Why are we meant to respect sex workers?

[FlamedToACrisp]

OK, I appreciate I came to the feminism party late. You lot are all on your fourth drinks and the buffet table is half-empty, but I'm still trying to edge my way into the conversation and make sense of it all. So please don't do the sneering 'educate yourself' thing - if you don't want to talk to me about this subject, I'll just go and sit in the kitchen and talk to the dog.

Anyway:

Over recent years (at my age, anything after 1990 feels recent), the term 'prostitute' has become 'sex worker.' And with it, the attitude to prostitutes has changed. I was brought up to regard them as either mercenary law-breakers or nympho sinner sluts encouraging married men to be unfaithful, but now I'm supposed to feel they're just women (or men) choosing this way to make their living and we shouldn't be judgemental.

I haven't looked into this issue; lucky me, it has not impinged much on my life, although obviously I'm aware there are sex trafficking considerations. Have I got it right or misunderstood? What's the cause of this change?

So, is prostitution now socially ok? And if so, why is 'prostitute' an unacceptable term?

@DidoLamenting if I wanted to prettify my old job then I can, who are you to tell me I can’t?! I’m not right enough but you seem to think so.

Call me a whore, hooker, call girl, lady of the night, prostitute all you want on the internet but I can assure you that if you were having this conversation with me in person, and I told you that I didn’t like being called a prostitute then you would refrain from saying it, I’ve had similar type conversations in real life with woman about my old line of work and whilst, like you, they didn’t understand why I didn’t like the word, (and you don’t need to understand why I don’t like the word, I’m just telling you I don’t because it’s a horrible word and most people
Think you work the streets if the word prostitute is used) then they stopped calling me it because they were being respectful, unlike you who keeps picking at the minor things I write.

As long as I understood I was a pro, you would need to be pretty stupid to not understand, then it’s only the word I hate, even clients in the sauna wouldn’t call us that - to our faces anyway.

@DidoLamenting

Still prettifying it - for someone who doesn't have a problem being a prostitute you don't half go on about why you shouldn't be named as one.

I haven’t read the thread in more than a day and here you are still harassing this woman. Just stop.

You’ve made your point clear and to continue is just hateful.

It shows how big a problem there is that words we use to describe women in this discussion are also pejoratives, whereas all the words to describe the men are benign. It naturally shifts the discussion away from men’s actions and behaviours and onto women’s. It also stacks the deck against women with an unconscious bias.

@Dervel

It shows how big a problem there is that words we use to describe women in this discussion are also pejoratives, whereas all the words to describe the men are benign. It naturally shifts the discussion away from men’s actions and behaviours and onto women’s. It also stacks the deck against women with an unconscious bias.

Absolutely.

Focus on the men who pay for sex FGS and drive the demand (for women, and men, and also girls and boys).

Focussing in on individual women who have sold sex is... What do we hope to gain from that? In a conversation like this.

Look to the men.

I know a bloke who when drunk decided to tell me that he had paid for sex. He seemed very keen to talk to me about this (why??!!) and make me understand and empathise because he 'had to' because he had ezcema and who would want him.

I mean what a load of shit. And why corner me in the pub and go on about it. I assume that as a known feminist, getting my ok would assuage his guilt? He didn't get my ok, obv. And he's married with kids now.

The poor men who 'can't' get sex without paying should up their game. Sex is not a human right. Paying a woman (or a man) to let you fuck them is just grim.

100% agree NiceGerbil, I think it’s telling deep down having done it must have pricked his conscience.

Prostitution or whatever we call it should never be OK. The only thing is we should condemn the men who use these services first of all.

• I’m just telling you I don’t because it’s a horrible word and most people Think you work the streets if the word prostitute is used*

So what's the difference? Just the location?

Is it about choice? Is it because you're somehow "better" than the ones working the street?

Forgive me and with all due respect I think dragging one woman over the hot coals, continually over what words we use that is obviously a source of trauma for her is counter productive.

@ComeOnBabyPopMyBubble not better than the girls that work the streets at all, I’m in a better position obviously but I actually feel sorry for them, risking their lives to pay for a drug/drink addiction, I’d need to be a pretty cruel person not to feel for them, I was merely stating that people tend to assume a prostitute works the streets whilst a ‘high class escort’ is seen as one that works independently or for an agency, most don’t get that the definition of a prostitute is someone that sells their body for sex regardless if they tout for business on street or sit and wait in saunas for men to come in and pick them.

Nobody here knows me at all and I’ve been as honest as can be and you just want to pick at me because quite frankly women that do my job are a threat to marriages, and this says that you distrust your man, not us women.

I didn’t solicit sex, I worked in an agency where men would call and get escorts to their house or hotel and not all were married or in relationships.

Why not admit your real reasons for picking me apart - this is to the ladies that did, for the rest of you then thanks for your understanding of where I am coming from.

It’s not my job to help you understand something you will never understand unless you become a sex worker yourself.

I once heard that cab drivers hate when passengers say ‘have you had a busy day’, and I don’t understand why they don’t like the question but I respect that they don’t like it, it’s not my job, and quite frankly I don’t care why they hate the question, I just don’t ask them, it’s the same sort of thing about being called a prostitute, you don’t need to understand the whys, you can’t possibly understand everything!

Agree, dervel.

Oops xpost.

I think that, for me at least, it's about empathy. I have been offered money for sex twice. I can see how if I were in a slightly different situation, saying ok would have been my response.

My friend, as I mentioned earlier, had sex with 2 men for some drugs. She had a terrible home life. She was 15.

Focus on the men. The men who are offering random teenage girls money or drugs for sex. The entitlement that leads them to do this. The society that says to men. Don't ask don't get. No harm in asking. And that now is pushing the idea that it's no different to offering money to clean a car or stack a shelf or whatever else teen girls do for work these days.

I got into prostitution about 18 months before I got into heroin but looking back, I think the heroin was taken as my way to cope with the job, but the majority of women that do sex work in saunas/parlours/agencies and girls on AW are not addicts, sure some may take the odd line of coke on a night out or smoke weed (anybody from any walk of life can and do take drugs) but the majority are not heroin addicts.

Nothing made me work in prostitution except maybe greed, I wanted to wear the best clothes, the best jewellery, and have the nicest house and I wanted this all for my DD too, with a normal job then it would’ve taken me years to have all that and I wanted it yesterday, plus I was 24 and at 24 then I was more materialistic than I am now.

The only person I was hurting being a hooker was me, it’s not my responsibility that men were cheating and if they didn’t go with me then there would have been many to take my place.

It’s a part of my life where some bits were good and some were bad, and if I want to prettify it (which I don’t) then as it was my experience, then I could bloody well do so as I please!

Because they are human and what they do is none of your fucking business. Don't blame whoever brought you up you're old enough to have your own opinions

Ps it's now 2020 the world has moved on we are not in the 1960s anymore

@Inappropriatefemale I completely recognise your agency in this, and men who cheat on their wives is no small thing, but that isn’t nor should it be the headline in this. The headline is no matter what choices you made, nobody deserves to be treated as you were. I think taking ownership of your life is an admirable thing, but having a love of expensive things and seeing it as a shortcut to that sort of wealth isn’t a flaw unique to you. We are all heir to those sorts of weaknesses and in no way does it justify any of the harm men inflicted on you. It in no way serves you right, and I hope you haven’t internalised that sort of message. I’m inclined to ask where your daughter’s father was, but do not answer if your not so inclined, it was never just your responsibility to provide her with nice things. As much as these were your choices, and I respect that and I think it helps with the healing process to view it that way, I very much suspect and would be no less true that you have been failed by a great deal by a lot of people leading up to the choices you made.

This is the problem with viewing choice in isolation, I actually think we all bear a little increment of responsibility for the landscape in which the choices we all make occur. There is the way we men objectify you women, the male gaze, none of that can possibly be yours or any other woman’s fault, and that’s the soil this whole sordid choice becomes an option anyway. Turning to heroine was also your choice, but was a choice brought about by the choices of the men to decide to inflict harm on you.

Anyway I wish you and your daughter well.

I was brought up to think the men were worse for using them. And the people in charge of running the show were the worst of all. I still agree.

I was brought up to regard them as either mercenary law-breakers or nympho sinner sluts encouraging married men to be unfaithful, but now I'm supposed to feel they're just women (or men) choosing this way to make their living and we shouldn't be judgemental.

Interesting. I was raised by a 1940s born, teetotalling, church-going, “no-sex-before-marriage”, incense-loving, crucifix-hugging, diehard Catholic mother who lived for her thrice weekly communion.

She would no more have expressed such views than she would fly to the moon. And I doubt she’d have been too pally with anyone who did.

@Dervel thanks very much for your kind words.

People do not sell their bodies. They offer a service. The problem with a lot of studies into prostitution is that they actually set out with a certain premise and then respondents are often selected accordingly to fit various narratives. If those actually working in the sex industry talk of their experiences, they get dismissed as deluded and in denial if it isn’t entirely negative. There are different types of women covering the full socio-economic scale doing this kind of work and it is their background and circumstances that very much shape their experiences. Those that are desperate with their back to the wall who opt to enter prostitution as a last resort are at most risk and more likely to experience trauma. But in many cases, sex work isn’t the root of their plight but part of the problem. To work safely and actually earn a decent living means to actually be savvy and operate smartly, in fact, it may require some initial investment to get suitable premises, a good website, decent pictures etc. Those that have addiction issues and who aren’t capable of being organised, are likely to be at much more risk. However, I do know plenty of women who made some quite rational decision to work in this industry and who have never been assaulted or robbed. I have been on MN for a long time in many guises and I know that there are a lot of former escorts on here. They looked at the options of what kind of part time work they could do working around childcare and decided that sex work would allow them to keep up their mortgage payments and still have time to spend with their children. Quite a few I know have children on the spectrum who were looking at working minimum hours for a decent return. I know of quite a few who started in their late thirties and mid-forties and who after one too many crappy OLD experiences decided to stop bothering with looking for a partner and after getting ‘played’ and unsatisfactory encounters instead decided to might as well get paid. Some women don’t view sex as sacrosanct or want to be in committed relationships and are very pragmatic. It is about consent and it feels rather patronising if they aren't given agency over their own bodies and minds. I know of many intelligent women who rather than give up on their degrees, masters and PhDs decided to work as part time escorts. In almost all cases, they did so for the duration of their courses and then left the industry. It did not diminish them or damage them as a person. I also know of a lot of former nurses who are not that squeamish who just got fed up with long hours and wanting a better life/work balance. A lot of women leave after a number of years and there is a certain level of ‘burnout’, not so much due to the physical or mental toll of the sex side of things but because they were often engaging with people on an intense emotional level and it can be exhausting to massage other people’s egos over time. But you could argue that there are similar levels of ‘burnout’ in care professions. Those that decide to work in the sex industry are often accused of contributing to the evil underbelly of prostitution and trafficking. I find this kind of hyperbole a bit crap because many of us use the services of different industries, such as nail salons, agriculture, the hospitality industry, cheap fashion, cleaning etc that encompasses both willing and forced labourers. When you push down prices for services and goods, you are risking that there will be trafficked slave workers. But this does not make those working willingly and receiving the minimum wage or more responsible for the exploitation of those that don’t.

PS: OP your opening gambit was just revolting.

Well that's a long post about the women.

I'm more interested in talking about the men who pay for sex. What are your thoughts on them?

My main concern is for the women in this to be fair. When it comes to the men, I don’t have one size fits all answers. I have seen the fallout in the relationship board both over the betrayal far too often over the years, especially when posters were pregnant or just given birth and feel particularly vulnerable and found out their partner paid for sex. Not to mention the misappropriation of what should be family money on top of it all. It’s those personal stories that make this discussion real and show that it isn't 'victimless'. Of course, it isn’t the women’s fault who offer the service. The personal tragedies that may result of men paying for sex means it is no longer something theoretical to discuss. But then again, not all the men are married or in relationships. I am aware of some men who are long-term carers who have not been able to have a sexual relationship with their DW for a long time. In an ideal world they should not have sexual urges but I personally don’t feel ok to judge. Ditto for some relationships where there is no intimacy. If this isn’t a mutual decision it isn’t always black and white. However, in many cases, men who pay for sex actually have a full sex life in their relationship. They are just ‘greedy’. There are a few directories that connect disabled people with sex workers. Again, in an ideal world, everyone should be able to meet a sexual partner but they often don’t. Overall, in spite of my long post, I am concerned with an imbalance of economic and social power and abhor the fact that men would exploit vulnerable women. I doubt that many men would be unaware of someone forced and trafficked when they pay extremely low rates. So, when it comes to the men who pay for sex, I feel pretty conflicted.

...but feel no solidarity to those who do it to pay uni tuition or have a better life style as they show no solidarity to women who's husbands they are fucking, most men who visit prostitutes are married or in a relationship.
Surely it’s the married or partnered men who are the problem here?
Where is their solidarity to their partner? Why are the prostituted women
responsible for other people’s relationships?

So no, I do not respect prostitues, just as I don't respect drug dealers, they both choose immoral occupations which is harmful to society. Respect must be earned.
And what respect are the men who use prostituted women showing to the woman who they are paying to rape, or to their partner?
And I’d question using ‘choose’ regarding occupation for prostituted women.