So, the sex "work" "debate"

[FizzyDizzy121]

Having looked through a lot of older threads here, I'm asking for some help.

Do you have a DP or family member that you fundamentally disagree with on a topic as black and white (to me) as sex "work"?

In my younger years, I was very much in favour of choice feminism, including in areas such as prostitution. I believed that the pushback was motivated by our issues around sex and that if a woman (usually) wants to run a business that way, supply and demand right? I did argue for better protections, H&S involvement etc.

Now, my whole approach changed a few years back. Buying consent makes me very, very uneasy and I would argue is a form of coercion/distress rather than freely given. Men (usually) who "visit" prostitutes are having sex with someone they KNOW wouldn't have sex with them if there wasnt money involved which is dodgy on so many grounds.
And all that is before we get to the amount of assaults, trafficking etc involved.

My DP is pretty left leaning (as am I) and views all work as unjust. Humans shouldn't have to be coerced to do labour in order to pay for essentials like shelter or food. And he sees sex "work" as within this bracket. Its exploitation but not any different than a retail worker for example. He says he'd be happy for his relative to be involved in sex "work", he argues the money changing hands is not buying the woman but the labour of the woman (I.e. the sex) for a set amount of time.

How do you respond to such thinking? Does it impact show you think of the other person?

Any thoughts/comments gratefully received

@Escapeplanning

I have a brother who has had to give up work after 30 plus years on building sites. He's worn out and it's taken a big toll on his body but he's missing the mates, the laughs, the tea breaks, the pub after work and the pride in building something that lasts. He's not had to spit someone's bodily fluids out of his mouth on a daily basis.

What a male perspective.

And your brother has the satisfaction of pointing out, or even just looking at, buildings and say "I built that"

There are many jobs which are hard physical work or dangerous or unpleasant but they are jobs society needs done to make the world a better or safer place or to meet legitimate needs.

There are other jobs, say, hairdressers, interior designers, personal stylists which society could function without if no-one did them but they harm no-one.

No-one needs to buy sex and selling sex is dangerous and harmful without conferring any benefits.

'Lots of people are facing difficult times in the pandemic... would that mean they turn to sex work?'

UC has led to women turning to prostition- there were loads of articles about it a few years back.

I find men who pontificate about how we're all slaves to the capitalist machine and all paid work is exploitation and prostition is just another job... Very tiresome.

I think a lot of men just can't empathise at all with being the smaller weaker person who is selling penetration and the dangers etc that comes with that.

Bottom line is a lot of men see women as 'for' sex, and if they can make some money at it then wow that sounds pretty good.

A lot of men are fundamentally jealous of the fact that women find sexual partners much more easily, in general. They seem incapable of seeing past that very male viewpoint.

Maldivesdream

What am trying to say is. How have someone got themselves into that position? They maybe once worked in Sainsburys and fallen upon hard times your speaking as though that’s all they ever were a born prostitute.

I am sure there are those who had other careers although I also know of women who left school at 15 and knew nothing else. So, I am sure that there are very different qualification levels.

I would expect though that the proportion who have entered into prostitution out of desperation might need assistance to get out of it. And as someone who has been out of work for a while now, it isn’t hard to get a job interview without ‘recent’ experience in a job similar to that which you are applying.

And I also don’t assume that sex workers don’t have other responsibilities that they need to work around. Finding flexible work hours, maybe from home, needing no qualifications, bringing in more than basic wage doesn’t seem all the easy to find in my experience.

Why did they start in the first place? That’s what I was getting at! I by no means would encourage anybody and I certainly wouldn’t be happy if it was my friend or family member. Lots of people are facing difficult times in the pandemic... would that mean they turn to sex work?

Have you not read the number of articles that have been released about women turning to prostitution when UC came in? There have been posts from women on this thread to read about the motivations. I am not sure what you mean though, so please feel free to explain more.

Do you think that there is a large group of women who deliberately choose sex work who could get paid as much per hour for other work that has no qualifications necessary? Do you believe that the large proportion of voluntary sex workers feel they have other options and this is their best one? I am not taking about women on OnlyFans but those having their body physically used by men.

@Winesalot no I haven’t read the threads about women who were struggling on UC and turned to prostitution. I haven’t been on MN all that long. I would be interested to read a thread on that.

I can’t imagine loosing my job and becoming a prostitute in my home town.

What I meant about there’s lots of people struggling finically due to the pandemic job cuts and reduced hours.... It would never cross my mind that I could consider any kind of sex work to make money.

If your in a dark place already on drugs and alcohol dependant I can see how you could easily get Into prostitution to feed your habit.

I’ve never heard of anyone struggling on benefits to the point where they feel the need to sell their body.

@DidoLamenting

My DP is pretty left leaning (as am I) and views all work as unjust. Humans shouldn't have to be coerced to do labour in order to pay for essentials like shelter or food. And he sees sex "work" as within this bracket. Its exploitation but not any different than a retail worker for example. He says he'd be happy for his relative to be involved in sex "work", he argues the money changing hands is not buying the woman but the labour of the woman (I.e. the sex) for a set amount of time

How do you respond to such thinking? Does it impact show you think of the other person?

My response would be there's no arguing with stupid and I frankly wouldn't waste my time with anyone who put forward such rubbish.

The only exception might be if I were about 30 years younger and the person was drop dead gorgeous and I fancied a short term, meaninglessness fling.

This.

I agree with him on the philsophical point but I don't think it follows that it is no different to retail work.

There employers who exploit employees in sweat shop conditions which nobody would work in if they had any other options. It's immoral and illegal but not, in my view, slavery.

I think the same with prostiution. Nobody grows up wanting to do it and the blokes who pay are scumbags. It is not a respectable profession but it is not rape. I don't see any contradicition there.

Just because you can make money from something doesn't make it right. What does he think of drug mules? Many are driven to that by poverty and desperation and are exploited by their bosses. Is it the same as working in Tesco? No. Would you want your family member doing it? No.

Would he do it? I bet you the answer would be a big fat no!

I’ve never heard of anyone struggling on benefits to the point where they feel the need to sell their body.

There was quite a few articles about this in the press over the past few years.

And at least one person on this thread shared their experience.

Just because you can make money from something doesn't make it right.

Pimps and traffickers are also just workers.

They are doing this work because it's easier or pays better than lugging cement bags. If the women they exploit are working then traffickers are also working and your DP needs to be consistent here. The capitalist structure pays them better for a segregated occupation ie they are using their fists and sexual violence at work but women are using their sex and other organs.

The highest paying job is the male role. As usual.

@FizzyDizzy121

His argument is that having sex for money is no different than say, lifting bags of cement around for money.

Oh fuckinghell that's really bad. A perfect example of how apparently kind, well meaning lefty men are clueless about women. It is not the same as other jobs. In no other job do you have to let your boss cum in you. In no other job do they heave and sweat on top of you. In no other job does your boss/customer invade your body in this way. The psychological effects are different. From what I understand most women who work in the sex trade were sexually abused as children (also, the only person I know who tried escorting was raped by her dad several times as a teenager). That means that generally speaking it's a lot of psychologically damaged women who do this work. There might be a small portion who get to choose their men if they do high class escorting, but for other women it's really shit.

Your partner is saying this because he has no idea what it's like to have sex as a woman, no idea what it's like to have someone else penetrating his body and being physically weaker than them too.

Bottom line is a lot of men see women as 'for' sex, and if they can make some money at it then wow that sounds pretty good

A lot of men are fundamentally jealous of the fact that women find sexual partners much more easily, in general. They seem incapable of seeing past that very male viewpoint

Very true @NiceGerbil

@fishtankhelp

I have just watched the film trafficked. I am quite traumatised to be honest. Maybe you should get him to watch it and let's see if he changes his mind

Watch this if you can. It's a thriller about sex trafficking. It's upsetting and disturbing in parts, which is to be expected, but I thought it was very well done.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Traffic

'respectable profession'

This is nothing to do with whether it's 'respectable' or not.

And who lacks respect for them? The men who pay them, that's who.

@MademoiselleDeWinter That's exactly why I don't want to see it normalised. It will lead to it becoming more & more accepted as a legitimate career path for women (because that's all we're for isn't it?). First everyone will say 'Oh no, that will never happen'. The it will be 'Well we're doing a trial run of a small amount of soft work adverts', then it will be 'We've started to include sex work as legitimate jobs' which will then lead to women being pressured by the state to accept them or their benefits will be cut......because sex work is just like any other work, isn't it? Expect, you won't see any respectable daughter of the higher classes doing it. It will be work that's only good enough for poor or working class women.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/anger-over-job-centre-adverts-944157
www.standard.co.uk/news/job-centre-seeks-women-to-strip-as-8-an-hour-webcam-performers-7248521.html

*Except

This is nothing to do with whether it's 'respectable' or not.

A prostitute does something she would rather not do in return for money. What is the wrong with that being called work? It can't be differentiated from other work objectively, the only difference is the perceived immorality of the activity. To say it isnt work is to say it is not respectable.

You can argue that the punter is immoral not the prostitute but the "work" refers to the prostitute's side of the bargain so implies a judgement about her actions.

@chickenyhead

If that woman could press the pause button and decide without consequence (ie she still gets the money) not to do it, then fine. She might be choosing.

Anything less is exploitation.

If i press the pause button on the way in to work decide without and demand paying my manager wouldn't do it. The builder that is turning up tomorrow needs to work at height risking his body if he doesn't want to do that he doesn't get paid. I dont get how sex work (as a professional job) is anything other than a paid job

I agree with your husband, I'm a woman. All work is exploitation. If I had everything I needed in lfie, I wouldn't choose to work a job, any job, I would just live... Same for sex work, I would only do it if I needed the money.

Personally, sex to me is not a big deal. Money is. If I want an extra £200 to go buy some nice clothes or get my hair done, having sex with someone doesn't seem like too much of a price to pay... I still get the clothes I wanted.

Capitalism is to blame for most of this imo.

Expect, you won't see any respectable daughter of the higher classes doing it

Probably won't see them collecting rubbish or sweeping the streets either.

without conferring any benefits.

It does confer benefits. It gives money to someone who needs/wants it. Get rid of needing money to survive/have nice things/poverty/wealth gap, and you may solve the issue of sex work.

I have also changed my mind on the subject as I got older. I believe that prostitution is interlinked with criminal activities (gangs), drugs, people trafficking, and most importantly grooming. A huge number of women who end up being prostitutes have been through the care system. As a society we are failing to protect them from an extremely violent, unregulated, and high risk 'job'.

You know when people who work at Tesco or as a bin man or in a not brilliantly paid job win the lottery and say they won't give up work because they love the community/fulfilment/insert other reason?

Well I'm certaintly not one of those people. I work to survive, nothing more.