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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Is prostitution rape?

219 replies

BayLeaves · 21/08/2017 14:59

I've seen posters referring to prostitution as rape on here and I am interested to hear the reasoning.

I am undecided on the issue as I have not really thought much on it before.

OP posts:
Manclife · 21/08/2017 22:43

This is not as compelling and argument as you might imagine.

Again your jumping to conclusions. I never said it was a compelling argument just an obvious consiquence.

Gonegonegone · 21/08/2017 22:44

Agree with it's. Criminalise the buyers. And the porn producers.

And thanks chief (that sounds so natural)

Gonegonegone · 21/08/2017 22:45

And fk my bloody typos

W0nder · 21/08/2017 22:48

Women's bodies aren't objects. When will you understand that?

I do understand that and you are missing the point. If somebody consents to offering a service in exchange for payment, that is obviously not rape as the person agreed to perform said service in exchange for said price.

AnyFucker · 21/08/2017 22:49

Men like you, Manc.

You are the crux of the problem.

Manclife · 21/08/2017 22:54

@Gonegoneggone thank you. That really incite full. I just sense some of the posts seem to be women criticising women for making their own choices which is counterproductive. Society won't get its shit together if those that are being disadvantaged are too busy laying into each other. Perhaps I'm just to much of an idealist. But again, thank for taking the time to post.

Manclife · 21/08/2017 22:56

@anyfucker care to elaborate or are you just going to make wild acusations.

Manclife · 21/08/2017 22:57

I also need to type faster as my posts are being crossed

AnyFucker · 21/08/2017 22:58

What Gone posted is RadFem101. If you bothered to do any of your own research you would know that.

You bet you should be thankful she can still be arsed to try and educate you.

Manclife · 21/08/2017 23:00

Err. ...okay?

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 21/08/2017 23:46

I think once money changes hands then the concept of consent is compromised

Kind of like why we don't allow people to buy and sell kidneys, only donate them

A succinct way of putting it.

BertrandRussell · 21/08/2017 23:55

When you think about it, it's utterly extraordinary that we have this multi million£ business involving the degradation of millions of women (oh, and the enrichment and delight of a handful of women) all because men think they have an inalienable right to sex. Just wierd.

GinLoverSharon · 22/08/2017 02:10

No.

If both parties consented to it, then it's not rape. If they're forced into it by a pimp then yes it is rape. Granted, the woman might not want to sell sex, but obviously, there's other steps before that. Generally, a lot of women turn to prostitution because of drug use, and I think the lines become hazy if someone offered drugs for sex. But if a womans chosen to work in the sex trade, then she can still decided who she wants to and who she doesn't want to work with.

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 22/08/2017 02:20

If both parties consented to it, then it's not rape. If they're forced into it by a pimp then yes it is rape. Granted, the woman might not want to sell sex

Granted the woman might not want to sell sex? So in what sense is she consenting?

20nil · 22/08/2017 03:13

Most prostitues no more freely consent to sex with punters than very poor people freely consent to sell a kidney. Buying either should be illegal.

MrsDustyBusty · 22/08/2017 06:37

Amú way Manchester, apart from your noble attempt to highlight the inconsistencies (as you see them, from your vast reserves of ignorance of feminism) in thinking that women can do whatever they like with their bodies and consent not being updated for purchase, what is your actual personal interest in not calling prostitution what it is?

Collidascope · 22/08/2017 07:06

Kind of like why we don't allow people to buy and sell kidneys, only donate them

Yes, this. And in the same way we don't allow women to be paid to be surrogate mothers. Kidneys and other organs can't be sold, and wombs can't be rented, but UK law says vaginas can because men's need for sex is so much stronger than another woman's need for a child or someone dying of kidney failure, and is so much more important than the woman selling sex, who was likely abused to start with, who will likely end up with PTSD and a drug habit as a result of her 'choice' to sell sex? What a load of horseshit.

SelmaAndJubjub · 22/08/2017 07:35

Kind of like why we don't allow people to buy and sell kidneys, only donate them

Well yes, but - if we found out that someone has sold a kidney, we would prosecute the buyer for buying it, but we wouldn't assume that the buyer had held the seller down and ripped out the kidney against his/her will. So that analogy is more like the Nordic model.

MrGHardy · 22/08/2017 07:36

Kind of like why we don't allow people to buy and sell kidneys, only donate them

So you want to deprive poor families of potentially life changing money?

SelmaAndJubjub · 22/08/2017 07:46

Most prostitues no more freely consent to sex with punters than very poor people freely consent to sell a kidney. Buying either should be illegal.

Yes, that's what the Nordic model does - Ireland has just adopted it and we should too. But it doesn't follow from that that all prostitution is rape. There are many things that we don't allow people to sell, even with the full and free consent of both parties, organs being one of them.

Honestly, People, just take 2 seconds to think about any rape trial if the law started treating all prostitution as rape and saying that adult women cannot determine whether or not they have consented.

Defence barrister: Did you consent?

Rape victim: No

Defence barrister: Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, the Law recognises that women do not always know whether they have consented. We have enshrined this in Law in the Prostitution is Rape Act 2018. The Law recognised that women are vulnerable and do not always understand whether they have given consent. Can you really say, beyond reasonable doubt, Ladies and Gentlemen, that this women knew whether she consented, when the Law tells us that thousands of women don't?

sillage · 22/08/2017 08:03

SelmaAndJubjub, you're looking at the degree of force applied instead of the measure of harm inflicted.

It's a common outlook, but too outdated to be useful now that we as a society understand "force" beyond blunt trauma. Because the fact is that no one has ever been held down and had their kidney ripped out, even if just chemical coercion through drugging was used against them. Power very rarely operates like a caveman with a club.

Few rapists hold down and "rip" their victims, coerced rape is much more common, be it chemically coerced rape (alcohol, drugs, roofies), emotionally coerced rape (fear of harm, religious duty, guilt), or economically coerced rape (cash, gifts, rent).

MrGHardy · 22/08/2017 08:04

The best they can usually come up with its not their responsibility and bring up sweatshops in India making all our trainers or some such bollocks. To which my response: "Ok you may not be holding the whip, but unlike the sweatshops in India you ARE the whip ie the instrument inflicting the damage." At which point it's usually ....

So you are happy to condemn punters as the whip, but yourself are happy to buy goods from sweatshops? Don't you see the hypocrisy?

Personally I agree that buying sex should be illegal, but mostly because of the amount of violence in the industry (as a summary term for everything, actual physical or trafficking, etc.). But at the same time I believe that some women are perfectly capable of "consenting" to paid sex. And anyway, the whole idea of consent needs to be taught from a very young age. You will not convince men, or other women for that matter, who will go "muh free will" (anyone ever notice how very often these MRAs also tend to be starkly pro free market and "free" speech). One has to learn early to understand.

sillage · 22/08/2017 08:09

Bribery and extortion are illegal because the coercive influence of money is acknowledged by courts. That the person blackmailed consented to coerced payments doesn't un-crime the shakedown.

powershowerforanhour · 22/08/2017 08:47

I'm on the fence...my knowledge of prostitution consists of watching Pretty Woman and reading Belle du Jour so I'm not really qualified to comment.

SelmaAndJubjub · 22/08/2017 08:48

SelmaAndJubjub, you're looking at the degree of force applied instead of the measure of harm inflicted

silage

No, I am really not. I work with rape survivors and am well aware of the many types of coercion that can be used.

I am exploring the analogies used by posters and explaining the difference between:

  1. consent being irrelevant: kidney donation for money (it's still a crime, regardless of consent)

  2. Money having changed hands automatically negating consent. (prostitution as automatically rape)

The point I am making is that consent is irrelevant in kidney donation, as it should be in prostitution. That's why I think prostitution should be treated as modern slavery -where consent is also irrelevant. But that is totally different from saying that the exchange of money automatically means that consent hasn't been given. Prostitution should be illegal because consent is irrelevant, not because money magically erases consent

There are very intelligent women on this thread. Surely, some of you can see how dangerous it would be to enshrine in law the idea that adult women cannot determine whether or not they have given consent to sex?