Sex for rent in UK, BBC today

[SnibbleAgain]

article

Two things strike me.

The first is the attitude of the men. When feminists talk about male entitlement, and how lots of men don't really see women as full people, this is what we mean, it is a good example. The men see no issue with what they are doing, and have it has not crossed their mind to even consider what it could mean for the women. Even after a conversation with the reporter, they cannot see any problem with it.

The second is that if prostitution is "a job like any other" then there is no space to address this sort of thing. One man says it's just a business transaction. This is the approach being pushed in many countries all over the world. I just don't see how it's possible to protect the vulnerable from sexual exploitation. The idea would be it's the same as the men asking them to do some cleaning, or admin, it gardening in return. Does anyone really see that as the same? I don't believe they do, not really, and yet we have lobby groups succeeding on that basis.

It's not the same. Coerced sex is a crime whatever the nature of the coercion. Coerced gardening? Nope.

There is such a thing - trafficked people being forced to work on cannabis farms.

Certainly there are laws against such things.

However, there is no law against a business arrangement between two people where one does 5 hours gardening a week in lieu of rent.

Framing sex in the same light is something that is being pushed for heavily and in my opinion this reframing is working. All over the internet the idea that sex is no different to other work is prominent, in fact many claim is it easier and potentially more pleasurable (?) This to me ignores all the underlying power dynamics, the physical and psychological risks, and the fact which is presented very starkly in this article that the men involved do not give a second thought to how the woman is feeling - these men will want what they want and she will have to provide it if she wants to keep a roof over her head.

Oh it's so gross
Some of those adverts read like the men want a very old school vision of a wife, cook, clean, sex, no emotional attachment. Bleurgh.

I think individual men are a problem but I also think society as a whole condones this entitlement through things like prostitution, cam girls and even mail order brides. We present female sex as an asset women are happy to trade for things they want. So men never have to feel uncomfortable about getting sex from a women who would normally not touch them with a barge pole.

The thing that bothers me as well is that it seems people are operating on "understandings", where men understand that the woman is to have sex with them and the woman doesn't understand that at all.

There is this thing where we are supposed to be able to mind read or to expect the worst from men, "what did you think he was going to want in return" type thing. At the same time we are told NAMALT and f course in our experiences we meet plenty of men who wouldn't do this.

So which is it? Should a homeless 20 year old woman KNOW that a man is going to expect sex, or should she assume that he just wants to help?

Enslaving someone and making them garden is problematic because enslavement is problematic, not because gardening when you don't feel like it is problematic. Sanctioning your landscape gardener's refusal to garden by removing their means of subsistence (salary) would be legal and reasonable. Therefore, in the case of gardening, the means by which you compel someone to garden can be problematic but the fact of compelling someone to garden is not automatically problematic.

Compelling someone to have sex when they don't feel like it is rape.

I wonder how these men would feel if they were out of work and the job centre kept putting gay brothel jobs their way. Which they had to apply for or risk losing their JSA. Because it's no different to any other job, right? Just a business transaction.

Good question MrsOvarall

The thing that's struck me is that these arrangements just weren't a thing when I was young and homeless in the early 90's and yet, my local "popular classified adverts" has a few of these adverts now and I live in the arse end of nowhere, with the nearest large city an hour away and the nearest city's edition, loads.

Accommodating someone as part payment for work they do happens all the time, with au pairs, house keepers, gardeners, live-in carers etc. This absolutely isn't that. Sex for rent, whether the landlord is male or female or the tenant is involves a level of coercion that would make this illegal, and rightly so.

Accommodating someone as part payment for work they do happens all the time, with au pairs, house keepers, gardeners, live-in carers etc

In terms of employment law and housing law offering accommodation in lieu of payment for the work provided is extremely questionable and may well back fire on the non- payer.

Right oh.

Obviously this is reprehensible and indefensible.

So far as the other things you mentioned there is a fair and legal way of providing accommodation for employees and a wrong way of doing it.

So far as taking work for "rent free" accomodation- it isn't "rent free" and doesn't absolve the owner of responsibility and compliance requirements under housing law.

The thing that's struck me is that these arrangements just weren't a thing when I was young and homeless in the early 90's

They certainly were, Xeno, though maybe not advertised openly. One of my flatmates had this arrangement with the landlord.

I read the article earlier. Really interesting. I'd like to watch the doc.

Yes, maybe that was the difference Katherina they weren't advertised in Loot, and it's just much more brazen now.

Presumably due to the increase in homelessness in young women and porn. I'd like to watch the doc too, to see what they came up with.

"Presumably due to the increase in homelessness in young women and porn"

• Yes, however,

I think the main driver is likely to be the destigmatisation of paying for sex, and the push to reframe prostitution as an empowering job, a job like any other, a business transaction.

One of the men in the piece said "I treat this purely as a business transaction" - well right-on! This is the push from choice-feminists, the trans movement, and decriminalisation is policy for all of the "lefty" paries, the parties that are supposed to be progressive but are showing (again) that the one area where they have a massive blind spot is around women, the issues that we face in society, and they refuse to see "women as a class" around which a lot of our laws and protections are based.

__

I also suspect that this has always gone on but was not talked about before, by either party. You will always have had dodgy men scooping desperate girls and women off the streets.

Does anyone know what was deleted?

In terms of our progressive politcs of the left-leaning, the lib dems mooted reducing the age to work as a prostitute / appear in porn to 16. That was the point at which I parted ways with them, along with something else that indicated that the main thing the were interested in liberalising was where men can stick their dicks.

the push to reframe prostitution as an empowering job

Yes, this

The deletion was of a MRA troll. Nothing worth hearing about.

Was the MRA feeling sad that people take a dim view of sexual exploitation

I just watched the program. The men were so sleazy; so entitled; couldn't see anything wrong with it. Disgusting.

I had a look on craigslist but couldn't find many ads from men offering rooms for sex though. Maybe they've removed the ads.

"I wonder how these men would feel if they were out of work and the job centre kept putting gay brothel jobs their way. Which they had to apply for or risk losing their JSA. Because it's no different to any other job, right? Just a business transaction."

They have this idea that women like it. "I'm not gay, I don't want cock up my ass, but for them it's like normal sex".

Why is it that when men consider the idea of being paid for sex, they always envisage having PIV with an attrative woman?

Why do they not envisage being fucked by a man twice their size?

It's the same with harassment and stuff, they say, I don't know why women don't like it, I'd love to be approached by women (and when they say women they are imagining attractive ones). They never ever think of being aggressively hassled by someone who could easily overpower them.

Is this deliberate? I mean do they know this and they're pretending they don't to confuse women / upset them / get them to accept terrible behaviour? Or, are they genuinely stupid?

"t's the same with harassment and stuff, they say, I don't know why women don't like it, I'd love to be approached by women (and when they say women they are imagining attractive ones). They never ever think of being aggressively hassled by someone who could easily overpower them."

Well yes, MRA's say: "it's flirting if the guy is attractive, it's only harassment if he's ugly".