The greens and prostitutes

[IceBeing]

Be gentle as I am new to thinking about this.

I found the Natalie Bennett's comments on decriminalising prostitution pretty persuasive - what am I missing?

She basically said that sex workers would like this policy (having contributed to it) and that research from other countries indicated it was the way forward.

btw if anyone wants the name of a British party that supports criminalisation of prostitution- there's the BNP.

Do they fayyive? Is that te criminalisation of prostitutes (which no one here has said they are in favour of) or punters? And do you really think that that fact, if true, is going to make people here vote for them? Or are you just lashing out when people simply aren't agreeing with your POV?

My post 05-Mar-15 18:21:01 has a quote from a prostituted woman in Sweden. I think she will know better than either of us.

My point is the Nordic model does not decriminalise selling sex outright.

And as for the criminalisation of punters- all that happens to punters in Sweden is given a small fine (if they are caught) and then sent on their way.

How is that a deterrent? If a man can afford to pay for sex in the first place is a fine that big of a deal?

IMO the Nordic model harms those selling sex far more than those buying it, and that's why I don't support it.

That's fine, different opinions are available, there have been very nuanced posts on this and other threads about both models and views of different women in prostitution. But why are you suggesting people who support the Nordic model would vote BNP?

fayyive, I couldn't find anything on the bnp website about prostitution (except in relation to children). Would you support the Nordic model if the penalties for those buying sex were more severe?

"But why are you suggesting people who support the Nordic model would vote BNP?"

I'm not saying they would or should.

Above you said something about suspecting UKIP being happy to decriminalise, I don't know what UKIP's policy on this is but the BNP are IMO similar to UKIP and they want criminalisation.

I have said nothing about UKIP

My mistake, that was another user whose name starts with P. That will teach me to read

Sorry. I'll return to a serious point.

&The buying of organs is illegal in England, and in many other countries. I see buying of sex in the same light. Some things cannot and should not be bought.*

Jessica, that sums it up exactly as far as I'm concerned.

fayyive I believe the Swedish model also includes sending the paperwork to the john's home address, so there's the embarrassment as well as the fine (I'm pretty sure that's true... Unless I dreamed that? Someone should fact check me).

My oh is a police officer and he personally advocates a 'mum law' -
If you're caught buying sex from a prostitute, you're legally obliged to tell your mum or, failing that, your female boss. He's only half joking.

And with that, I'm off to bed.

Sending paperwork to the house is yet another ballgame. I'm all for people to know if their partner is a lying cheating SOAB but I also respect that a lot of people don't want to know. They deliberately make excuses and try to bury their head in the sand. Also does this not make the problem worse - the wife then could be in danger from an aggressive mood swing for getting upset and it could enhance a man's hatred of women and feelings of lack of control (presumably half of the reason he thought buying their bodies was AOK?).
I'm just reacting to that as I read it, but I can see the positives - the idea that men can't seem to reconcile women they pay for to women they know and the wake up call it can give. It's sad though that we once again have to take responsibility for them having morals.

You see I'm in favour of the broad principles of the Nordic model - prostitutes decriminalised, punters criminalised. I would assume that if the UK were to implement it it wouldn't have to be exactly the same in terms of finer details, which I may or may not find problematic depending on what they were. What I'm absolutely not in favour of is the purchase of access to people's bodies being supported in law.

While privileged Happy Hookers dominate the discourse on the blogosphere, that doesn't mean that the most vulnerable prostitutes are not heard. They are the targets of outreach programs and the most likely to encounter the police and social services, as well. That is why there can be a lot of statistics that support the idea of addiction and coercion being prevalent. Happy Hooker activists seek to offer an alternate viewpoint.

I'd say the ones in the middle are the ones we don't hear from. They're the ones who are not inclined to blog. Perhaps they work in parlours and agencies and don't put a lot of their own time and energy into thinking about their work because all they have to is show up.

From the top of my head, the vocal, "out" prostitutes tend to be older - I suspect that this is because they no longer care if they are outed. Perhaps it has already been done to them (outing can be done by jealous ex partners, nosy neighbours, etc.) and so they have nothing more to lose. I've been asked to do media things and they usually want to have photos of my face. (In the absence of a photo of an actual prostitute, they will tend to use stock photos of a woman leaning into a car.) There are many independents who have no inclination to talk about their experiences, either because they don't feel they have the eloquence or they don't care or they'd rather not talk about it to anyone even anonymously.

My experiences seem to match those of most of the women I have worked with. But I have only worked with a few women. That is, I have shared a flat with a couple and years ago I worked in a brothel. I do meet some of the more outgoing and sociable women local to me but there are many others I will never meet. The only other source of first-hand info I have is via an Internet support forum for escorts in the UK. The vast majority of the women who post on there work independently. There does seem to be wide range of feelings about the work, ranging from those who say they would still see clients for money if they won the lottery to those who say they hate it and feel they have no alternatives (due to financial reasons, from what I'm hearing.)

Initially, I thought that the Nordic model might not affect me. After all, I made money under a system of full criminalisation. If anything, I thought, I can prove that I have been around long enough that clients need not fear a sting operation. But then I found out that if the police want to target punters, they will do things like watch a girl's flat, talk to her neighbours, and generally make it very difficult to conduct business.

I also do not think that my clients are doing anything wrong. Of course, as I said before, I screen my clients and so I only see men who have the right attitude.

Sorry Fay, I've looked and can't find anything to suggest the BNP (which is now defunct anyway) supports criminalisation. Which was a revolting wasted half hour.

also do not think that my clients are doing anything wrong. Of course, as I said before, I screen my clients and so I only see men who have the right attitude

But there's the rub isn't it? For many women (and men) they, and you, are doing something wrong - perpetuating the idea it's fine to buy a woman's body.

Men who have the "right attitude" for me means men who know prostitution is wrong, not that it's fine as long as you pay enough and don't beat anyone up.

FWIW, I don't agree with the view put forward several times on this thread that "happy hookers" dominate the discourse about prostitution.

My experience of reports about prostitution in the media is that they fall into two general categories: Such "happy hooker" accounts of people doing prostitution willingly, making good money and challenging the orthodoxy that it's inherently wrong, and absolutely ghastly stories about people with terrible histories of childhood abuse, drug addiction etc. having been beaten by their pimps and living wretched existences that show just how badly prostitution can feed into every other kind of evil.

I've not kept a tally but I would reckon the two kinds of stories appear roughly equally in number. But I don't suppose there's any way we can quantify or prove or disprove this.

I expect more than not getting beat up. I like to see happy, friendly men who have a positive attitude towards sex and respect me as a person. I can usually tell their attitude from the way they communicate, although obviously I am not really a mind reader and I have seen men who weren't lovely. I'd say I'm right about 95% of the time. That is, I am right about the men I see that often. I may be screening out perfectly lovely guys because they called me "hun" or "babe" in their messages. I probably err on the side of caution. The other 5% haven't been violent but I haven't enjoyed their company all that much.

I didn't follow all of what Mary was saying earlier and I think it went into a massive derail but I do think she made one good point: your ideas of what sex should be may not be universal. I understand that it may seem repugnant to have sex with someone you don't personally choose out of desire. Some people even think that sex that isn't an expression of fully committed love is wrong. However, there are a lot of people who don't feel the same way. Some people can have different levels of meaning in sex in different situations. I recently read something where a sex worker said that it's like a sexual orientation, and that resonated with me. You either get it or you don't.

At any rate, I think a lot of "civilian" women would be astounded if they new how a lot of normal men view sex. They can vary wildly in what they want in terms of connection to a human being, but I do think perfectly decent, ordinary men would enjoy being able to have sex without any strings attached. I think most of them would feel terrible if they thought they were hurting anyone but if they think there is a willing woman who will be available on their lunch break to have sex with them and then never expect to hear from them again, they'd be very happy with that arrangement.

Wackadoodle, that's my impression, too.

kim, I think that there are plenty of women who enjoy no-strings sex too, I don't think it's just men. I know I spent a lot of enjoyable evenings having no-strings sex.

For me, my concerns about legalising prostitution are:
a) it sends a message that it's okay to buy another person's body
b) it undermines the fact that consent must be freely given
c) it perpetuates the idea that men 'need' sex

The argument that 'it's my body I can sell it if I want' doesn't hold up for me. We legislate against buying human organs, and against paying someone to be a surrogate mother. We (as a society) recognise that organs and babies are things which are okay to give away freely, but that selling them is not acceptable. It's a case of weighing the damage to society and risks to vulnerable people against the rights of the individual.

If we lived in a world where rape didn't happen (or at least was vanishingly rare), and women has absolutely equal respect to men at all levels of society I might feel differently. In that case I wouldn't worry so much about points b and c, so I might be inclined towards legalisation.

Most Happy Hookers will tell you that we don't sell our bodies. We sell particular sexual acts and limited, temporary access to our bodies. There is never the assumption that having paid means consent is given. If I don't like something I will say "don't do that." The clients I see are fine with that. (This is not to say that all clients will be fine with that. Not all clients are good.)

The way most women in the UK advertise services, they will list some services as standard, some as either extra or at discretion, and everything else is considered not on offer. And even the standard services are at discretion, usually coming down to hygiene issues. All the prostitutes I know consider this the norm and would say that any client who is not 100% on board with that is an exception to the norm, and this is not seen as something to be tolerated.

I am not sure if the assumption is that men "need" sex. I don't think they will die without it, but I do think that it is far more important than many women realise. Most of the men I see seem to have access to unpaid sexual partners (quite a lot of them are attractive and pleasant men.) I think they view paid sex as a treat or an indulgence but I doubt many of them think that it is a basic need.

kim, thanks for taking the time to respond, I have no personal experience, so it is helpful to me to get a different perspective.

My concerns as listed aren't necessarily about the individuals involved, but about the perception in society as a whole. That perception may well be wrong, but until it changes I think it is important to take them in to account.

I'm sure there are many Happy Hookers, just as there may well be many people who are happy to be surrogates/organ donors as long as they are getting paid. Whether prostitution and/or paid surrogacy and organ donation should be legalised can't just take in to account those cases. It also needs to take in to account the affect on society as a whole, and the potential for people to be exploited.

Put another way, if all prostitutes experiences were as positive as yours, and everyone in society was clear about consent and that men don't 'need' sex, and women in general were respected for themselves rather than being (generally) considered less worthy of bodily autonomy than men, I would tend towards legalisation.

But this is what concerns me, Kim - most men who buy sex have access to unpaid sex. Why is it, then, that they view sex with payment as a "treat or indulgence"? Surely it's because they don't have to worry about the enjoyment of their partner - they get to do whatever they want, be entirely selfish in bed and she has to devote herself to his pleasure. Maybe they also get off on the idea of it being illicit, or (worse) the idea that she's being coerced. Rachel Moran says that when she was selling sex as a teenager, the most efficient way to get a man to orgasm quickly would be to tell him she was 15.

The argument that I've heard from some advocates of sex work is that many prostitutes are sexual experts who are really skilled at what they do. I see three problems with this argument...

1. For me, good sex is based on emotional connection and mutual desire, not on technique. If all you want is to get off as quickly as possible, why not masturbate? Good sex is far more complex and personal than that.

2. Most women who sell sex are not selected for their sexual skills, but simply for their attractiveness, willingness, and (in many cases) youth. Many johns only want a passive body that they can penetrate, and they don't see the women they buy access to as fully human. I appreciate that not all johns are like this, but it certainly accounts for a lot of them.

3. Why don't women buy sex? We've already discussed further up thread this fallacy that men have an innately higher sex drive than women do - it's just not true. If buying sex was about buying the expert services of a professional, then women should be more likely to employ prostitutes, since most women find it harder to orgasm with a partner who doesn't know their way around a clitoris. The fact that women don't buy sex implies that there's something else going on. I would argue that that something else is a power imbalance as well as different gendered attitudes towards sex. Men are socialised to want to dominate and objectify their sexual partners, and prostitution enables them to do just that. Some men resist this to varying degrees, but johns delight in it.

do you see what I mean?

Yes, I see what you mean.

I have doubts about Rachel Moran as her story has been called into question. I'm not sure what the truth is, either way. But she says things that do not mirror my experience. Recently she tweeted that when she answered the phones at a brothel, the most common question was, "Who's the youngest girl on the rota?" I answered the phone thousands of times in my years working in a brothel (whoever was closest to the phone answered it) and I don't remember ever being asked that. I assume that the majority of men do prefer fit young women over older women (as our whole society does) but they don't seem to express a particular interest in teens. Obviously, this predilection does exist but I am not in a position to assess how common it is. Not only am I not attracting those clients, many probably don't feel free to openly express this desire on any of the punting forums. I do hear men saying that they are not comfortable with women that young for a variety of reasons.

You say that a lot of punters want a passive body they can penetrate but I don't know that that is true. I will say that even the most misogynist review site (UK Punting) is full of complaints about girls who are passive and seem uninterested. Most of them take the tone of "If she's not happy to do this job, then she should go stack shelves at Tesco" but there are also quite a few that express worry that she is not there willingly. Either way, they all seem very keen on a girl who seems to enjoy what is going on. There is also a lot of emphasis on how skilful a prostitute is both in the marketing and the reviews and feedback. Reviews of mature prostitutes often say things like, "She's no oil painting but she sure is horny and she has the best oral technique I've ever experienced." Not very suave of them, but it shows that their interests lie in her enthusiasm and perceived skill.

I'm not sure why women don't buy sex but I assume it is because women want more of the things that are not available by the hour, including an emotional connection. Since females of our species have a lot to lose by mating indiscriminately compared to males, this may actually be hardwired into us genetically.

You say that for you good sex is based on an emotional connection. Obviously, that is not true for everyone. I prefer sex with an erect penis involved and have little interest in sex that does not involve one, but I wouldn't say that a lesbian is doing it wrong.