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.

There were some really interesting threads a while back with numerous sex workers offering their various perspectives.

The lasting and stand out comments for me were from sex workers saying that the vast, vast majority of their colleagues had developed the ability to disassociate (an extremely powerful psychological defense mechanism) from the work they did as a consequence of their own early childhood sex abuse. They used either dissociation or drugs to alleviate the psychological distress associated with working as a sex worker.

Anything that relies on women having to be broken down psychologically from a very early age to make the work they do acceptable to themselves is not something the BBC should be promoting.

But while the woke stasi are busy telling themselves and anyone who will listen to them, that their is “nothing to see here”with regards to many pervasively abusive and predatory human behaviours, all anyone else can do is keep shining the light back on these behaviours and calling them out.

Their = there

Madame Bovary, I never claimed to be a libertarian

Why so coy? You have repeatedly argued on behalf of 'individual freedom' and how the state should 'keep its nose out.' Do you think the state should rifle through people's wallets? To fund unnecesary pharmaceutical and surgical treatments? If you do, you do not believe in the 'individual freedoms' you have vociferously defended. In the context of 'sex work.'

Yy @VibrationNation

I dissociate from time to time, due to my own mental health problems (the lasting result of sexual and physical abuse suffered in childhood. Surprise surprise.) It's terrifying and i can't imagine having a job where i do that every single time in order to endure it. It's a shortcut to ever deepening psychological problems.

You ‘don’t agree with any of it’ to a list that includes women selling sex as they are trafficked and addicted to drugs? You don’t agree that happens at all?

And what are my personal feelings about sex? How could you possibly know or comment?

Also keep mentioning Sweden as an example of the Nordic model not working. But no examples of what happens with the decrim model, such as the increase in trafficking in Germany post 2002.

Ipswich strategy has also been very successful in stopping women, including hundreds of teenagers, not selling sex.

"Sexual slavery is already illegal. If that is what is actually happening then the powers already exist to deal with it. "

So government should not concern itself with keeping people safe from institutionalized harms and also the government is totally responsible for keeping people safe from institutionalized harms.

Butters123 believes it was wrong for governments to prohibit black slavery when a rational, regulated system of indentured servitude of darkskinned people (and a few whataboutery whites too) should have been implemented instead.

Butters123 believes it was wrong for governments to prohibit black slavery

What is it with you and your bad faith arguments. Do you really think your position is so weak that you have to fabricate what the other person thinks? Very sad

@VibrationNation There were some really interesting threads a while back with numerous sex workers offering their various perspectives. The lasting and stand out comments for me were from sex workers saying that the vast, vast majority of their colleagues had developed the ability to disassociate (an extremely powerful psychological defense mechanism) from the work they did as a consequence of their own early childhood sex abuse. They used either dissociation or drugs to alleviate the psychological distress associated with working as a sex worker

That’s interesting as in the over 500 threads on Mumsnet where prostitution has been a topic and where over 200 current and ex-prostitutes contribute the word dissociation is mentioned only three times.

So I am surprised you can find threads where it is mentioned as a feature of the overwhelming number of prostitutes. Perhaps you could point us to these threads?

Wtf @exponential. You don't think we're stupid enough to believe you've read through 500 mn threads on prostitution with your incredible forensic vision since this thread started? 'Dissociation' is not a word everybody knows. People might describe those sensations 500 different ways. What did you do before lockdown started?! You're coming across as a very bored, and quite lazy, misogynist with an axe to grind tbh.

Why is this site toxic?

Cos many of us believe nobody should be treated like a wanksock?

@Rufflecow I wondered how long it would be before the insults started-so I am lazy-but yet I can go through all those threads-ever heard of word search?

And misogynist-how so? Yes I do have an axe to grind-I believe in proper research not spouting off prejudices as evidence

pocketem,

a·nal·o·gy
/əˈnaləjē/
noun: analogy; plural noun: analogies

a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification

I haven't insulted you. I've accurately described the way you're coming across. Someone who was genuinely concerned with evidence would have followed my pointer to the research underpinning Nordic Model Now (freely available on their website) rather than searching for references to obscure psychological terminology on a social media site

Ruffle Haven’t got time to look now, but I think somewhere Exponential did critique the Nordic Model Now evidence and said that they have written to them about it. I am not sure that they have offered any alternative or better quality evidence, however.

I did find that post just now, and i have to say, for a poster seeminly obsessed with clarity, they didn't make a huge amount of sense. I think I'll wait until they have a peer reviewed study of their own for me to peruse before I give them any further energy.

I’m amazed at the amount of straw you managed to rustle up to make a nice man out of my posts, butter and exponential, while not actually engaging with any of my points. Quite impressive.

As neither of you are interested in debating the actual topic (what the BBC has to say about “sex work”) or the points I was making, I don’t think there’s much more to be gained in the debate for me.

I'm going to have one more go.

I think sex should be about - broadly - mutual pleasure, respect, mutual desire and trust, in the pursuit of fun, bonding, relationships and/or making babies.

I think sex work makes sex about objectification and the exchange of money in the pursuit of individual gratification and the breaking down of the connection between sex and relationships, fun and bonding. I cannot understand why this is desirable, any more than revenge sex is desirable (to offer a somewhat less serious comparator). Not only do think it is not desirable of itself, but I also think that promoting sex in this way is incompatible with teaching young people what, in my view, constitutes healthy attitudes to sex. I also think it is actively dangerous in encouraging a culture that says to men that women's bodies are something that can be used without any engagement with the person that inhabits them (and I use "men" and "women" here advisedly, because this dynamic is particularly relevant to feminism).

It is for these reasons that I object strongly to the BBC promoting sex in this way as AOK.

I didn't say that sex workers were slaves Butters, but since you lack basic reading comprehension let me phrase it a different way. If an oppressor group wants to engage in a system of behaviour which reinforces their own supremacy whilst undermining the equality and safety of an oppressed group, would you support such a system just because a minority of people from the oppressed group claimed they also wanted to participate in it? If no then you're a hypocrit, and if yes then I don't really think I have anything else to say to you. Men are an oppressor group and buying sex from women, an oppressed group, reinforces male supremacy and undermines the equality and safety of all women. But you think we should tolerate such a system because a small number of women claim that they also want to participate in it. Despite the fact that it further entrenches the cultural beliefs about male sexual entitlement and the commodification of women which harms all of us. I'm asking whether you would support such a system if any other oppressed group were on the sharp end of it, or whether its just women that you hate?

Sexual slavery is already illegal. If that is what is actually happening then the powers already exist to deal with it.

I love what a denialist you are. Oh no, it probably never actually happens.

And coercion is not just about physical force.

I get such a bad vibe of butters posts. Like hectoring and lecturing.

Not good to read.

I learnt nothing from butters posts apart from they posts feel a bit off and just something not right about them

Libertarians talk a lot about freedoms and not at all about how society should manage people that cannot or will not regulate their own behaviour.
Whereas most feminists have a background in managing the effects of harm (it is how many women find feminism after all), so that's usually our first consideration.
So we are talking at odds.

Prostituted women are among the highest murder rate of any demographic in countries where sex trafficking is legal as well in counties where it is illegal.
Male violence is the greatest human rights crisis the world has ever known.

10th rule of misogyny: The worst thing about male violence is that it makes men look bad.

Why is this site toxic?

Cos many of us believe nobody should be treated like a wanksock?

It's that dad gummed Feminism again, innit?

Exponential I just responded to your DM looking for the evidence on the dissociation thread.

As I said there it was probably a year back I read it on here, so obviously I can’t remember the exact thread it was on although if your read through threads from working girl the issue comes up a lot so you should be able to find it yourself with a bit of research on the topic.

It's that dad gummed Feminism again, innit?

Dagnabbit Bewilderness, we ruin everything

I learnt nothing from butters posts apart from they posts feel a bit off and just something not right about them

If Butters is just a normal woman and mumsnetter with no connection to the sex trade then I am Mickey Mouse.