Why is the BBC Promoting Sex Work?

[WootMoggie]

I know the BBC tries oh-so-hard to be "progressive" but this is really taking the piss:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5e7dad06-c48d-4509-b3e4-6a7a2783ce30

The BBC state at the top of the article that selling explicit content online can be a lucrative business, and the opening quote of the article is "My biggest fear is going back into an office and being normal again"

Other choice quotes include "I like the freedom it gives me and the celebration of the female form" and also '"I used to make £20,000 a year, and now I make a lot more than that every single month" Lauren says coyly'

"Lauren says coyly"?? WTAF?

I see no problem in writing articles about this subject, but the tone and position of this article is dubious in the extreme IMO.

If it’s not good enough for my daughter, it shouldn’t be good enough for anyone’s daughter.

There is a guy called Juergen Rudloff in Germany, who is known as the Brothel King in that country since he opened a chain of mega brothels.

Many years ago he became quite prominent in Germany; he did the talk show rounds and was on TV a lot, with prominent German anti-porn-and-prostitution feminists such as Alice Schwarzer.

Rudloff has four children, including (a) daughter(s).
On one of the talk shows (I watched it) he said it would break his heart if his daughter became a prostitute.

I suspect it's the same for almost all parents. That says it all.

taz.de/!603987/
Seine Kinder gehen in den Waldorfkindergarten und er gesteht: „Es würde mir das Herz zerreißen, wenn meine Tochter sich prostituieren würde.“

"You have a hell of a nerve projecting your arrogance and ignorance on to those who do have experience in the sex industry"

The arrogance and ignorance is yours, not mine. I have listened to actual sex workers and their organisations and not feminist propaganda.

The experiences of people in the sex industry is mixed but very few support the prohibitionist stance you lot are constantly peddling and most agree that it makes things worse and more dangerous, whether that is a ban on buyers and sellers as in the States or just a ban on buyers as in Sweden.

Only feminists are so arrogant that they ignore the voices of the women (as I said before they're indifferent to the fate of men) actually in the sex industry who point out the flaws in feminists' arguments which are based on ludicrously unreliable statistics.

"Personally I take a purist approach to this."

The prohibitionists in early 20th century America also took a purist approach as well. Anti-drugs people do too. They both have made the problem of drink and drugs very much worse.

The danger of imposing your morals on society as a whole is that it doesn't stop people doing the thing you disapprove of it just makes a dangerous black market where people continue to do illegally what they previously did legally.

It also takes away free choice and agency from adults whose viewpoint, morals and tolerances are vastly different from yours in order to protect people who would very much prefer not to have your kind of protection.

So so those on this thread who are irritated by the criticism of the BBC think it is a good idea to create a society which endorses men (and it is mostly men) buying sex?

"Statistically, most women in sex work were driven there through poverty, abuse and/or addiction."

Got any reliable statistics to back that up?

And when you say sex work are you applying that sweeping statement to nude models, sex phone operators, pole dances and strippers or just to those selling actual sex?

You a sex worker butter ?

If you (pl) would like to see the reality for most women in the sex trade the world over, I recommend the movie Mumbai Central, on Netflix now.
Trailer:

It's about a young Indian girl lured into the sex trade. With subtitles. You need quite a stomach to watch this; but it is reality, not only in Mumbai but the world over, including Europe. And yes, I have been to this area of Mumbai and spoken to prostitutes, including children.

@lama

Surely there are many jobs we wouldn’t necessarily want our daughters to do. Working as a cleaner is perfectly respectable and (as current circumstances show) sometimes vital. However, I would be saddened if my daughter became a cleaner.

There was a woman who worked as a prostitute who did an AMA on here a few months ago. She was very ademant that she was happy in her work, did it through her own free choice, and had actively chosen it over a different job opportunity because of the good rate of pay and flexible hours. It didn't take very many questions to reveal that she'd first entered prostitution as a teenager after being pimped into it by her boyfriend just weeks after giving birth. That she was in pain most days from being penetrayed so often. That she had no qualifications and the "other job" she was "choosing" it over was a NMW cleaning job that wouldn't even out earn her the cost of childcare, let alone give her any free time to spend with her son. That she lived in constant fear of a punter raping her and had security cams all over her house. And she wasn't a street prostitute or someone offering "extreme" services, she worked inside offering a vanilla "girlfriend experience". She seemed shocked when people suggested that she had entered prostitution through grooming and pimping, or that there was a version of her life where she didn't have to live in fear every day, or that a job chosen in the context of no other viable options isn't actually a choice. There is a large body of people, mostly men, who have a huge vested interest in convincing women that by participating in their own oppression they are actually liberated and in control, and that by making choices that harm them and all other women they are somehow taking back freedom and power. The woman who did this AMA had internalised exactly that narrative, to the point that she'd not only convinced herself that she'd chosen the pain and fear in her life but that it had actively been a positive choice. So when we hear stories of prostituted women claiming that they are so happy with their work and freely choosing it, forgive me if I take that narrative with a massive pinch of salt.

Hang on, I object to the accusation that anyone is "looking down" on women who sell nudes or are involved in the sex industry
I think those women have made a poor decision but I don't look down on them

Are you a punter? A punter who really respects the woman he purchases? That is who I am referring to.

The sex "industry" relies on there being women who will do things other women won't do. Those women aren't admired and respected by punters.

And when you say sex work are you applying that sweeping statement to nude models, sex phone operators, pole dances and strippers or just to those selling actual sex?

If I refer to sex "work" I mean the whole range of commercial exploitation of sex. None of it's good. It all props up the idea of objectification and the the right to buy, abuse and demean another person.

Surely there are many jobs we wouldn’t necessarily want our daughters to do. Working as a cleaner is perfectly respectable and (as current circumstances show) sometimes vital. However, I would be saddened if my daughter became a cleaner.

Why? As you say, it's perfectly respectable work, and not only that, it's actually an essential job, and there should be absolutely no shame in becoming a cleaner -- the fact that there is shame, as you testify, is a result of a male-centred cultural bias. As we are seeing now during this time of lock-down, a cleaners is actually far more important than the big-shot advertising executive which you would probably prefer as a job choice for your daughter.

In fact, coming from a millionaire brothel owner, "saddened" is an acceptable admission. In fact, I would be horrified if my daughter chose this work and would argue with her till I was blue in the face to get her to change her mind. Luckily, there's no danger of that!

But I think for most parents, mothers as well as fathers, "horrified" is the more accurate word. Or "devastated".

Though "saddened" is your word. He actually said "heart-broken", which is much stronger. Would you be heart-broken if your daughter became a cleaner?

Ffs what’s wrong with being a cleaner. Ffs

And every parent would be fucking devastated if their daughter or son became a sex worker

The fact that butter thinks alcohol and women's bodies are interchangeable commodities says it all

It doesn't matter how many abused and frightened sex workers come forward to telk their hellish frontline stories, to people with Butters' outlook, they may as well be bottles of whiskey objecting to people drinking them.

And by the way, this is what happens when a country tries to treat prostitution as a "job like any other job":

fightthenewdrug.org/germanys-legalized-prostitution-industry-looks-like-a-real-life-horror-movie/

Yes: a real-life horror movie. Digest that.

However, I would be saddened if my daughter became a cleaner.

Why? Many successful people have had cleaning jobs in the past.

Being a cleaner won't follow you around for the rest of your life, limit career choices and cause problems in your relationships and with your children when one of their school friends starts distributing the pictures they've chanced across on the internet.

Or this:

www.trauma-and-prostitution.eu/en/2018/06/19/the-german-model-17-years-after-the-legalization-of-prostitution/

The “German Model”, 17 years after the liberalization of prostitution

                                     ...........................

Far from protecting the women, “the German model“ has become “hell on earth“ for them. I use this strong comparison on purpose, because the situation in Germany has become extremely serious. I will give you a short overview of the effects of this law.

If selling sex is such a genius route to empowerment & easy cash and has no downsides why aren’t thousands of men doing it?

"If I refer to sex "work" I mean the whole range of commercial exploitation of sex. None of it's good. It all props up the idea of objectification and the the right to buy, abuse and demean another person."

Would you include actors who do nude/sex scenes and nearly naked fashion models in that as well? The problem with the idea of 'objectification' is that it is so vague and pretty much describes every kind of work. We are all 'objectified' to some degree.

Commercial sex doesn't mean you buy another person. That is slavery plain and simple and demeaning them is abuse. Abuses certainly occur within the many facets of the sex industry but abuse is hardly unique to it. We have found out about the abuses in Hollywood. Similar things happen in fashion modelling, athletics, agriculture, factories etc. No-one is suggesting we shut down those industries as the only way to deal with exploitative practices.

"If selling sex is such a genius route to empowerment & easy cash and has no downsides why aren’t thousands of men doing it?"

Thousands of men are doing it.

Excuse my ignorance but is feminism not all about choosing what you want to do in life and being unapologetic about your body and what you want to do with it?
No, it isn't. Feminism is the political movement for the liberation of women. Rape torture and abuse of women in pornstitution is high on the list of things Feminism is committed to liberating women from.

Exactly right, thanks Bewilderness for pointing this out.

"The fact that butter thinks alcohol and women's bodies are interchangeable commodities says it all"

False reasoning. My point was that prohibition makes things worse not that selling sex and selling alcohol and drugs are the same. I also think about the men selling sexual services as well as the women, unlike you.

"It doesn't matter how many abused and frightened sex workers come forward to telk their hellish frontline stories, to people with Butters' outlook, they may as well be bottles of whiskey objecting to people drinking them."

Plenty of sex workers come forward to say that their lives are not as hellish as feminists would like them to be but might be if prohibitionists got their way. You dismiss them as pimps or women (you ignore the men of course) who are too stupid to understand the exploitation and abuse they are really suffering and obviously need kind and enlightened feminists to rescue them from a fate worse than death.

And another one for butter, since authentic voices from the trade seem to be the only ones that count:

www.dw.com/en/inside-the-battery-cage-prostitution-in-germany/a-44350106

@Butters0123
It also takes away free choice and agency from adults whose viewpoint, morals and tolerances are vastly different from yours in order to protect people who would very much prefer not to have your kind of protection.

But that’s exactly my point. There are some activities that a civil ethical society deems unacceptable even when some people want to do them. For example, commercial surrogacy is illegal in the U.K. As is commercial adoption. As is commercial organ farming. However much it might make economic sense for an individual to choose to sell a kidney or a baby, we consider it unacceptable to protect the greater good, including protecting those at risk of coercion and abuse. For the same reasons it is unacceptable to treat prostitution as a normal job just because some women say they want to do it. I don’t care if you love being a hooker; your individual choices impact all women - and men - in our society, including those who do need our ‘kind of protection’.

As you sit at home in lockdown during this pandemic, it might be appropriate to reflect on how your individual choices affect everyone around you.