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.

I also think about the men selling sexual services as well as the women..

Yes, men are also abused by men. Have a chocolate button.

Never answered my questions.

Are you a sex worker butter

What’s wrong with being a cleaner.

Thousands of men are doing it

You cannot seriously be comparing the two?

Don't get me wrong I have as much contempt for punters who buy men and boys as I do for those who buy women and girls- but the pimp lobby rarely if ever pontificate about how liberating/ empowering being a male prostitute is.

Commercial sex doesn't mean you buy another person

Commercial sex means exactly that- the temporary hiring of another person's body to masturbate into.

You have made some excellent points AuntLydia

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’.

"DW is unable to verify the woman's story independently."

"Constabel is convinced that sex work is nothing else than rape."

I'm sorry, but that article is hard to take seriously. I don't want to dismiss abuses that might very well be happening in Germany but that piece reads as nothing more than propaganda for the prohibitionist lobby.

My argument isn't that there isn't abuse and exploitation in the sex industry but that those aren't unique to it nor is abuse and grim exploitation every sex worker's experience and attempting (without ever succeeding) in shutting the entire industry down will make things worse not better.

It is one of those cases where the cure is more deadly than the disease.

"You cannot seriously be comparing the two?"

I don't need to compare them. It is a literal statement of fact, nothing more. Thousands of men are in the sex industry.

"The pimp lobby rarely if ever pontificate about how liberating/ empowering being a male prostitute is."

There is no pimp lobby and sex workers and their organisations have argued persuasively that sex work doesn't need to be 'empowering' (whatever that means) or 'liberating' (an equally meaningless word) in order to be legally protected.

Few miners, lorry drivers, cleaners, road sweepers, sewage workers etc. would use words like empowering and liberating to describe their work. You don't even need to like the work you do and can speak frankly of the dangerous and disgusting elements involved without wishing for some 'saviour' to come and 'protect' you from your chosen profession.

"Commercial sex means exactly that- the temporary hiring of another person's body to masturbate into."

No it doesn't. If someone cracks one out to a topless Kate Moss she hasn't hired them her body. I'm sorry but that's a ludicrous argument.

"Never answered my questions

Are you a sex worker butter

What’s wrong with being a cleaner."

No, I'm neither a sex worker nor am I a buyer of sexual services. It would make little difference to my argument if I were either as it is based not on my individual experience but on the belief that prohibition always makes things worse not better.

I never said anything about cleaners, positive or negative, other than to say I doubt many would use words like empowering or liberating to describe their work. But maybe that question was directed at someone else.

So we stop "prohibiting" killing and the murder rate will go down?

Priceless bit of shite logic.

No, I'm neither a sex worker nor am I a buyer of sexual services. It would make little difference to my argument if I were either as it is based not on my individual experience but on the belief that prohibition always makes things worse not better.

@Butters0123 what ridiculous ultra libertarian nonsense. You do realise that ‘prohibition’ means forbidding something by law. Do you seriously believe that we would all be better off with no prohibitions on our behaviours? Are you really suggesting that you’d advocate the freedom to steal and kill as well because that would also make the world better? Or is it only in relation to the use of women’s bodies that you think this should happen?

I didn't want to post again as it makes me look like an obsessive on the subject but I can't let this go.

"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."

Yes, we need as a society to decide where we draw the line on the commercial exploitation of our bodies. The difference between organ farming and selling sex is that one is body altering and extremely dangerous.

There are risks involved in selling sex certainly, STDs in particular. However, those are higher outside the sex industry than within it and what you are advocating is making it illegal to sell something which you can legally give away for free. To me that is a large step too far in legislating for our own good.

You could argue that family members will donate organs for free but organ donation is hardly the regular, everyday occurrence that sex is.

Additionally those parts of the sex industry which involve little or no bodily contact such as stripping, modelling, camming etc. can hardly be compared to something as invasive as surrogacy or organ farming.

My argument isn't that the sex industry is a wonderful thing but that trying to outlaw it will (and already has) made things much worse for those whom the legislation is seeking to protect.

So Butter do you think that society should endorse - as a good thing - people (mostly men) being able to buy sexual services from men or women, or do you just think it shouldn't be prohibited? Do you support decriminalization or legalisation?

"What ridiculous ultra libertarian nonsense. You do realise that ‘prohibition’ means forbidding something by law. Do you seriously believe that we would all be better off with no prohibitions on our behaviours? Are you really suggesting that you’d advocate the freedom to steal and kill as well because that would also make the world better? Or is it only in relation to the use of women’s bodies that you think this should happen?"

Now you're just being childish.

I am using the word prohibition in the sense it was used in America during the 20s and early 30s, legislation designed to stop people drinking which was later imposed on drugs in the so called 'war on drugs' and also on the sex industry, on porn, prostitution, stripping etc. at one time or another in various countries.

I am certainly not calling any legislation against theft or murder 'prohibition' and I am not advocating for lawless anarchy. If you thought about this a little more calmly you might have worked that out for yourself.

"So Butter do you think that society should endorse - as a good thing - people (mostly men) being able to buy sexual services from men or women, or do you just think it shouldn't be prohibited? Do you support decriminalization or legalisation?"

I support decriminalisation.

A society doesn't have to endorse drinking and drunkenness, drug taking, smoking, cage fighting, commercial sex, promiscuity or any other potential moral bugbear when it makes it not illegal to do those things. It can still purse its lips and disapprove as much as it likes.

So you don't think we should endorse it as a good thing?

The slogan 'sex work is work' is a tautology similar to TWAW. It's interesting that both are tautologies, the 'proof' is self referential and circular. This is a rhetorical device designed to distract from all the ways in which sex work is not like other work and the ways in which trans women are not like natal women

I read the “horror movie” article. The argument for full legalisation, as I understand it, is that life is safer for a prostitute in a country where all associated activities are fully legal.
This sentence “Yet only 44 out of an estimated 400,000-1,000,000 prostituted people have chosen to register as prostitutes in order to access said benefits.” There was a link to a German language newspaper. (There could be other benefits of course.)
But we know full legalisation increases demand. And we know full legislation increases the number of trafficked women. So there are more women engaged in prostitution under full legalisation. Who might have lives a % better, but far more of them, who otherwise would not have been trafficked, coerced etc..

"So we stop "prohibiting" killing and the murder rate will go down?

Priceless bit of shite logic."

The shite logic is yours.

The problem with prohibition, of alcohol, drugs and commercial sex is that it doesn't make the demand go away but drives it further underground and removes all legal protections for those involved. This can be seen in 1920s Chicago or present day Mexico very plainly. The same rule applies to sex workers whose lives are made more dangerous by the attempts to ban selling or buying sex.

This has nothing to do with the legislation on murder.

"So you don't think we should endorse it as a good thing?"

I don't think we need to take a moral stance on it either way as a society and even if we do we shouldn't try to ban it.

I don't think as a society we should endorse taking heroin or smoking cigarettes but I don't think we should make either illegal.

But you are not wanting legal protections Butter, you want to decriminalise not legalise.

DW is unable to verify the woman's story independently.

Hers is just one story. If you have been following the decriminalization of Germany as it has been applied in Germany, you would know that hers is one of thousands. It's the tip of the iceberg

I support decriminalisation.

Why not learn from societies that have tried this, and are now deeply regretting that decision, but finding it impossible to back-pedal?
I'll post again the link I posted earlier: www.trauma-and-prostitution.eu/en/2018/06/19/the-german-model-17-years-after-the-legalization-of-prostitution/

...and quote:

Before I came to this conference, I spoke to two police inspectors who have long working experience in the milieu: Helmut Sporer and Manfred Paulus. Sporer[1] said that prostitution has risen up to 30% since 2002. We have made a huge mistake implementing this law and have gone in a direction few could have imagined would be so disastrous. Prostitution has nothing to do with sexual liberation, it is just money that counts. The profit of this business is enormous: we are talking about 15 billion Euros of direct transactions every year[2]. It has become an important industrial sector were women´s bodies are objectified and used as a commodity.

It is the German state that is responsible for the development of sexual practices that are totally incompatible with human dignity. I will preserve you from details, but today, completely legally, you can buy a woman and piss her in her face, do group rapes, or force her to swallow semen.

Do you really believe that a woman would choose to have these things done to her?
Do you consider these practices compatible with human dignity?

^ following the decriminalization of Germany prostitution as it has been applied in Germany

I never said anything about cleaners, positive or negative, other than to say I doubt many would use words like empowering or liberating to describe their work. But maybe that question was directed at someone else

The pro pimp and punter lobbyists who come on here always run the "empowering " line. Very few other jobs ever seem to need that justification as to why they are real, acceptable jobs.

There was a hint of it early in the thread where a poster talked about exploiting the sad cases willing to pay her.

I can't think of any other trade, craft, business etc. which views its customers with such contempt. Don't get me wrong, I think punters hiring others bodies as masturbatory aids are contemptible but it is a very unhealthy set up for all concerned.

I actually think being a cleaner can be empowering. I was a cleaner once to earn money for a specific thing. My employer treated me with respect and I felt great about working hard to earn enough money for the thing I needed.

Sex work is not work. I wouldn't be upset and scared by the prospect of my daughter being a cleaner. I would by the prospect of her doing sex work.

I think probably 99.9% (if not 100%) of people would move heaven and earth to prevent their children from becoming sex workers. Whilst they might prefer a better paid job than cleaner, most people wouldn't mind their children being a cleaner.

It's ridiculous to say sex work is work, no one believes it really. It's one of those things that if it really was 'just work' you wouldn't have to say it at all. It's the fact it self-evidently isn't that means they need a little mantra to try and brainwash people into thinking the opposite of the obvious truth.

Sex is meant to be an intimate act between people in the best case scenario who love each other or at least have mutual respect and for mutual pleasure. It's meant to be a free choice - when people are doing it to avoid starvation / for money it ceases to be that.

I don't think we need to take a moral stance on it either way as a society and even if we do we shouldn't try to ban it

So you don’t think that the moral case is against people buying sex? You think society should be neutral and that it is a matter of individual choice whether or not to buy sex?

"But you are not wanting legal protections Butter, you want to decriminalise not legalise."

Decriminalising means that abused sex workers can safely go to the police as the only crime committed is the abuse, nor the sex. Criminalising means the opposite. That applies when you criminalise buying, selling or both.