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!

Completely wrong. I am exited myself.

And yet again, no engagement with the other points just an attack, how original.

Wow, just wow.

It's clearer than ever just how important it is to keep trying to eradicate punters. Especially if you are representative of their levels of compassion and comprehension.

[FistInSolidaritySister] RamsaySnow. I hear you.

We've had this argument (probably with this same poster under another NN) before. Sometimes I feel like just c&p'ing vast swathes of posts from previous threads.

You make the assumption Vurapeb is a male when I as a woman agree with all they write (and there's not need to swear...)

"Some prostitute-users actively seek prostituted women and children of different nationalities, races or ethnic groups for the purpose of exploiting these power disparities, ""

"prostitute-users"?

Well those that seek children for sex are pedophiles.

As for ethnicities isn't that just sexual preference? I don't see how that is racism?

And I don't know what you mean by "power disparities". I thought clients visited sexworkers for sex.

Fuck that Hannah. She can swear if she wants to, we know varupeb is a punter under lots of different names, slagging off Rachel Moran and the Nordic model. He lives on FWR (god knows why).

vurapeb wrote - "to impose a fine we would need to get a conviction first, which from what we've seen in Sweden is extremely difficult."

Modelled on President John F. Kennedy's 1961 Moonshot speech:

"Feminists choose to implement the Nordic Model within this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

vurapeb - "if you want sexworkers who earn £100 or £200 an hour to leave their job to change to a low-paid but nice clean non-sex-related job"

Your low expectations of what other work prostitutes could do won't help their confidence levels, but I suppose that's your intention. How would you like it if people went around telling you that the only other job you could do was low paid?

It's not even particularly hard to gain a conviction in Sweden, contrary to what the pimp lobby would have us believe. If punters can find the prostitutes, so can the police. Most punters that are caught accept the on-the-spot fine, so they won't have to suffer going to court.

What Sweden did in bringing in their sex laws was monumental, and a real win for feminism and sexual equality. The cornerstone of the Swedish laws is that women (or men) shall not be bought or sold for sex, that sexual equality cannot happen in a society whilst buying sex is legal/decriminalised. But that selling sex is totally decriminalised. I wholeheartedly agree with this approach.

But if it does go to court sexworkers refuse to testify against the client so the client goes free.

@vesuvia,

How would you like it if you were in a high paid job, but it happened to be a job that offended the morals of some people so they started campaigning for laws to try and stop you doing that job. Then telling you most people get paid less than you anyway and manage to survive?

"But that selling sex is totally decriminalised"

Wrong. Sexworkers in Sweden who work together are committing a crime.

Selling sex in Sweden is not "totally" decriminalised.

Well fuck that then Sabby dear - I'd actively slag off Rachael Moran and the Swedish crap too

Trafficked sex workers do not refuse to testify against their traffickers. And that's what the Swedish law is all about - protection of the vulnerable.

There is a strange myth that circles pro-prostitution lobbyists that only 2 convictions have ever happened under the Swedish law - this is utterly false. Hundreds are fined every year, and many, many convictions are also made in court.

You may not think it's worth it, but I do. So do 80% of the Swedish population.

You're swearing now, Hannah dear. Changed your mind, have we?

vurapeb wrote - "How would you like it if you were in a high paid job, but it happened to be a job that offended the morals of some people so they started campaigning for laws to try and stop you doing that job. Then telling you most people get paid less than you anyway and manage to survive?"

Not offering a guaranteed income of £100 per hour for life is not the same as consigning an exited prostitute to abject poverty.

"So do 80% of the people in Sweden who participated in the poll."

Corrected that last stat for you as I don't believe every single person in the country was asked.

But what matters the most is what sexworkers think and want.

Bollocks. You just hate her because she speaks out against men like you. You want to be able to pay to fuck women without any legal recriminations, and you don't particularly care about whether the women involved share her traumatic experiences of prostitution. Many other prostitutes have spoken out too - including one on this thread.

"Not offering a guaranteed income of £100 per hour for life is not the same as consigning an exited prostitute to abject poverty."

Even if you can guarantee they won't face poverty, why should they give up their high paid job? What gives you that right to tell them what other adults can and can't do?

Corrected that last stat for you as I don't believe every single person in the country was asked.

I'm not really bothered by what you believe - it was the results of the polls - more than one in fact. You also "believe" that a subset of women in society should be made available for men to pay to fuck - so how much of a fuck do I give about your beliefs?

Or possibly because she has been exposed as a liar??....

And I am offended by being referred to as a 'subset'