AmnestyInternational Prostitution

[JuliaScurr]

Please tweet #Amnesty agm in support of Nordic Model
Pimps out in force

and that thing about hard-wired biological gender differences regarding sexuality -

brembs.net/bonobos.html

farmyard animals are not primates. We are. The bonobo is our closest relative.

"I find it really strange that we are constantly told to listen to sex workers. "

Maybe women who aren't sexworkers know better?

"Any dissenting voices are 'proved' to be lying,"

Patricia is a confirmed liar. And I think Rachel Moran is a liar too. I believe Gaye Dalton's account.

btw mumsnet really needs some sort of quote feature

btw mumsnet really needs some sort of quote feature

No it doesn't.

Damn, seems we don't agree on anything! Shame.

Yes it does. A box would be nice.

Go back to reddit, or wherever you're from, then. MN is resolutely a no quote feature site - and the better for it.

I hate all those quote boxes within boxes on other sites.

Gah, did I say reddit? I mean grunternet, of course. Silly ole me.

"I really, seriously do not think sex work has any real connection to the oppression of women, except in that it provided some of the earliest opportunities to counter and reject that oppression.

I am also convinced that law should never be built on the premise of minding other people's personal business for them to suit ourselves.

If you do not like sex work, do not do it. If you do not approve of selling sex, do not sell it, if you do not approve of buying sex do not buy it.

...and leave other people to make their own decisions."

sorry I didn't reply earlier.

This seems to sum up perfectly the libertarian ideology that has served neo-liberal governments so well since Thatcherism first established the pernicious myth that 'there is no such thing as society', and individualist consumerism has run through or communities like a toddler with a lighted candle and a can of petrol ever since.

An incredibly reactionary philosophy dressed up as personal empowerment. I don't believe 'individual choice' is the supreme criterion by which we should make political decisions because I do not support laissez-faire capitalism

I personally know a woman who said she used to have to have sex with 8 men a day most days.

Whatever people claim, the reality is the UK law, and most people in the UK, do not support the idea that you can do whatever you want with your body - rightly IMO. For example, you are not allowed to sell one of your kidneys, When some obnoxious people were paying homeless men to physically fight each other, the law intervened.

In reality we accept that vulnerable people and those in poverty need some protection from being able to sell their body in certain ways. But because prostitution largely affects women, it is treated differently.

Of course punters would prefer to picture women living comfortably on a couple if clients a day paying top money. So would I. It's just a much nicer idea.

Sadly the research says otherwise. TheEconomist in March quoted average salaries for street prostitutes in US cities at $18k per year. High end escorts were on $200k. So about the same gap as you see between a bank clerk and the area manager

And the CEOs of sex work earn the same sort of multiple as in banking as well:
A new study by the Urban Institute, a think-tank, casts doubt on this assertion. After investigating the sex trade in eight big American cities, researchers concluded that pimps can do rather well for themselves. Some in Atlanta bring in $33,000 a week, the study estimates.

Quoting from the Economist.

"you are not allowed to sell one of your kidneys"

That's not the same as sex work. Sex workers don't literally "sell their body" despite the terminology commonly used (mainly by antis, not by sexworkers). They still have their body afterwards.

My comment was challenging the often quoted idea that - it is my body, I will do what I want with it. Most people including me, when you look at this idea in detail, do not accept this argument. There need to be limits on what people can do with their bodies.

"There need to be limits on what people can do with their bodies."

But what is it to you what other consenting adults do?

A sex worker sells her services. Not her body. The client doesn't walk away with a pack of her bone marrow or a kidney.

They still have their body afterwards

As you do when you have donated a kidney.

But let's examine that. What about the women who dull out the pain with drugs and alcohol? What about the physical injuries? the psychological damage? All an impact on the body.

Sex is an intimate act - there is a risk of injury, infection, pregnancy. It has a far more intimate impact on the body than, say, manual labour. It includes invasion of bodily orifices, an invasion of bodily autonomy.

By the same logic you could say a masseuse "sells his/her hands". You could say a doctor "sells his brain". You could say a football player "sells his feet".

But they aren't really selling parts of their body are they?

You can play word games, but we all know that those examples are very different to prostitution.