Sarah Ditum discusses student sex work with Jane Garvey on Woman's Hour

[HecatesCatsInXmasHats]

Sarah Ditum was excellent speaking to Jane Garvey about Leicester Uni's Student Sex Worker Policy Toolkit earlier. The academic before her not so much: "Students have always looked for part time work" pretty low on analysis of the differences between say working in a shop and prostitution. Sarah's section, in which she states it's the wrong approach for a university to take, starts at around 39 minutes in:

"The university should be giving the message that these are dangerous things for young women to get involved with"

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q3gx

I’m guessing the policy toolkit includes rules that make it even less safe, like no bringing customers back to your student accommodation room or meeting in the stacks at the library because you’ll face a fine. Maybe other rules about how university WiFi is not licensed for hosting web cam sessions, so you’ll need to pay for and use your own hot spot.

Hope the tool kit is illustrated with pictures of punters.

It could be like those iSpy books we had as kids - tick off the smelly one, the violent one, the one who likes to humiliate ....

"University of Leicester launches online toolkit for staff to stop them making 'moral judgements' on student sex workers - but feminist writer says women should be told how 'harmful' it is rather than being supported"

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9042973/amp/University-Leicester-launches-student-sex-worker-toolkit.html

Looks like a few of us are old fashioned then. Proud of it too.

This toolkit has been produced with the Student Union. I'll give you one guess at the biological sex of the Women's Officer at the Leicester Student Union...

You can download the policy here

t.co/d2NdAwZBui?amp=1

Lots of "reducing stigma", obvs

Link to a previous related thread.

DD selling her body online www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4037569-DD-selling-her-body-online

In particular I was struck by this post:

"I've resurrected an extremely old name for this post as it's all still very close to the bone for me. I had a similar situation a couple of years ago with my uni age daughter, and without going into too much detail it ended up with her being stalked and the police and CPS being involved.

I don't feel comfortable saying too much as it's her story not mine, but it was all horrendous for a while and in some ways still is. And that's the thing that might give your daughter pause for thought. Mine was all very cavalier about it - 'everyone does it these days Mum, it's fine, you don't know anything about it' - but when it went wrong it went badly wrong. As the saying (almost) goes, a stalker is for life, not just for Christmas. The men who are the end users of these services are not always decent, well-adjusted people.

Like lots of girls her age, the internet is an integral part of my daughter's life, which was a factor in how she got drawn into this. Now she can't do anything online with a public profile. All her accounts have maximum privacy settings and she can't use certain platforms. She works in an arts/media field but can't have an online portfolio of her work with contact details because he'll know where she is and where she's been. She can't advertise any freelance services. She can't have a linkedin account. Employers in her field expect to be able to see an online presence and she is hugely disadvantaged by not having that.

She truly thought she was doing something empowering and so much better and cleverer than going out to work for minimum wage in a shop or pub, but just didn't realise the potential implications. I don't think she ever worried about her safety, but I think if she'd been aware that her future freedom could be so compromised she would have thought twice. Once you've given away your privacy and anonymity it's almost impossible to get it back.

Those posters saying ‘my daughter would never do this’, you are supremely unhelpful. OP, you are not a bad mother, and your daughter isn’t bad either. This is a result of a clash between pornsick, misogynist society, the all-consuming influence of the internet in young people’s lives (particularly instagram, in the case of many young women) and libfem ‘sex work is work’, girlpower culture. I’d agree with pp – keep the lines of communication very much open, lots of affection and conversation, listen for subtexts in what she’s saying, and grasp any opportunities you can to boost her self-esteem. "

Does the tool kit mention any of these types of risks and problems I wonder? Rhetorical question

"...being a sex worker allows me to be a
be a good therapist and allows me to afford my studies”

Selected quotes are interesting.

Although I do see merit in the argument that "women are going to do this anyway, so they need help to stay safe", this comes across as normalising and almost encouraging. The tone I'd like to see is "You have nothing to be ashamed of, and we do not judge you in any way. You have got into an area which is dangerous for your mental and physical health, and we'd like to help and support you to find other ways, if you'd like to"

My DD had her best friend from her old school to stay around the time of that thread. Her friend was filling me in on all the gossip about the school and other classmates as we moved away from the area some years ago. I was shocked and saddened by some of her updates. One girl is on Only Fans, and reportedly in the top 1% or something, apparently she has earned £90k, presumably in the year or two since leaving school. Her Instagram page is a teaser for the only fans and features many disturbing pictures, wearing fetish gear, hoods etc.

The obvious problem is it is lucrative and appears to be easy money, how else can school leavers earn that sort of money? Meanwhile career and educational development are neglected so that it is increasingly hard to change direction.

Another of their friends has been spending lockdown making masks and has earned a fraction of that amount of money so I bought some of her masks for Christmas presents to support her fledgling business.

Thanks for sharing that thread Fanny, I remember reading it and finding it really disturbing. The psychological impact will be lasting too no doubt.

Not starting from a point of saying prostitution is potentially dangerous, can put women in threatening situations and bring them into contact with violent punters and criminal elements, is irresponsible. As Worried says it's part of an effort to normalise a profession that no parent who waves their daughter off to university wants her to get involved in.

Does any parent want their daughters involved in this? I know I was the one who made the comment about University education meaning one shouldn’t need to do this, but honestly, it’s my belief that NOONE should have to do this. It’s simply demeaning by definition. I just felt I had to say that. I’m sickened that anyone feels that being paid to do this sort of thing is empowering.

They aren’t going to put it on their cv are they? So it’s not ‘ok’ and they know it.

If a student got a job as a burger flipper and she happened to serve her supervisor a burger one Saturday afternoon, noone would bat an eyelid.

What would the university's take be if a student's supervisor happened to be her punter? After all, it's just work, innit?

@HecatesCatsInXmasHats

According to the female academic involved there are male and trans student prostitutes, but when questioned by Jane Garvey she admitted that their numbers are extremely small compared to females.

And I was shouting at the radio that the people using those trans and male prostitutes were men, not women.

When my lovely young uni student corrected me from saying Prostitution to “it’s sex work, Mum” I said no, it wasn’t “work” of an sort it was exploitation, the commodification of women and something to help women escape from, not engage it.

If it’s work like any other, where are the people trafficked into being baristas or supermarket staff?

@KiposWonderbeasts

When my lovely young uni student corrected me from saying Prostitution to “it’s sex work, Mum” I said no, it wasn’t “work” of an sort it was exploitation, the commodification of women and something to help women escape from, not engage it.

If it’s work like any other, where are the people trafficked into being baristas or supermarket staff?

People are trafficked into lots of forms work, though? Farm work, fishing, nail bars, teachers (www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1963-trafficking-in-teachers), car-washes ...

"Join this Culture Shift webinar with University of Leicester to launch their new Student Sex Worker Policy and Toolkit - 15 December" www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/launching-university-of-leicesters-student-sex-worker-policy-and-toolkit-tickets-131610353109

Poverty is going to increase in the UK what with covid job losses and god knows what covid+Brexit will = but it can't be good. More and more women will be tempted into doing sex work that they really don't want to do but feel there is no option. It's heartbreaking and I don't blame them. I for one have worked full time for a year straight and still not managed to get out of my overdraft, used sheets as curtains and had to buy junk food because it lasted longer. I felt suicidal and although I didn't start an only fans I seriously considered it.

Many uni students can go home. What about women who can't? Poverty hurts women and pushes us to contemplate putting ourselves in situations we have to pretend feel normal and empowering .

That's an argument for economic measures to support women and students from poorer backgrounds. Its also an argument to break down barriers to employment for young people and job creation schemes. It's not an argument for the promotion of prostitution by a University. The University should provide empathetic and non judgemental support services for students who find themselves having to turn to prostitution in desperation, but the assertion that this is a legal job just like any other is dangerous.

Since stats show us that "sex work" is on the rise among women attending universities I think that universities have a responsibility to inform them of the dangers of it should they decide to bring it up.

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/sex-work-students-university-sugar-dating-debt-living-costs-a9166311.html

However, I do think economics is a huge, huge driving force and a root cause.

The students in the article above turned to sex work, why? Because they were worried about money. The kind that working part time at Savers won't solve and with student debt and job losses on the rise that's not going to change overnight.

youth-time.eu/students-prostitution-on-rise/
www.independent.co.uk/voices/austerity-sex-survival-universal-credit-poverty-prostitution-un-report-a8925256.html

www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-more-students-are-turning-to-sex-work-during-covid-19-pandemic-12066700?espv=1

Should sex work (which includes faceless nudes, phone sex, feet videos, sex videos, being sugar babies and traditional prostitution) be encouraged, normalised or sugar coated by universities? Of course not. Should it be ignored or demonized...I don't think that's going to solve it either. There are pros and cons to say working at Odeon vs selling nudes online and that's just part of the new topsy turvy reality that we live in.

It's interesting that issues that have historically faced the lower classes are seeping into universities and the middle class.

This is so depressing. University is meant to be a way of providing and encouraging more future options for young women, not fewer and much more dangerous options. Why are universities fucking over young women like this?

It’s not work, it’s not taxed, pensioned, insured, sick paid, maternity leaves, whatever else. It’s just abuse. Are we so out of control with the cost of living and state support this is the best we can offer young women? Really?

Your kid goes off to uni a schoolgirl, ready to conquer the world, and comes back a hooker?

Yes, fabulous...