Is sex working ever 'acceptable'

[neverthebride]

Hi everyone, this is my first post on this board so please be gentle (!) but I'd really appreciate some views.

I have a friend who is a sex worker. Very 'exclusive' kind of thing, earns a lot of money etc. I've known her for a long time but it's only recently that she's confided in me that that's how she earns her living.

I've known several sex workers in the past (I work in MH) and those people have been at the 'street level' and were invariably drug addicts and/or very damaged individuals who were abused in so many ways in their personal lives and as sex workers and would not have been sex workers if they felt they had other options.

My friend has apparently been doing sex work for a long time. She is highly educated, has no history of abuse in her life and seems to have made an informed choice to go into sex work as a 'business'. Her clients are big-spenders and she works in an environment where all possible safety precautions are taken. She does not do anything that she doesn't want to do and has made an enormous amount of money (which she admits she is 'addicted to').

I'm really torn on this issue which I didn't think I would be!. On one hand,I think HER experience might be positive but it's perpetuating the idea that sex and bodies are for sale and I absolutely disagree with that and know that the overwhelming experience of sex workers is just horrific.

On the other hand, I think she's an adult woman who's educated and informed and who am I (or anyone else for that matter) to say that she can't make the decision about what she does with her own body?.

I won't not be her friend because of her choices but I feel so uncomfortable with either of my thought processes. Help!

"Oh, that can be checked on PN with ease. "

Some (not all) can be found by typing them into Google. But it would be far easier if they had the ID of the review next to them. Almost as if she doesn't want readers to check them.

"No, clients are just beating them up and murdering them."

And your source is what?

Nor are feminists. Feminists - certainly not the MN feminists - do not stigmatise or abuse prostitutes.

However, the MURDER and VIOLENCE comes from pimps and punters. That is undeniable - and yet you try to cloud the issue.

Nobody on MN supports what that Irish tabloid did - there was a thread on it at the time. Not one poster agreed with it.

"NAPALT"

wat?

NotAllPuntersAreLikeThat

Some things sexworkers have been told and had done to them. Not by clients, but by "antis":

@ManCrack
#whenantisattack "I hope your children reject you. You should never have been allowed to have kids in the first place.clearly you're unfit."

@whoreseyeview
"You are a rape-enabler" - that's word for word. #whenantisattack

@Hayleystevens
Being told "You're an attack dog for teh menz" for writing about sex workers making empowered decisions. #whenantisattack

@AnarchaSxworker
They stalked me online, got as much info as they could find and threatened to expose and report me #whenantisattack

@GlasgaeLauraLee
Telling me I'm an unfit mother and calling social services 'cos I'm a sex worker #whenantisattack

What about your attacks on Rachel Moran?

@johannafeminazi
"Your job is rape for pay" Thanks, dicks, I've been raped, and I bone for $$, I can damn well tell which is which #whenantisattack

@MorganeMerteuil
I don't dare to put photos of my face on my escort ad because I'm afraid antis find it and write bad comments #whenantisattack

@Maggie_McNeill
"I believe you were never a prostitute, that you are just a punter yourself." #whenantisattack

@singult
You CLEARLY are a trafficker, not a sex worker. You're a man! #whenantisattack

"What about your attacks on Rachel Moran?"

maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/slush-fund/

Speaking of which, I noticed everyone ignored the link that exposed her as putting grant money meant for her NGO into her own personal bank account.

I'm not making this up, there are emails on that link as proof.

I'm a sex worker so yes.

"Or maybe its those gangs of naice middle class feminists beating them up, is it? "

Are you the one who threatend to stalk AnarchaSxworker? or are you the one who told Hayleystevens she was an "attack dog for teh menz"?

Which anti are you?

Or are you the one who called social services on GlasgaeLauraLee and calleing her an unfit mother after finding out what she does for money?

Traffickers and pimps do call themselves sex workers, though. It's a subterfuge they use to campaign for the sex industry, to protect their profiteering.

The source of a lot of those "anti" quotes is also misogyny - the same misogyny that allows websites like PN to exist. It's all misogyny.

Feminists, or even just normal sportswomen/comediens are constantly the target of online/twitter attacks. I don't think sex workers have the monopoly there

The source of a lot of those anti quotes IMO is stigma. Which you want to increase.

"Traffickers and pimps do call themselves sex workers,"

A sex worker is someone who sells sexual services.

A "pimp" is sometimes called an agent or manager, but not a "sexworker".

"Feminists, or even just normal sportswomen/comediens are constantly the target of online/twitter attacks."

I know. Recently on Twitter a sexworker of Asian ethnicity had received threats and saying how the police were doing nothing about it. Yet as people were pointing out if you even stick your tougne out at that banknote woman (a blonde white middle class woman) the police will come running.

People did more than stick their tongue out at Caroline Criado Perez. They threatened her with rape and murder, threatened her children, told her she would 'die tonight' and published her home address. Online abuse that lasted months.

"Clients aren't the ones approaching the daughters of sexworkers telling them their mother will die, sending letters saying they should be gang-raped or putting dog sh*t through their letterboxes."

Nor are feminists. HTH.

s29.postimg.org/cl8aqzghz/image.png

Here's a screen grab from another. And this woman is a feminist.

I bet you're proud to have feminists like her on your side.

I don't think wishing rape on people is the best way to respond to Amnesty Int's recent decision (and to get AI to listen to you). But that's just my opinion.

'Does this come across to you as blindingly entitled, Vo? Not only does this man want to ejaculate into a woman whose consent he has bought, he wants to own her response as well, complaining that it wasn't passionate (after all, he's average build and he showers, FGS!) and that she faked an orgasm.'

It is blindly entitled, and many punters were tbh, They were usually the ones who had been doing it a while, first timers were usually a lot less jaded and entitled I found. If they stuck with you (which many do, just stick with one girl they like) they tended to remain unentitled. I hated getting 'well known' punters and those who had been doing it for years as they had huge entitlement and expectations!

"No, clients are just beating them up and murdering them."

And your source is what?'

Tbf, it is true that violence from punters to brothel and independant workers is very very uncommon. I had one aggressive client in 3 years and even then he didnt physically hurt me (though it was traumatic for me and forced me to give it up!). I had Uglymugs warnings emailed and texted to me and they were always about streetworkers. Other places tend to be targeted by armed robbers occasionally though, but I suspect this happens with other businesses aswell.

honey - I'm really glad that experienced little violence - but Home Office stats show that a woman working in London as a prostitute is 12 times more likely to be murdered than any other woman.

I agree with you that women working on the street are far more likely to experience violence than those working indoors though.