Prostitution; help me argue on Facebook

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I'm arguing with a friend on FB about prostitution. She is the most libfem, choosy choice, libertarian person I know. Currently at college so every second post is about gender neutral bathrooms and the like. I almost never engage.

But her argument is that most prostitution is hidden and therefore we can't know that these workers aren't happy, healthy, free and consenting. I've given her the PTSD stats and the violence and rape stats. But she is insisting that these invisible women are all loving it.

Any stats on home-based, self-employed workers? Also, I know that people here have said that workers' organisations are frequently dominated by pimps. Where's the proof of that. And, former workers who are radfem/anti-sex work and have written pieces about it?

Sorry to use your labour

"Why do you think there aren't so many women using prostitutes then? Do women have different "human" needs?"

Quentin - I think that's a very difficult question to answer. Do I think men have different sexual urges to women? Yes. I think men physically become turned on much quicker than women. Generally (and I can only say generally) women need more emotional and mental stimulation to become aroused then men.
However I think women are just as sexual active (although they may not use prostitutes), however they are then labelled as "sluts" or "easy" by society.

Sorry for all the typos (quickly thumbing away on my phone here)!

Tartle, I think if you don't wish to accept sex as a basic human need, despite the fact that as organisms our sole purpose on this planet is populate it, we're probably never going to see eye to eye unfortunately, but I respect your opinion :)
Also in relation to your question about disabled women accessing sexual services, a simple Google search pulled up many available male escorts, including a trust funded by donations, and supported by Dame Helen Mirren - tlc-trust.org.uk/ providing such services :)

I think that's a very difficult question to answer
Maybe because women aren't raised with with something akin to male sexual entitlement and the kind of self-centred narcissism that could make us shut out the thought that the sex partner is only there for the money.

Intimacy and affection are needed by most humans to have a sense of happiness and we'll being. Absolutely nobody needs to use the body of another person for orgasm. That is NOT a need.

Guardian nope it was more than I found it hard to answer from a scientific perspective. If I wasn't in the middle of my dissertation I would love to research the difference between male and female sexual desire as I'm sure there would be a difference. I'll have to leave that for a rainy day to come, or possibly an Ma choice for me? ☺

Putting body parts into someone who's being paid to allow it isn't she, it's masturbation with a human sex toy. The same thing can be achieved without the sex toy so there is absolutely no need at all for prostitution. The sticking point is the fact that some men enjoy paying to use someone. That is entirely separate to the need to orgasm.

That should say 'isn't sex

Choc Choc when you were working in the supermarket were you renting or paying a mortgage? Also did you have a partner who was working as well?

Renting (house share), no partner, no kids. No, you couldn't get a mortgage on that, and I had no money spare to save, but I had enough to live. Had I worked full time, I would have been able to afford either a non-shared house, or to have a kid as well (based on my knowledge of what these cost now I have them - possibly both, I don't know enough about tax credits to know what that gives you), but I was studying, which is what allowed me to get the better paying job I have now.

I've done it. You don't seem to have done it, you talk like someone lecturing the natives on better ways to make fire.

sparrowhawk and some women enjoy being paid to do so. I am talking about CONSENSUAL prostitution, one where both parties are gaining something from it. When I was sex working I actually felt like I had pulled the longer straw than the men.

There may be some women who enjoy risking their health and lives to have men wank into them. But a very large proportion of prostitutes do it because they have very little other choice.

Sparrowhawk - my entire argument is based on legislating sex work in order to make it SAFER, so to say that some women actually "enjoy to risk their health and lives" is exactly the narrowmindedness I was talking about. Have you got some evidence to back up your theory about the large proportion of women who do it cos they have no choice? I agree that ANY amount of women forced into it is terrible and should be stopped... By legalising the trade.

There is no way to make it safe for a woman to go into a room alone with a man who wants to use her body. In other jobs if you are even bear bodily fluids you have to wear gloves, eye guards etc. Would you propose to have prostitutes wearing protective gear?

I would love to research the difference between male and female sexual desire as I'm sure there would be a difference.
Of course there is a difference!
Pregnancy, birth, childrearing has a huge cost to women - possibly causing our death. It makes sense for us to be picky about when and with whom we procreate. But things like CSA, rape, etc, demolish that natural pickiness, and can cause women to behave at odds with it subsequently to the sexual violence - hence the prevalence of CSA and rape survivors in porn and prostitution.

Males need to be quicker to get in the mood than females otherwise they might miss out on being 'picked' by us picky females.

Obviously there is a spectrum for both male and female desire but men are generally more comfortable having sex in unhygienic, anonymous and unpleasant situations than women because fewer things need to be 'right' for them to be up for it.

Having said that, most blokes wouldn't pay for sex even though it makes them get all teary when they don't get as much as they would like.

near bodily fluids.

"I've done it. You don't seem to have done it, you talk like someone lecturing the natives on better ways to make fire."

This made me laugh chocchoc. Why do I get the sense that independent is not a member of the great proletariat that he is championing!

Pregnancy, birth, childrearing has a huge cost to women - possibly causing our death

No that would be researching the POSSIBLE outcomes of unprotected sex. Not sexual desire.

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/201205/the-triggers-sexual-desire-men-vs-women

Thesparrowhawk - erm I felt much more at risk of contaminated body fluids as a nurse when all you have between your skin and the blood or poo of another person (many whom you KNOW have infectious diseases) is a thin latex glove.
About EXACTLY the same amount of protection as a thin latex condom.

Pirate are you saying that something as inherent sexual desire is not informed by the urge/risks of procreation? Humans have had sexual desire a long time before the invention of condoms.

Erm you're wrong there pirate, because patients don't generally insert their body parts into nurses.

Guardian - I'm saying that it would be a whole days worth of study to even begin to understand libido and what drives it, and how it differs between the two sexes.

Just started to read the psychology today article - didn't seem to be adding anything new or contradict anything I said.

Plus in other jobs, physical contact is carefully controlled. In prostitution you have a taller and stronger person in very close contact with a smaller and weaker person, using the most sensitive parts of her body for his own pleasure. The potential for injury, accidental or otherwise, is unacceptably huge.

pirate
I have read loads of studies of this with interest for a number of years. There''s nothing mysterious about it, although the majority of sexologist tend to be men and have a male bias to their experiments until feminists started critiquing it. Like the famous 'rape chamber' that was used to 'understand' female sexual response in rats.

Sparrow - when you're nursing hepatitis, HIV+ or patients with MRSA, c-diff etc you take caution by using PPE's. Sex workers take the same caution, using the same materials (one a latex glove, one a latex condom). The chance of transmission of HIV from man to women via vaginally intercourse , whilst using a condom is MINUTE and probably there is more chance of contracting HIV from a needle stick injury as a nurse.