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

With friends like that OP you don't need enemies.

I'm not sure that it is worth engaging. She has swallowed the happy hooker line and she probably can't face reality because it is too painful.

Your friend is stupid. I'd just tell her google and take off the rose tinted glasses.

Hypothetically, if prostitution were legal and women only did it if they wanted to, would you still be opposed to it?

Does she realise that the invisible online prostitution she thinks is so great is often also a case of men exploiting women?

endsexualexploitation.org/articles/wagner-bill-stop-online-sex-trafficking-just-introduced/

user1492155021 It would take more than making prostitution legal to bring that about. Its legal in NZ and they've had terrible problems as the men have changed their attitude towards the women.

Prostitution is legal in the UK. The only way I'd even come close to not being opposed is if prostitution followed full health and safety regulation.

Women having sex only if they want to isn't prostitution, it's just having sex. I'm not opposed to that.

I'm opposed to men buying women's bodies, putting them at risk of pregnancy and disease, putting every women in the position of being in a society where it's considered acceptable to buy a woman as a masterbatory aid.

It's such bullshit. Why is it so important to her to think they are all happy hookers? Also surely even if the majority are happy, it's still awful if 10% (say) are unhappy being raped every day. How do you protect the 10%?
Rachel Moran is an exited prostitute who supports the Nordic model www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/the-life-of-an-anti-prostitution-campaigner-1.2230971

Julie Bindel wrote this excellent piece recently too www.independent.co.uk/voices/whorephobia-queer-feminism-fourth-wave-sex-work-prostitution-a7631706.html

From Julie Bindel's article I think it sums it up in a nutshell:

Liberals tend also to focus on the choices available to women, rather than the choices denied them.

Hypothetically, if prostitution were legal and women only did it if they wanted to, would you still be opposed to it?

I am not opposed to women being prostitutes.
I am opposed to men thinking they can rent another persons orifices to wanking into. It is the worst kind of entitlement and I don't understand 1) why they think their desire for an orgasm is so important that it must be satisfied by a person who is only there because they are being paid and 2) how they can even get it up knowing their partner doesn't fancy them and is only interested in the content of their wallets.
I doubt very much that most prostitutes are happy that's their line if work but even if they were it makes no odds to me, I'd still think the punters were pond scum. The fact most women are harmed by prostitution makes it more important to try to sort it out, not to accept it because "it's their choice". Yuck.

Allow me to rephrase my question:

Hypothetically, if all prostitutes were happy in their work, would you be opposed to it?

user in your hypothetical example, do all women like unwanted sex or just prostitutes? It makes a difference

I would still be, because of the message it sends about women. But that's a pointless thought experiment, as it is not the case. In this imaginary universe things could all be very different.

GuardianLions - the sex received by prostitutes isn't 'unwanted'. I don't like my job, but it's not 'unwanted'. I choose to work. We do things as a means to an end.

venusinscorpio - this is what I suspected. Your opposition to prostitution has nothing to do with their well being. You don't like the concept of men being able to pay for sex.

Another hypothetical question:

If robotic women, indistinguishable from human women but without any consciousness, worked as prostitutes would you be opposed to it?

user, why don't we allow people to buy kidneys from strangers? Even if a person really wanted to sell a kidney, we wouldn't allow it would we? Because it's ripe for exploitation, it's dangerous for the donor, who, apart from a good feeling from doing something good, will gain nothing from it.

And that's to save a life! Why on earth, no matter how happy the woman was about it, would I support letting men pay to put women at risk so they can orgasm?

Freely donated sex and kidneys - fine. Paid for sex and kidneys, not something that I'm OK with.

user1492155021
Prostitution and pornography changes the attitudes of men towards women.

Hypothetically, if all prostitutes were happy in their work, would you be opposed to it?

Yes I would still be opposed to permitting punters to buy sex.

These are not my words and apologies for not crediting the poster , I didn't keep a note of her name.

I would argue that these few women are 'free riding' on the rest of the woman who are harmed by prostitution, and society at large which is also harmed by it

Prostitutes often counter that they are exploiting the punters, by extracting easy money from the

I think they exploiting society at large, exploiting the taboo and harmful nature of prostitution for their own gain because they happen to be in the minority ofwomen who can cope with that type of work

Or Flora Fox's point about strippers but applies equally to prostitution.

At the end of the day, even if you could produce unimpeachable evidence that every single stripper has chosen stripping over being a doctor, makes (and pays taxes on) more money than a banker and fondly recounts tales of her stripping days to her children, I would still be opposed to stripping as it both reflects and reinforces the position of women in society as objects to be purchased for sexual service to men

I don't second these views from a particular feminist view and certainly not from any religious stance (I'm determinedly atheist)

user1492155021

I never understand this position. Plenty of people, usually men, come on here and say what if they were happy? Regulated? Sex addicts? What if they were robots?

What if you could design a futuristic sci-fi world where a whole army of women serviced men because it was their lifelong ambition?

What if I can create a world where I can get what I want and manage to quash all objection using the logic of a five-year-old, because I want what I want?

Women - you can't say no. Because even when you say it, I will dream up a million reasons why you are wrong.

NO.

You don't like the concept of men being able to pay for sex

How persipicacious. Although I would mention that apparently there are a few women who buy sex and I'm not keen on them either.

Thanks for your replies, but you've missed my point. I'm not a proponent of prostitution. I'm trying to work out if you don't like prostitution because it causes harm. If men paying robot sex dolls for sex is wrong you obviously consider prostitution to be intrinsically wrong, even if no one is harmed.

We're all prostitutes. All human relationships are transnational. My boss pays me to work. My friends like me for the things I do for them and vice versa. No one has intrinsic value, we are all valued by others on the basis of what we do for them.

we are all valued by others on the basis of what we do for them.

Except in the case of prostitution, women are devalued by what they are doing for men.

*transactional

Datun - prostitutes aren't 'devalued' by men. Degraded perhaps, but not devalued. A slave has value. Scrap metal has value.

Prostitution doesn't just devalue the women who do it - an ex prostitute (she must be ex) is not considered a catch as a wife by most men - it devalues all women in the eyes of the men that use them.
It also promotes arguments such as 'paid work is a form of prostitution'.

If men can be free from the tyranny of paid work then so can women.

DJBaggySmalls - why would your husband find out you used to be a prostitute? And why would a feminist care if men consider her a good catch as a wife?

Paid work is a form of prostitution. It's a transaction. And some jobs are pretty degrading/unpleasant.

How are men free from the "tyranny of paid work"? Men also have jobs, if anything Women are more likely to be provided with financial support.

user1492155021

It depends upon what you mean by value. They are valued as a resource. But not as a human.

But this is what I mean about the argument. It disappears up its own arse. Nuance, manipulating meanings, the desperate attempt to equate an office worker who gets paid with a prostitute who gets paid.

The endless pontificating about the meaning of the word consent.

The over complication of something that is really quite simple.

Prostitution is not beneficial to women on any level.