19 year old DD tells me ALL boys want to throttle.

[Spidermama]

I've just been left feeling really angry and powerless. DD tells me pretty much all boys 'even nice ones' like to put their hands around girl's throats semi strangling them as part of sex. She's told me other horrible things about what girls her age are fully expected to put up with.
She says the boys get it from porn and there's nothing unusual about it.

I and I'm sure many of us women, have put up with things during sex that we've not really liked just to get it over with. But this is getting ridiculous! It makes me so sad to think of all these young women having to put up with these levels of violence and hatred in something which is supposed to be enjoyable for them.

What can she do. I know how hard it is to stop things being done to you mid act.

Why would you ask people who work in porn to teach you/your students how to have good sex of any kind? Even if you took the most generous perspective possible (which, note, I do not) porn is visual. The goal is for whatever is being filmed to look good for the consumer, not to feel good for the people being filmed. Even the most enthusiastic porn booster should realize that.

AngryAttackKittens Yes! Its a multi-billion dollar industry which not only relies on but underpins patriarchy. Classes full of the next consumers.

Also why does a university need a Sex Week? Not to be all "back in my day!" (rattles cane), but back in my day students seemed to figure out how to shag just fine without the university walking them through the process. In fact I can't imagine anything I'd have found less sexy than the idea of having the institution involve itself in my sex life.

Ffs. Wtf do universities think they’re doing figuratively ramming cocks down people’s throats? I feel so sad for young adults having painful and potentially dangerous acts presented to them as the norm and they need to learn to like them.

And to the next person that comes on saying they love anal and deep throating - good for you, would you like them so much if you hadn’t got any other type of experience to compare them to?

My university had a poster up the other week about a discussion from someone (outside the university) to promote sex work as real work.

Now that lots of punters want sex workers to act like pornstars nowadays, I have nothing more to say on that other than the thought of sex work as a career choice fot women mainly is horrifying to me.

This stuff about universities is horrifying!

And to the next person that comes on saying they love anal and deep throating - good for you, would you like them so much if you hadn’t got any other type of experience to compare them to?

Or just think of something you would absolutely hate to have done to you, and imagine being told you have to do it all the time.

There's a cake analogy. Many people like cake, but it's still not OK to force people to eat it, because people don't like being forced to do things.

'My university had a poster up the other week about a discussion from someone (outside the university) to promote sex work as real work.

Now that lots of punters want sex workers to act like pornstars nowadays, I have nothing more to say on that other than the thought of sex work as a career choice fot women mainly is horrifying to me.'

Especially if you caught the BBC programme about sex workers in the Leeds red light district last night.

Sex work IS real work in the sense that it's not a cheap and easy way to make money with little effort.
It IS real work in the sense that some women feel (and with significant justification in many cases) that it's the only realistic way they can make money.
It's not real work for many in the sense that it's an industry rife with exploitation of the workers and laden with potential physical, mental and emotional dangers.
Even the so called safer options, like phone sex lines or webcam work are far from the hassle free and easy options they are made out to be.
I would love to know how many people working in the sex industry (awful term) would genuinely choose to do so given another alternative.
I accept plenty of other workers might also prefer other careers if they could choose, but few strike me as damaging as sex work. I also accept there will be examples of some who will insist it's their preferred choice, but would guess it's a minority.

Yup, sex work is a job like any other. That's why it's associated with sky-high rates of assault, rape and murder relative to other jobs, and why women are often trafficked or otherwise coerced into it.

You don't see people being trafficked into accountancy, do you. Or plumbing. Why's that do you think?

My university had a poster up the other week about a discussion from someone (outside the university) to promote sex work as real work.

Jesus. I assume this poster was aimed at women as well?

The problem isn't that people are offering prostitution as a career choice, it's the so called safer options that are marketed as highly rewarding, easy ways to make money without the dangers... phone sex, web cam, home videos etc, as well as the more traditional high class escorting or corporate entertainment jobs. These are presented as viable, safe, clean living jobs that are a world apart from the seedy worlds of prostitution and under the counter videos etc. I think these roles are far more persuasive to women who need the money but never dream of prostitution. They are much more 'acceptable' at face value... and (imo) much more insidious as a result.

The problem isn't that people are offering prostitution as a career choice

Yes it is. Or rather that as a society we are being persuaded that prostituted women are choosing prostitution and that this is an 'empowering' choice. I'm sure there are many objections to the non-contact forms of sex work you mention but they pale in comparison with commercialised rape.

I am not arguing that prostitution isn't an issue, I'm arguing that when people are actively promoting careers in the sex industry, it's not prostitution (of the traditional form) that they are using to entice people with - it's the more disguised forms that they use and this is where the greatest rise of workers in the sex industry is being seen.
In blunt terms, the numbers of women on the streets is being surpassed by those being attracted to those seemingly less seedier options.
When you see interviews on tv shows, they'll never use a prostitute to say what a great career choice they've made, but they will certainly use famous porn stars, or phone sex workers who'll make it sound so much more legitimate.

I can assure you that running a webcam studio is far more profitable than running a brothel, and this for me is where so much danger lies. It's more convincing as a legitimate job, it's more socially acceptable to run such a business, and long term, it's going to exploit far greater numbers of women. Moreover, the numbers of people watching camgirls hugely exceeds those using prostitutes, not least because it's free, and far more accessible.

This is partly why I'm torn between which is the greater cause for concern. On the one hand, women on the street face a much higher risk of danger, on the other hand, the sheer number of internet sex workers is skyrocketing.

I ought to have said 'traditional style prostitution is probably not the biggest problem'. But it's a matter of opinion of course.

The ''active promotion' of careers in non-contact forms of sex work, while exploitative, is not a good reason to downplay the 'problems' associated with the forcible trafficking and coercion of women and children into situations where they are repeatedly raped on a daily basis.

Unless you can get a BA in Webcam Studies I fail to see how sex work follows from a university education and why it advertised as a ‘career’. Perhaps there’s a niche for Dildos and Descartes on some sites but I very much doubt it.

Because a university education no longer guarantees a job, and certainly not a highly paid one. The seeming 'convenience' of being able to webcam and earn money easily for something as simple as flashing your boobs (to start with) is evidently attracting a lot of women.

It's made to sound so innocuous and just a 'little bit' naughty.
It's no longer sold as a career for people with no options, but as one for intelligent women who can sell themselves well to faceless men watching them.

Some women are using it to help fund their education, others to pay rent. The motives are many, but it's gathering women across all levels of education.

I think it's fair to ask 'why would any intelligent woman do this?' - whatever the answer, they do.

I can only imagine it's less about a genuine effort to recruit a cohort of prostituted graduates and more about normalising the 'sex work is empowering' bullshit.

Yes, I think that's exactly what it is.

It's made to sound quite ok, with the promise of being able to earn lots of money (some do, but the majority don't). This only then serves to make the women feel they are less 'sexy' compared with the higher earners, and have to compete by showing more, or charging less to gain more customers.

The net result is that flashing boobs won't be enough, and in order to realise anything like decent earnings, they'll need to become a lot more sexual than they initially bargained for.
In my book, that's exploitation.

There is little doubt in my mind, that some of those women involved in the seedier studios will be offered other jobs... effectively groomed into prostitution.

The more 'legitimate' studios simply make too much money and don't need to get involved with prostitution, but being a legitimate business and highly professional does not make it any less exploitative.

It's absolutely all marketed as empowering... that the women are earning their own money, safely, anonymously (providing they are never recognised).

If a smart talker says 'you'd go topless on a beach, so why not do it on a website and earn great money in the process?' - some women will buy into that. Except they won't earn great money, and their cam session will be all over the internet in hours and exploited by countless camsite owners who syndicate those videos without any permission from the woman involved (let alone the men that will record it and upload it elsewhere).

A girl at 20 looking to boost her college funds, now has 10 minute webcam session on the internet for decades. They don't explain any of that in the small print.

For me, this feeds right back into the normalisation of numerous forms of sex. 'Normal' / 'Amateur' women videos all over the internet only tends to reinforce that this is what almost every woman is doing or wants to do. It was possibly easier to differentiate fact from fiction when pornstars were obviously fake, but now, porn is resembling your next door neighbour's lounge, or the woman down the street. They really do make it look like absolutely everybody is into something kinky.

I’m really pissed off about this uni. How dare they! Ffs we’ve had a couple of generations of women that have been allowed to have a university education and one generation-ish of working class women and they’re now peddling the oldest profession at them and charging them £27k for the privilege! If this was my uni I’d be asking them how little they value their degrees if being a sex worker is a genuinely viable option for employment on their completion. What’s the point? I went to uni so I had options and choices, how dare somewhere take that and twist it and turn it into happy hooker sex work that fits around your studies.

And if it’s online it stays online - we’ve been teaching that from primary age for years so I’d be surprised if U.K. grads/undergrads don’t know that. But if they don’t, they will if they then go into any of the other professions that online sex acts aren’t compatible with.

I'd be interested in what they are deeming 'sex worker' as. What was the actual wording?

Sex worker really does feel synonymous with prostitute and I find it hard to believe they'd be presenting this as a viable option.
However 'career in the sex industry' is something different, and that's far more palatable these days. If they are marketing it as the latter, they will effectively be saying 'sex isn't a seedy subject, it's enjoyed by millions and is a perfectly legitimate business these days'. They will then go on to detail how many billions are spent, mention Ann Summers, 50 Shades and perhaps Pornhub etc explain how these are household names etc etc. What on earth is there to be ashamed of working for such great companies?

This is absolutely done under the guise of empowerment. Women not afraid of their own sexuality, making their own choices (except they'll only actually get paid for the choices that men approve of!).

I'm male, so I can't categorically know for sure, but I would still expect that there are plenty of young women at Uni who are smart, but still naive enough to believe the sales pitch on empowerment. It's a convincing pitch (given how many seem to believe it). I'm more sure that women who've lived a little longer are less convinced.

The moment you see 'teen', 'rape', 'forced', 'son / daughter' presented as legitimate search terms for their porn, it should be telling you there is absolutely nothing legitimate about it at all.

Eldest DD is a GP and anal tearing, infections, injuries are becoming more and more commonplace in younger women, teenagers even. The worst cases are faecal incontinence.

Rape apologists and pro- porn'ers, have a think about that for a minute.

The term "sex worker" itself was invented by pimps and traffickers to conflate the perps with their victims so that the pimps and brothel owners could represent all sex workers when they presented their arguments for legalization to various organizations. Brothel owners even organized company unions to represent themselves.

They don't care. I wish they did, but they don't.

There's definitely a lot of bait and switch happening with the promotion of non-contact forms of "sex work" to young women as easy and empowering. A generation ago it was stripping, now it's being a cam girl. There are a whole group of women who got into it from the last generation (see Melissa Gira Grant's writing for a perfect example) who're now deeply invested in the "empowering" narrative and in selling it to younger women. I'd say Belle Du Jour/whatever her real name is is another example.