Liberal feminists/sex work is work proponents....

[BertrandRussell]

.....do you think the DWP should be able to sanction a person who refuses to earn money as a prostitute when applying for benefits? If not, why not?

If sex work is "just another job", then what next? Drug dealer, assassin, torturer...?

You can't force someone to be a gymnast or an actor, despite those being legitimate jobs, as some people lack the physical ability and mental discipline to perform effectively in those roles.

In any case, it's a personal sexual practice which happens to turn a profit. It's very unregulated nature (in this country) makes it inappropriate to be defined as a job.

I do. I've done that job. The sanctions apply when somebody repeatedly refuses to apply for jobs for which they meet the minimum specification

Why should someone repeatedly refuse jobs? As far as I can see the rules allow refusal for practical and ethical reasons.

There is no possibility of someone being asked to be a prostitute. Aside from the ethics and morality there is no framework which could legally support that.

There is no possibility of someone being asked to be a prostitute.

I don't think that anyone really imagines that is the immediate consequence of 'sex work is work'. I don't agree that the current rules prevent women being pushed into it in theory because my understanding from former colleagues is that claimants are pushed to take any job much more aggressively these day and few exemptions are accepted. Still I'd expect there would be an explicit exemption made if brothel running was fully normalised. Either way a theoretical discussion misses the point.

The point is about why we would not women pressured to take these 'jobs'. Prostitution is not the same as being squeamish about an abattoir or a Muslim working in a pub. The government shouldn't be profiting from prostitution, or encouraging people to participate, because it's harmful.

There is a discussion to be had about what legal framework is best to protect women, but to say that prostitution is just a job and should be encouraged like any other economic activity is horrid.

I do know that but was beginning to wonder whether others were.

Re forcing people to take jobs there is a big difference between not taking a job in an abbatoir and being too grand to work in Tesco.

And if your comment There is a discussion to be had about what legal framework is best to protect women, but to say that prostitution is just a job and should be encouraged like any other economic activity is horrid is aimed at me I have said nothing about it being just like any other job. I favour criminalising
punters.

And if your comment...is aimed at me

It was not at all. Should probably have separated more from my reply to you- sorry.

It was a general point. I can understand people arguing that some form of legalisation may be the least bad way to manage the harm (though I disagree) or that it isn't the state's place to make things like this illegal (again- no). What I can't comprehend are those who seem to argue that it's no different from any other job.

I favour criminalising punters.

Ditto. I would aggressively criminalise demand- to the point of allowing entrapment- to drive down prices and make large scale pimping uneconomic.

Didn't some lib dem fuckwit once suggest that?

Thought possibly I might have misremembered, but no:

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/careers-officers-could-suggest-prostitution-8858826

But of course, if sex work is work...

During a discussion on how to combat the stigma attached to sex work, Mr Parsons compared prostitution with accountancy.

He said: "The fact that we are asking 'should we seek to prevent people entering sex work?' is part of the problem. You wouldn't ask the question 'should we prevent people becoming accountants?' You'd just take it for granted.

"There is a stronger case, probably, for that than there is for preventing sex work

Weapons- grade stupidity.

Would girls be moving on from secondary education to attend classes in deep-throating, anal reception and the treatment of anal fissure, and proper technique for being choked without dying? How to avoid being beaten to death? Would there be student loans to finance this education?
I never hear any practical answers from proponents of the sex work is work meme. These are shocking but valid questions. Could a punter ask to see your training certificate before he paid for specialist services, to make sure you knew how to perform them? What about training in pricing strategy to combat being undercut by trafficked women locked in a room with just a mattress on the floor? How to position one's product at the right level in relation to that?
Because full legalisation wouldn't stop a black market in trafficked women, it hasn't achieved that anywhere else in the world.
I'm struggling to see any positives at all for the "it's just a job" argument.

Work experience for schoolkids?

It wouldn't just be the girls though, if you point out that MEN and boys would be subject to the same approach if sex work really is work like any other job, maybe people will baulk a little more.

Like they pause in the "Porn is just work it;s all fine and dandy" when you tell them that straight men do "gay for pay" > that seems to make them have a bit of a think

It wouldn't just be the girls though, if you point out that MEN and boys would be subject to the same approach if sex work really is work like any other job, maybe people will baulk a little more.
I'm sure they must assume there's a natural limit to demand for sex with men and boys (bacha bazi being an example of a cultural abuse of young boys that has high demand and thrives on a homophobic culture aside) but perhaps if they envisioned themselves as room/pod/bed cleaners it might put them off? I don't think most men envision the sex happening to them.

I think that the view of women and girls and men and sex and what the roles are, are different

When "sex work is work" comes up, the image in most people's minds of the sex "worker" is female.

A lot of people deep down see women / girls as passive "recipients" of sex, and who see it as a means to get what they want.

While it's understood that male sex drive is v important and if men don't get sex happy consensual they can and will use other means (target drunk women / pay etc) and this is a fact of life and boys will be boys.

This is teh context and mental imagery for these discussions. Girls and women are "there" for men to fuck anyway so why not get paid for it and why is it different to marriage.

Brinign the idea of boys / men taking the "female" role in this picture can make people say "hold on", sometimes.

I fully agree but I think it might be harder for some blokes to make that connection and see themselves in a "rent boy's" shoes. Plus there's the trope of women "having to" do sex work to earn money - whereas men will commit crime instead rather than consider selling sex. Men don't feel they "have to", the market for men is much smaller, it just isn't realistic.
Of course if we could get men to consider how they'd feel if in that role then great, but it's more realistic that they could be forced into auxiliary activities to do with the sex trade. Cleaning up bodily fluids, dealing with aggressive punters, that kind of thing would make for a pretty grim job (obviously not in the same league as being prostituted) but it's something men are more likely to relate to.

I’d say to men: go into the nearest Target and perform cunnilingus on every women there, no matter how overweight or aged she is, for five bucks a pop — and do it right too, no stopping till she orgasms
That's a good analogy because there's nothing in it for him physically. There are some men who'd get something out of a fuck no matter who (or what) it was with. Whereas performing a sexual service for someone like that makes it clearer. And labouring the point about overweight, unclean, elderly or unattractive women makes it easier for the man you're addressing to visualise the discomfort involved.

I ask the person to go into the nearest dive bar and blow every guy there, no matter how smelly etc. for five bucks each and then tell me how it’s just like flipping burgers

This ties in with the "but some women just love sex anyway and are happy to be paid for it" argument which gets trotted out by punters and, depressingly, the happy hooker brigade too.

It's nonsense of course. It doesn't have to be a dive bar. Think of the men in your own workplace or look around you on your morning commuter train or local Wotherspoons. Even think back to the young men in your tutorials at university. These men might be perfectly nice, polite, more likely than not to be clean and non- smelly but I'll bet you'll only find a tiny number who you'd think - "yes, I fancy a no commitment roll in the hay with you".

I had quite a lot of casual sex in my late teens and early 20s. The number of men I wouldn't have touched with a barge pole was still pretty much all the men I ever met.

Apart from escorts that work in the high-end of the market, I honestly find it hard to believe that the happy hookers who sometimes post here or on twitter are who they say they are. And I say that as someone who really wished that prostitution was the fun job they make it out to be.

Even high end escorts do things they don’t want to do for money.

Many years ago I worked in a job that brought me into contact with lots of high paid Mayfair prostitutes. They all either had cocaine habits (to cope with the job) or needed fast cash to cope with shitty home situations.

No one actually fancied every client/enjoyed every job. They certainly wouldn’t have done it for free, not even with the better ones.

Rich Johns are just as odious as average Johns (and many are worse due to generally feeling entitled to do whatever they want and/or thinking paying more means they can get away with more).

Just because the hotel is posh doesn’t mean the rest of it is any better.

I think some women are able to convince themselves they are doing it through choice at the time (and some even convince themselves they are enjoying it), but in hindsight, realise it wasn’t really a free choice at all (and that they had found it tolerable because they had a screwed up perception of self worth).

I'm sure you are right, BettyDuMonde, I just meant it is slightly less unbelievable.

Don’t worry, I wasn’t correcting you, Coyoacan I completely agree that prostitution being fun is only plausible if you don’t look beyond the high-class-happy-hooker trope (I just wanted to expand on your thoughts and say that even that isn’t very plausible when you think about who they are selling sex to - it’s certainly not Richard Gere!)