Does having sex with a prostitute constitute rape?

[quencher]

A thread triggered this for me so I have decided to ask the question. If you consent to be paid for sex but don't feel like sleeping with the customer, are you being raped?

"A friend of mine thinks Mumsnet is full of crazy, man hating, sexless feminists. I don't agree, but reading threads like this makes we wonder."

Could you explain why?

Yes, when I was young and cool, I genuinely used to think of feminism as a dirty man-hating word too.

I'm glad I've grown up and feel more confident in challenging the status quo now.

Why can't we question something society has slowly accepted as fine and normal? Why can't we ask about rape culture and what it entails?

A friend of mine thinks Mumsnet is full of crazy, man hating, sexless feminists.

😂😂

I'm trying to remember when I stopped being offended by being called a "dyke" (I am not a lesbian) and realised it was a compliment from people who think women exist to please men and if they don't care aboiut pleasing men, they are broken.

Crazy - check
Man-hating - married to a man with two sons so...
Sexless - lolz
Feminist - another check

50% marks for your friend

Man-hating doesn't mean hating men.

It means not seeking to please them sufficiently.

That makes you objectionable to shit men.

And women who love shit men and their subservient status.

I wonder about both the intelligence and the life experience of people who think opposing prostitution equates to being sexless.
Can't they imagine women liking sex enough to do it for free?!

It does genuinely feel uncomfortable to be different when you're young or insecure.

I used to love being praised as a "tomboy" or "one of the guys" who was "different from other girls". I didn't even question it, I was very proud of being above the others. I wasn't a feminist - men didn't like them, and anyway, we already had the vote and opportunities, why complain?

And then I think it was a remark from AnyFucker on a thread years and years ago which said something like (paraphrasing!) "feminism isn't a dirty word .... and beware women who are proud of being 'different from all the other girls'".

It really made me stop and think - why was I so smug at being separated from the mass of "stupid girls"? Why did I think of women as silly boy-loving airheads, and why did a few supposedly "manly" traits like a good sense of humour make me better? It made me question a lot of unconscious things I'd assumed, and realise how many of my views were skewed, and how unequal society really was deep down. Over the years Mumsnet has transformed me into a feminist, no doubt.

Bridge, if you need to make feminism all about men to be acceptable to you - well, yes I'm sure some feminists "hate" a lot of stuff about men and hate some men in particular.

But most like me have husbands, sons, brothers, bloke friends etc etc, and feel that a less misogynistic society would genuinely benefit men as well as women.

We'd all be better off in a world which doesn't just assume the norms of our society today are the right ones, and in a world where we try to protect vulnerable people from the desires and whims of the strong.

Can't they imagine women liking sex enough to do it for free?!

Either that or they are such dyed in the wool capitalists that they can't imagine doing something for love or pleasure, only for money.

well, this thread has moved a bit since I last looked!

It is interesting -
the discussion about if a woman has been abused in the past, and therefore isn't freely able to give consent (due to blurred boundaries at the very least) then is the man in front of her responsible, even if he is not 'forcing her'.? I am having this exact convo with someone from my distant past atm and it is very interesting. (I was 20 when I met him and he was 42, and there were lots of power imbalances in every way). I had mentioned to him aged 20, of the SA when I was a child.
I later came to realise how entirely it had affected me and I don't consider any of my 'relationships' before I came to understand that, were fully consenting.
We have recently started to speak again and I have been very clear with him that my behaviour in our 'relationship' then was almost entirely a result of my training as a child. He says he didn't understand. I think I believe him, as I didn't either. So, it certainly wasn't rape but nor was it free, mature, consent on my part. It will be interesting to see if he can accept this and we can become friends (no more!) again, or not.

However, prostitution is different.

Yes, it is not (always) being literally pinned down and raped by a stranger.
Often there is the appearance of a 'trade' being done.
But, imo, having worked with lots of workers in the SI, the consent is never free, equal or really 'consenting', so it is a form of abuse, yes.

Too many think women are always the 'victim' and vulnerable in the sex industry ... When often they are fully in control....

Often? Really? OK, there are so many women involved in prostitution there are bound to be some who are 100% in control and see it just as a job with low satisfaction and high reward. However, we know beyond any doubt, that the industry is rife with victims - women who have been trafficked, enslaved, threatened, beaten or blackmailed into it and are kept in it by pimps who treat them as sub-humans and will routinely use violence, drugs and intimidation to keep them under their control.

Continually referring to the small percentage of prostitutes who claim to be happy with their lot makes about as much sense as arguing that slavery should not have been abolished because some slaves were happy with their existence.

Prostitution is rife with tragic victims. We will never eradicate it by targeting the supply. The only way to drive it out is to target the demand and if that means society stopping making excuses for the customers and calling them out for what they are complicit in, whether they realise it or not, then so be it.

Actually, women are pretty much always vulnerable in the sex industry, even if they are earning a lot of money being happy hookers: they are still at high risk of rape, assault and theft (clients refusing to pay), even murder, and extremely likely to not be listened to if they try to report. Being in control of working practices can mitigate those risks to some extent but not enough to make them comparable to other jobs.

And workers in the Sex Industry are NEVER fully in control.

If you are on the Street you are in constant danger.

If you are in a house of some sort you are still in danger, from both john and pimp/madam.

Even if you 'just' work in porn, you are still in danger of physical damage, let alone the psychological damage.

Talk to me about these workers in the sex industry who are "often fully in control".........

A recent news story had a porn actress in the US describing being raped whilst the cameras kept running. She has specifically stated in her contract she did not do that "kind" of sex if you get my drift. But the actor did it anyway and the cameras kept rolling capturing it all whilst she was crying.

I have learnt so much from this thread. I purposely didn't click on the links to the sex reviews.

Amalmaginingthis, would you like to explain further and why?

I was surprised to find out that prostitution and escorting where two different things.

Heron we are not denying what happened to you nor are we making it a trivial matter. The reason why I used the word "constitute" is to ask if it can be a form of rape. With some rapes, you don't have to be beaten up by three men. Some women are drugged (date rape pills and alcohol) to become unconscious then raped. Not knowing that they were raped does not change the act. Being coerced does not change the act by making it ok and fair game.
To ask about prostitution as a another form of rape is not diminishing rape, it be could or is another form. It's us as humans to explore and challenge the status quo on what is seen as acceptable vaginal penetration and what isn't. We have not broken the law by do so. If we can offer an argument that can lead to an understanding, there is nothing wrong with that.

To assume that everyone will know when they have been raped is not true. Some people who have been raped don't even know it.

Maggie the legal definitions are challenged all the time and they do change. Asking what rape is does not change the meaning but includes all excluded cases that would have been ignored because the law does not say so.
If prostitution is looked at as rape, this can easily give rise to a debate whether Prostitute should be classed as victims and not criminals or look it case by case.

A friend of mine thinks Mumsnet is full of crazy, man hating, sexless feminists. I actually, love an endowed penis. Am not a man hatter at all. I just find men and women who are sexist, misogynistic, racist and abusive homophobes abhorrent. anyone who loves to treat people as lesser beings for whatever reason knowingly are in my bad books.

I doubt feminist are inhibited by the nature of sex. I can see us being more free and not restrained to the missionary. What a man can do, we can do to, right? It's not just limited to work but daily life too.

I would assume we know what our boundaries are, what you find respectful, acceptable to ourselves as humans and not what pleases and benefits only him.
Mutual respect and understanding is key.

Those that think prostitution is acceptable, answer this: We try and teach our children that sex is something to be enjoyed, that enthusiastic consent is the only acceptable form of consent. But it's OK to have sex with a woman who is desperate, cold, hungry, frightened, wishing she was anywhere else in the world? Because she took your money? The reality of street sex work is horrific. How can we teach enthusiastic consent while also saying it's fine to do sex to a woman like this, to treat her like a vacant warm object for your penis?
I have nothing but compassion for women who are in sex work. I also have nothing but contempt for men who pay to use and abuse women's bodies.

quencher
I was surprised to find out that prostitution and escorting are two different things

You can unlearn that right away. They are not different at all.

The PP who made that statement has zero experience of escorting.

While I was an escort, you rock up to a hotel, find a client, call your driver to let him know you are safe, fuck for an hour, and leave with £120 quid. If they're nice they'll offer you a drink but don't put it in a different category as working in a brothel / flats.

In my whole 20 years or so of sex work I have been taken to one ballet and a couple of clubs and I was paid for the fuck not the company.

*find a client
Sorry I meant find THE client. The one who called to book you

(You obviously don't go around trying to find any client lol! )

After reading that thread I did a little research and really wish I didn't.

I looked at punternet, SAAFE and ukpunting (the latter hates MN by the way - I wonder why).

The utter disrespect to their wives and the girls was beyond shocking.

I think there should be a designated word for sex that can't be given without some form of obligation that isn't rape but is not consent either.

Coercive consent? No idea.

Didn't realise how many vile men there are and I was already cynical.

In my whole 20 years or so of sex work I have been taken to one ballet and a couple of clubs and I was paid for the fuck not the company. You'd think that was fairly obvious, wouldn't you?

bridge could you let your friend know that this feminist is the opposite of man-hating. I hold men in high regard. I don't think they are slobbering, dim-witted animals. I expect them, as I do women, to be thinking, empathetic, adult humans, who consider others and don't just rut and drink and sit in a chair demanding to be brought their sandwich.

I am lucky to have in my life a DH, DF, DB and many male friends who manage to be kind, hard-working and strong.

I've also met more sex workers than most people have. Including two good friends. The men that buy use of their bodies are not thinking, empathetic people. Those men I hate. And so should all the wonderful men who aren't fuck-witted cockwombles.

Sarcasm - god, another awful website.

I thought this thread in particular was revealing of the attitudes of regulars (not a pleasant link to read, but not triggering either I hope): "you know you're a punter when""*.

Women are just sex objects and nothing more to the ukpunting community. There are men out there who literally "see" women in this light, and it's not a small number either. On another thread there, someone estimates that 11% of men in the U.K. have used prostitutes, 3% are regulars.

The men on that thread are dirty disgusting pigs.

That link about all PIV sex being rape, even with loving partners, is really awful. Feminism at its worst.

But no I don't think consent is true consent in prostitution as the vast majority don't actually want it. I am constantly torn between hating the whole rotten business and wanting it to be fully managed as it will never stop.
There's a documentary on BBC about an area in Leeds which is the first legal policed red light area, I used to work in an office next to it. It's depressing viewing.. One woman earnt 10k in two months but spends it all on drugs so was then not able to even afford a tenner on the pre paid electricity. I just wished she could save that money for a few months and get out of the whole disgusting life.