Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Teen vogue - sex work is work.

67 replies

HeyDuggeesCakeBadge · 17/06/2019 02:36

twitter.com/TeenVogue/status/1140372239537377280?s=19

What the hell? How is this appropriate content for their young teen audience?

OP posts:
JanesKettle · 17/06/2019 02:41

It's not.

Kiwiinkits · 17/06/2019 02:42

The people writing and editing these junk mags are just kids themselves. They're never parents. They have no idea. They don't really think in terms of what is healthy for teens to read and see. It's just "what's a bandwagon we can jump on".

Write a strongly worded letter to the editor. Then sign it, "Millicent age 13".

FermatsTheorem · 17/06/2019 07:05

If these people really believe "sex work is work" then they ought to be fine with such "jobs" being advertised down the local job centre and women being sanctioned by loss of benefits for not taking such "jobs".

Funnily enough there's a word for being forced into having sex you don't want to have. Rape.

And there's a word for people who condone being forced into having sex you don't want. Rape apologism.

BoudiccaKate · 17/06/2019 07:07

Grin kiwiinkits 'Write a strongly worded letter to the editor. Then sign it, "Millicent age 13"'

HashtagLurky · 17/06/2019 07:10

The young women I work with have been attempting to discuss how empowereing prostitution and pornography is with me. Due to safeguarding, I have been unable to respond with robust, evidence-based rebuttals (the setting in which they raise this has other, younger and more vulnerable people sitting in the periphery). This article is the push I need to approach Pastoral at school to get a programme going to educate them about the realities of sexual exploitation.

These girls I've mentioned are c.14-16 years old, incredibly intelligent but soaked in PoMo righteousness. What reputable organisation could I recommend that is able and accredited to work in schools to counter the pimp-friendly sex work is work mantra? I am deadly worried that underage girls are being heavily groomed into the sex industry via social media, Queer Theory and irresponsible rags like Teen Vogue.

FermatsTheorem · 17/06/2019 07:24

I remember an exited prostitute (who'd been groomed into prostitution in her early teens) once saying on here "our pimps didn't have to do much grooming; society had already done most of it for them."

(NB prostitute was her chosen term for herself, before any of the pimp lobby get the bat signal and descend on the thread to say it's the wrong word. She believed strongly in describing the reality of what she'd been put through, not dressing it up in euphemisms.)

I also remember another prostitute (still working) on one of the threads on here that pops up occasionally where a woman on benefits will start a thread saying "talk to me about escorting, I need the money". Her advice was "Can you imagine going into the local slightly dodgy pub (not the one with families having Sunday lunch together, the one that caters mainly to blokes) and giving every single man in that pub a BJ? Not just Richard Gere in pretty woman, but the bloke with BO, the angry bloke, the alcoholic, the bloke old enough to be your granddad, the bloke with the beer belly so big you have to lift it out the way to find his dick..."

That's the sort of thing your teens should be thinking about. As well as why the punters are almost all men, and in the rare cases where women are punters, there's a massive and obvious imbalance in power (wealthy white tourists in the Caribbean). And even where the prostitutes are male, their punters are still almost always male.

And why prostitutes have something like 20 times the chance of being murdered as women in the population at large. And why it's a specific group of men they're at risk of being murdered by - their own customers.

And why in countries like Germany where prostitution is fully legalised, far from providing the much needed health care insurance and national insurance, what's happened is that the women are treated as "independent contractors" hiring space in mega brothels, where they have to service up to 6 men before they even break even on the room hire. And how the normalization of prostitution has driven trafficking rates sky high (not enough German women want to spend their time on their knees giving BJs to the pub customers). And how the flooding of the market has driven the price of street prostitution down to 5 euros for a BJ.

FermatsTheorem · 17/06/2019 07:28

When I say should of course I recognise the constraints you're working under. You can't say "imagine having to give a BJ to every dodgy bloke in a pub" because of child safeguarding. Meanwhile social media is free to promote the Pretty Woman version of prostitution - it's not a fair fight.

But you can discuss facts and figures - how trafficking has gone up in Germany post legalization, and gone down in Sweden post criminalization of the punters and pimps (and make clear to them that under the Nordic model the women themselves are not criminalized). Point out the rates of assault and murder. Point out (Dara Pionka in the so-called managed red light zone in Leeds) that murder still happens in societies which tolerate prostitution - that the problem is not "driving prostitution underground so the women can't get help", the problem is that the sort of man who thinks it's okay to buy a woman's body to wank into is often not the sort of man a woman is safe being around.

Facts and figures.

HashtagLurky · 17/06/2019 07:54

Excellent response, Fermat. I am in a bind due to the informal nature of this interaction and the setting - which is why I'd like the girls to have a withdrawal group of their own where they can talk frankly. Hence my wondering about established programmes that I could formally invite via Pastoral.

I have personal experience of the damage prostitution causes due to relationships with exited men and women. I'm not sure it would be a good idea for me to join in with any sessions, as I'm vehemently opposed to "sex work", having seen what it did to my friends. Plus any hint of my association with that lifestyle would possibly be a job-killer.

DpWm · 17/06/2019 08:07

What reputable organisation could I recommend?

Nordic Model Now if you haven't come across them already nordicmodelnow.org/

Sharedhope.org have a series of films
sharedhope.org/what-we-do/prevent/awareness/
I haven't watched any yet but your post has reminded me to look into it.

LassOfFyvie · 17/06/2019 08:13

Well at least "arse" and "plate" spring to mind reading the responses.

Needmoresleep · 17/06/2019 08:27

Retweeted by Lily Madigan with their National Officer Labour Students Women's Network hat on.

This is dangerous. It is far from unknown for students to find themselves in financial difficulty as a result of poor financial management or other reasons. Is Labour really endorsing sex work as the solution?

Ereshkigal · 17/06/2019 08:29

Retweeted by Lily Madigan with their National Officer Labour Students Women's Network hat on.

Of course.

SchnitzelVonKrumm · 17/06/2019 08:37

Go through some basic health and safety regulations and ask them to think about how they might be applied to sex work. If it's just a job like any other then those legal protections should apply, right? Equality laws too, because it would be unfair for employers or service users to discriminate by sex, age, race etc.

Sarahjconnor · 17/06/2019 08:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

coral13 · 17/06/2019 08:51

Sex work doesn't actually = sex

Yes it does include escorts etc but it also includes anything remotely "sexy" including glamour modelling and strippers/dancers

HashtagLurky · 17/06/2019 08:52

Thank you! I will have a look at all suggestions and I might have to put a formal proposal together for staff training also. This has been nagging at me for a couple of weeks since the first young girl earnestly prosletysed at me about the "empowerment" of camming. When several girls are doing it, I sense a grooming push from social media circles. I'm fairly new in my position but have an excellent relationship with my line manager. I've gone from vague thinking I ought to do something to a sense of urgency, since I saw the Teen Vogue article.

I know Dutch schools have an excellent programme on educating girls against grooming - the Lover Boys - and will see if I can find stuff online as support. Thanks, everyone. Am just at work now and will be busy today!

coral13 · 17/06/2019 08:52

And yes being a stripper or a glamour model etc is a legitimate job.

HeyDuggeesCakeBadge · 17/06/2019 09:00

Yes I did see that LM retweeted this, it's gross that a womens officer is promoting this to young teens, 12/13 year olds need career advice don't you know. Vile, utter misogyny.

OP posts:
Apollo440 · 17/06/2019 09:17

Yes the comments are having none of it. I've just forwarded it to the parents of my 2 god daughters and they are appalled. Delighted to say that is 2 fewer customers. Hope that lowering your circulation is what you were trying to achieve TeenVogue.

BoudiccaKate · 17/06/2019 09:35

@coral13 I was a glamour model. I worked for a big publisher and was still groomed to do harder porn.

53rdWay · 17/06/2019 09:45

I don’t even get this as a mantra. Do people honestly think that those who object to prostitution do so because we think it’s too easy to count as work?

Sweatshop work is work.
Zero-hours contract work is work.
Child labour work is work.
Forced labour in the fishing industry is work.
Asbestos mining work is work...

Oldrockman · 17/06/2019 10:56

Its BS, there might be the odd one who wants to do it but you don't know. More likely by a large margin is they are there due to being trafficked, drug addiction, grooming, poverty and other shit that life has thrown at them. The same goes for porn also, its vile and leaves a trail of misery, sex work is modern slavery.

Oncewasblueandyellowtwo · 17/06/2019 11:48

Yes it's good people aren't having any of it.
Has anyone read the article, I'm not even half way through and was given this little gem:
I find it interesting that as a medical doctor, I exchange payment in the form of money with people to provide them with advice and treatment for sex-related problems; therapy for sexual performance, counseling and therapy for relationship problems, and treatment of sexually transmitted infection. Isn't this basically sex work?
Isn't this basically sex work? No, no it's not. You're a doctor a real medical one, what are you on about.

Oncewasblueandyellowtwo · 17/06/2019 11:51

coral13
Yes it does include escorts etc but it also includes anything remotely "sexy" including glamour modelling and strippers/dancers
Oh well then, that's fine for teens and pre-teens good to know.

FermatsTheorem · 17/06/2019 12:21

Good point about why no-one says "child labour is work", "sweatshop labour is work."

I always say this on these threads, but the crucial thing is to keep turning attention from the women and back onto the "invisible men" who use them.

Who benefits from the happy hooker narrative? It sure as hell isn't teenage girls, who ought to be being encouraged to become engineers, writers, lawyers, medical professionals, architects, business women, scientists, charity workers, craftswomen, fashion designers, plumbers, chefs, electricians.

Not being encouraged to aspire to becoming receptacles for men's masturbatory fantasies.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.