

basil that quote is fantastic.

[AskBasil]

It is innit?

I recommend signing up to that Facebook page, you get little snippets of her writing every couple of days and it's always something interesting and thought-provoking.

[SolidGoldBrass]

Given the long history of marriage as being the legal ownership of women by men, some women feel that sex work is a better deal (you can send the client away when the transaction is over; you don't have to do the housework as well). Also, there are sex workers - a minority, but a sizeable one, who consider themselves as healers/therapists. I don't see why their viewpoint is any less valid than that of the woman who believes that sex for her has to be about love and desire and nothing else.
I still don't see why the idea of women willingly engaging in sex work seems to infuriate some feminists so much more than women willingly engaging in marriage/longterm heteromonogamous relationships that are unequal.

[CuntyBunty]

I am infurated at the entitled perverts who use women in this way, SGB, not the women themselves.

That long history of marriage is exactly that now; history. It is no longer the law that the man owns the woman. It is an anachronism.

[FloraFox]

I am infuriated by women like Brooke Magnanti who promote their privileged experience in prostituion as the voice of all women in prostitution. I am not infuriated by her or any other woman's attitude to sex. If she or anyone else wants to have man-pleasing sex with men who don't care about the fact the she doesn't want to have sex with him, I don't see it as positive or empowering but I'm not infuriated about that. The media is entranced with the glamourised version of prostitution she presents where women go to high class hotels and have drinks then sex with some rich and attractive guy and ignores women on the street or in brothels having sex with 10+ random strangers every night.

I can't see how presenting yourself as an object for penetration without regard to your desires is "healing". I would say that it is perpetuating a man's entitlement to sex on his terms without regard to his partner's. Continuing male entitlement one fuck at a time seems a more appropriate description.

[AskBasil]

Well I think being owned by men and treated as a thing by them, whether as a wife or a prostitute, is an equally bad deal tbh.

I think women should be striving for a much better deal.

How many sex workers are men who consider themselves healers/ therapists for their female clients?

I can see why women would adopt a positive outlook to ensure that they feel good about what they do, but actually, what medical therapy requires you to enable someone to penetrate you? I can also see why women would shrug and say that the fact that their DH never does any housework is a small price to pay for being a wife, but in both cases, I don't understand why feminists are supposed to nod along and agree that that's all fine and there's nothing to discuss here, move along.

You're setting up an Aunt Sally SGB - feminists don't like women being used for housework/ sex in a marriage any more than they like them being used for it in a brothel. We can be against both.

[AskBasil]

Arf Buffy.

[AnyFuckerForAMincePie]

WRT to your last sentence, SGB, both those things infuriate me and I am equally vocal in my hatred of them. Don't fall into that daft old trap of saying "you can't protest against X, because you don't protest against Y"

it's just a slightly better-thought out twist to the "don't you buy t shirts from Primark then" trotted out by people with no argument, but no less a straw argument when we are talking about the objectification of women

[Grennie]

www.facebook.com/abolishprostitutionnow

This is a new international campaign to abolish prostitution.