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?

Most sex workers in agencies and saunas, plus independents are not drug users, just single mums who have useless fathers to their kids and they want to give their kids the best in life, and a normal job wouldn’t allow that.

A friend of mine has travelled the world thanks to being a sex worker and if she had stuck to her normal bank job then she couldn’t have done that.

The term sex worker is now used so there is an umbrella term for all sex work, which is not all full sex services. This is discussed at length in Sarah Pascoe's podcast - series 1 episode 1

Also a slut/slag doesn’t charge for sex, she just does it! More women today are sex workers than ever before, if the country didn’t have such shitty wages then maybe we would all find a real job

Don’t judge what you have no clue about

Your revolting choice of language says a lot about you.

You are so delicate you object to the neutral dictionary definition of how you earn your money yet casually throw in disgraceful, disgusting and misogynistic terms like "slut" and "slag"

Are "sluts" and "slags" undermining you by giving sex away for free as your fellow apologist put it?

There's been talk of respect- I reserve my right not to respect any person who thinks it is appropriate to call women sluts and slags.

It was a choice for me, I could’ve taken a normal job and been paid peanuts and still
struggled, whats the point of working to still struggle? There isn’t.

Also @DidoLamenting I was saying slit because I was referring to what the op said about us sex workers being one of them!

Slut not slit!

Also@DidoLamentingI was saying slit because I was referring to what the op said about us sex workers being one of them!

No, not buying that excuse.

@DidoLamenting out of everything I said I can’t believe you took away what I said about sluts, read the OPs post and you will see that she said it first and I was merely replying to what she said.

Also if everyone knows what slut means and I was saying that sex workers charge so it’s not plain old sleeping about and sex workers practice more safe sex than anybody else out there and I read this on SAAFE - Support and Advice For Escorts.

@DidoLamenting buy what you like, I wouldn’t have said anything about sluts if the OP hadn’t likened sex workers to them.

Got nothing else to pick on my statement about so I guess you need something.

Undermining me by giving ‘away sex for free’, aye right

@IAmFleshIAmBone

They are providing a service that arguably prevents a lot of sexually induced crimes. I couldn’t do it so yes they have my admiration the same as everyone else who provides a service.

This is so problematic I don't even know where to start

Actually this is very true and even the police woman said that too, I’m going to post an article here and let me know what you think.

Also@DidoLamentingI was saying slut because I was referring to what the op said about us sex workers being one of them!

I've gone through the OP's posts The OP did NOT call women "sluts" or "slags" - those are your words, not hers.

@IAmFleshIAmBone

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/sex-industry-in-scotland-inside-the-deluded-975581

@DidoLamenting she said she was brought up to believe that hookers are nymphos or sluts, read her very first post.

@Inappropriatefemale

Undermining me by giving ‘away sex for free’, aye right

Your fellow apologist wineracker gave it as a justification for doing your "job" .

@ComeOnBabyPopMyBubble

. I was brought up to regard them as either mercenary law-breakers or nympho sinner sluts encouraging married men to be unfaithful

Your issue is with whomever brought you up like that.

See this poster references what OP said

@DidoLamenting I don’t need to justify myself to anybody, except me, as to why I did that ‘job’, and certainly not to strangers on the internet!

I think a woman, like men, can have sex with as many men, and women as she likes!

[quote Inappropriatefemale]@DidoLamenting I don’t need to justify myself to anybody, except me, as to why I did that ‘job’, and certainly not to strangers on the internet!

I think a woman, like men, can have sex with as many men, and women as she likes![/quote]
I was just explaining why I did the job.

Sounds like you yourself has an issue with sex workers?

[quote Inappropriatefemale]@DidoLamenting she said she was brought up to believe that hookers are nymphos or sluts, read her very first post.[/quote]
She used slut once. You, who are apparently too refined to be called by your accurate job description, thought to expand that by adding "slag"

What the police woman said was really interesting and it was this “sex workers help some marriages because if a man can relieve himself and be less stressed then domestic violence isn’t as prevalent in the lives of marriages where DV happens”, and she will know more than anyone here what she is taking about.

Honestly, as someone who works in DV this is not the case. I'm so sorry that someone you thought would know better peddled that shit. Men abuse because they want to, because of control, not a loss of it.
If that were the case then there would be lessons on masturbation in Prisons.
No man is owed sex and they are not entitled to purchase access to the body of another human being.

I have an issue with prostitution. I think it is debasing and degrading and generally bad for society as a whole. Several posters have explained why it is bad for women as a class. Women will always be oppressed if prostitution is viewed as acceptable.

I have an issue with apologists who try to prettify it by making a fuss about the neutral dictionary definition of prostitution yet are happy to use words like slags.

I have no problem whatsoever with people having mutual consenting sex, whether casual or in a committed relationship.

God there are some supercilious, self perceived superior posters on here.

From the patronising, unhelpful posters who choose to slate the OP rather than actually engage in discussion (reminds me of the time that I asked my brother to explain a dirty joke to me and he scoffed and said if I didn't understand I should ask someone. I was asking someone, him, and he clearly didn't know but rather than admit it he chose to respond passive aggressively)

To the patronising posters who are deliberately (?) misinterpreting or putting their own spin on someone else's experience.

It's OK to not have a view or understand why you have the view that you have, no one is always right and actually the OP is showing far more maturity and critical thinking by being willing to explore and challenge themselves than all the posters offering biscuits or the narrative equivalent.

What a depressing reflection on feminism.

@StoppinBy you don’t need a fabulous body to be a sex worker, nor do you need to be beautiful, I thought that too before I got into it and whilst some women that do it are beautiful then most of us were average/pretty and some women were overweight, men like women of all shapes and sizes.

I will admit though that slimmer women got picked more than larger women but the young gorgeous ones would get picked more than the older ones but they rarely got second bookings because they didn’t have the same experience as the older ones, although that comes in time.

When I first started then I was 24 and not gorgeous but pretty, prettier than I am now at age 39 but that’s youth for you, I got picked in the sauna lots but I rarely got second bookings as I absolutely loathed it and all the older creepy men choose the women that are far too young for them, whilst younger guys tended to choose the ‘milf’ types, and the older ladies hated going with men young enough to be their sons, it’s a strange industry but it definitely allows you a peek into the strange habits of men.

A man can be married to a beautiful woman who is great in bed and still these men will eventually get bored of sleeping with the same woman over and over for years, plus men like having something that their wife doesn’t know, or at least this is what I picked up from men that pay for it, it’s no wonder most sex workers are so messed up about men and won’t ever have a relationship with one again, I wish I never got into the damn industry but money is a pull, at my highest earning power I was making £1800 a week just from one man, a single man btw and I know this as I used to visit him at home for 6 hours a time for 4-5 nights week.

How I miss that agency, the one that got raided!

I think you can disagree with what they do but still respect sex workers as they are humans. Respect is just somethi g that should always be there

I believe sex work/prostitution is exploitive and calling it work and making it woke let's people off the hook from challenging the patriarchal system, misogyny and inequality that leads them to that 'Job.' We used to blame the prostitutes for being sinful, now it's just women doing what they can to earn a living. Women hungry for sin, for sex, for cash, for other people's husbands. And we don't bother ask about the men. It's the punters who are to Blame for prostitution/ sex work not the prostitutes/workers. If there are no customers you have to shut up shop.
This^^