Prostitutes - Are Women in Denial About Who Uses Them?

[CKDexterHaven]

I've seen some threads on Mumsnet where a woman is concerned about her husband or partner going on an all-male trip to Thailand or Las Vegas or Prague or Amsterdam. As soon as someone raises the issue of prostitution they are shouted down and told they are jumping to conclusions. Is the issue of nice, middle-class husbands using prostitutes something to which women are willingly blind?

There are millions of prostituted women and girls in the world, and, of course, men and boys too. The slow advancements in women's lives in the developed world mean that women in their thousands are trafficked from East to Western Europe, from South to North America, from Africa to Southern Europe and from Asia to Australia and the rest of the world just to meet demand. It stands to reason that there must be a lot more clients than prostitutes. The ratio must be akin to hairdressers and their clients. So where are the men? And who are they?

I've read interviews with exited prostitutes who say most of their clients were 'normal', often married, middle-class men. I've heard prostitutes say the best time to work is not a Friday or Saturday night but first thing on a Monday morning when mid-life crisis guys who hate their jobs treat themselves before going back to work. But in my lifetime I've only ever met two men who've admitted to using prostitutes. One was very drunk and bragged to his friends, the other one was an 'edgy' mature student who thought it wasn't exploitative because the prostitute was older than him and, therefore, somehow in control of the situation. That's it, two men.

When I was growing up in the 80s and early 90s porn was sold in dodgy shops, stripping happened in sleazy men's clubs and prostitution was virtually invisible to anyone who didn't live in a red-light area. Even the most handmaideny of handmaidens I knew felt these things were degrading to men and women. Now that porn is a click away and lap-dancing clubs are in every town centre most women seem to have redefined these things as 'empowering' rather than confront the fact that men they know enjoy dehumanising women who need money. Prostitution is also a lot more visible and, although this has been redefined as an empowering career choice for women, women still seem sensitive to the idea of men they know using prostitutes. Why is this? Is it just the question of tangible cheating or are women not as ok with 'sex work' for women as they say they are?

Dogpan of course it was Rotherham not Rochdale, but I don't understand what you're arguing. You sound like you don't think there's a connection between what happened in Rotherham, what happened in Rochdale, what happened in the Sutcliffe case and what happens when people talk about prostituted women as if they are different and "other" from women who are not prostituted. What "swathing judgements" are you objecting to here? My swathing judgement is that all these things are connected because men set up groups of women whom other women are encouraged to distance themselves from, lest they be cast into that group, that's the point I took up which I felt had some validity and was worth discussing.

It's not just prostituted women who we're encouraged to "other" and see as qualitatively different from "us". It's single mothers, victims of domestic violence, women who get it wrong and dress too sexily to be respectable -basically any group of women who can be spotted as victims of systematic male privilege. The othering of those women serves the function of enabling men to continue abusing women without us being able to recognise that their abuse has a pattern to it and so holding them accountable for it (and ultimately, putting a stop to it). It also of course, keeps us scared that if we don't measure up, we'll be thrown into those despised groups.

Which is not to say that women are responsible for the fact that this othering of groups of us is promoted and encouraged, but I do think it's valid to discuss what our response is to it. However of course we must not lose sight of the fact that the people who are the primary agents and beneficiaries of this othering of groups of women, while standing on the sidelines pretending it's nothing to do with them and women are each other's worst enemies, are men.

There are currently two threads active on the subject of sex work - if you're on both and you read this link on the other thread, sorry for reposting but here is some food for thought. Admittedly US-centric (oh and it's text, no nasty pictures)

Very well said Basil.

CK I don't think you're being inflammatory but I do think what you're saying is rather raw and needs more refinement (in the refining sugar sense, not in the breeding and class sense before anyone jumps on me).

You said:
Don't you think that the tiny minority of prostitutes who have options and have made a choice and have exercised agency have looked at misogyny and the abuse of women and thought 'I'll exploit that for money'? That is a pretty despicable thing to do to other women and helps perpetuate a life of misery for the 99% of optionless prostitutes. If these women have exercised the agency they claim to have then they don't get a free pass to behave like shit to other women just because they are women themselves.

There is a moral dilemma here that I find tough to deal with as a feminist. I know it comes across as clumsy but I usually transpose these things onto other more obvious examples of oppression in order to clarify my thinking on it. Take for example concentration camps. The prisoners had no way out and no choice but to go along with the horrendous treatment they were given. Some prisoners became collaborators, working with the guards and spying on their fellow prisoners for their own gain (extra food, better quarters etc). Do we blame them and feel disgust at their exploitation of fellow sufferers?
It's a tough one. On the one hand a sense of principle would say that you stand by your fellow sufferers and help them even if that means your chances of survival fall significantly. But in reality when in comes to crunch principles go out the window when survival is at stake.
For women who "choose" prostitution, often there are realistically few other options open to them. In a world where women were valued and men felt shame at using their bodies, such a "choice" would not really be a viable one, just as becoming a prostitute who caters to women is not really a viable option for a man who's desperate for money. Just as it would not be possible for concentration camp prisoners to spy on fellow prisoners had the situation not been created by an outside force, so it would not be possible for women to disrespect other women by becoming a prostitute if the demand for such a job was not created by men. Who do we then villify? The starving prisoner selling out his neighbour for a slice of bread? The woman who desperate for money sells the only valuable thing she has, her body? Or do we blame the guards who are starving that prisoner, and the men who are willing to pay for that woman's body?
It is easy to argue that in a concentration camp there really is no choice, that prisoner really is at the boundary of survival and so the comparison to a woman who could work in Tesco is not valid. I think that's fair, although it's worth remembering that the social situation we live in is a prison of sorts - it is not possible to just change your cultural surroundings and suddenly put value on yourself when you've been devalued all your life.

I've had a couple of male friends drunkenly confess that they have visited prostitutes. These male friends were pretty conservative and sweet, the kind of men I would happily set up with a female friend. I remember thinking, if they've done it, then the percentage of the male population overall that have must be high. If I had to guess, I'd imagine perhaps 40% of men have visited one once, and a much smaller percentage - like 5% - visit regularly.

I can't help but see prostitution as the extreme end of a sliding scale - from street walkers giving blowjobs in a back alley, to escorts, to gold diggers, to WAGS - all the way up to educated, middle-class women who are looking to settle with a partner with a decent income who can buy her a diamond engagement ring. Transaction is an intrinsic part of human existence, it's just a matter of how transparent that transaction is. Demand will always be met by supply, so to debate the morality of prostitution is pointless. All we can do is minimise the damage by legalising it so we can protect women as far as possible and negate any need for a 'black market' - because this is the environment that breeds rape, abuse and trafficking. I think classifying all men who use prostitutes as 'rapists and misogynists' is a stretch and crediting them with too much complexity. They are just animals programmed to fuck. Most probably feel some level of shame for their actions, but their drives just get the better of them so they'll scratch the itch and then compartmentalise what they've done.

Junior, do you therefore believe that men have a fundamental need to fuck that women don't have?

"They are just animals programmed to fuck. Most probably feel some level of shame for their actions, but their drives just get the better of them so they'll scratch the itch and then compartmentalise what they've done."

I think if you have such a low opinion of men, that's probably why you didn't notice that the male friends who confessed that they'd visited prostituted women in the past, were creeps. You're expecting all men to be creeps anyway, so the fact that your friends were, didn't really register. How can you bear to have anything to do with men if you despise them so much? Why not just be a separatist?

NAMALT.

They are just animals programmed to fuck

Wow...I never thought I'd use that word seriously, but that sounds misandrist. And untrue.

I know that there are cultures in which prostitution didn't exist before Western colonization, btw.

To clarify, I do not believe prostitutes have choice and agency. I do not believe that prostitutes who claim to have choice and agency are telling the truth but are merely adopting a survival strategy. However, posters are always jumping on these threads saying prostitution is empowering and the women that enter it have choice and agency. If that is true and 1 in a million prostitutes really is making a choice then that woman cannot take responsibility for that choice without also taking responsibility for the damage her choice does to the lives of other women. If, as SolidGoldBrass constantly claims, she has choice then she is choosing to profit from perpetuating hatred of women.

I think you are reading different posts to the rest of us CKD.

In FWR you will find few people who say that prostitution is wonderfully empowerfulising. You seem to be trying to "challenge" a group of people on their stance, when the stance you are challenging is not the one being taken. I cannot tell you why or how women who talk about empowerment in this context think, because I am not one of them.

Also, SGB does not work as a prostitute, AFAIK, so not sure where you got that from.

And, please stop with the blaming of women in all of this. You're getting angry at the wrong people.

I have really nothing to add except a thank you to posters CailinDana and Just.....you have taught me so much!!!! I am so new to feminism and you take time to explain everything and that helps newbies like me so much. I am married to a wonderful and feminist allied man....I feel so thankful for that. Isn't that weird...that I should be THANKFUL for a nice man?

Complex thread. CKD, I see where you're coming from.

Conferences and meetings in different parts of the country, hotel rooms - it easily adds up to the middle-class manager types paying for sex. The sense of power starts there, I think. Men are invariably in the majority at these gatherings and possibly a herd mentality takes over; stag nights and group holidays are a similar situation.

They're usually greeted at the check-in desk by women, served food and drink by women, have their rooms cleaned by women...egos start to inflate and suddenly sex is just another service they expect. Plus there's booze around. I don't think it's a coincidence that when I was an officer worker I was often propositioned (always by attached men) in these environments.

And I don't think women want to deal with quite how many 'average joes' pay for sex. Denial allows us all to get through the day, doesn't it? I'm reminded of a Simone de Beauvoir novel (les belles images, I think) where two women are discussing reckless drivers and one says (I'm paraphrasing) "men drive like brutes...because they're brutes."

I find it unsettling that men are, to use a current term, hiding their behaviour in plain sight. Not to derail from prostitution, but I mentioned to a male friend recently that I'd discovered, shockingly, an ex of mine was splitting his time between his family house (wife of 15 years or so, 2 kids) and mistress in a flat in another part of the country that he visits regularly for business. Male friend instantly replied "It's more common than you think."

"It's more common than you think."

This for me really sums up the whole post. It's far more common then people would like to admit. I see 5-6 people a day now, that's 5 days a week, then there's the sex parties. I have a few regs but most of these are new people. Sex is just another service they can buy. I don't think that idea will ever change.

Isn't this where feminism can make a positive contribution, though? Consciousness-raising, debate, awareness of the issues. I want to remain hopeful. Whatever choices women make, or are obliged to make, I want them to be safe from harm and not relegated to a subclass where their rights are ignored.

I have known a few prostitutes in the past and also know quite a few men who have used prostitutes.
In every case the men were middle class, in their thirties and were using it as an escape from family and work life. it was exciting to them and it was the excitement they found lacking at home.
One of the prostitutes was in a bad way and had had a bad start in life, she was the first to leave the game.
The others did it to fund uni, college, support their kids and give them what they thought was the best up bringing. One I knew used the money for private school fees.

Morethan, the women you knew in prostitution - where they all from poor backgrounds? What level of education did they have?

Curwen

None of them were from poor backgrounds at all. One in particular was the grand daughter of a man who invented something revolutionary to help old people, he was a multi millionaire. Her parents had a bad divorce, she and her sister had been over looked and not really cared for. They both moved to East Anglia and went on the game to support themselves. They had come from such privilege.
The youngest couldn't cope with her lifestyle and took a drug that nearly killed her. We nursed her back to health when she was able to leave hospital. The church and a good friend introduced me and dh to her and some of her friends.
The others I knew were single parents and did it because they wanted an expensive lifestyle. I suppose they thought it was empowering and served a purpose, but I forgot to say this was nearly 20 years ago, so much has changed in terms of how society view prostitutes.