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

[ChattyLion]

I’m also concerned that they’re presenting a hierarchy as if there are consequence-free forms of sex work. I used to know a woman who did phone lines work when she was hard up and she was still really emotionally fucked up by what she heard years later.

That was long before camera phones and cheap video recording equipment and the internet remembering everything. It’s dangerous in all its forms. Minimising that danger is lying and abusive.

It’s also not like there’s great non-stigmatised support available out there to help women emotionally and physically hurt, attacked or killed as part of doing this ‘job’..seeing as it’s just a job and known to be dangerous, we should be publishing all those stats and women’s stories and we should be able to fund that support really well. And women should be able to speak freely what has happened to them.. yet somehow..

Government needs to really really look at the consequences of austerity and the social changes from the internet like the ubiquity of porn, very carefully.

[CherieMarch]

Minimising the dangers is absolutely concerning. I think a lot of young women buy into this idea because they need the cash so badly that it's either do it and feel disgusted or do it and pretend to feel empowered as a coping strategy until enough money is accrued and then go back to working a job that's safe and somewhat enjoyable. 😒

[ThatIsNotMyUsername]

So how will they react when a young woman is raped, beaten or murdered as a result of being told ‘Hey it’s just a job, we think it’s a good idea!’?

[HecatesCatsInXmasHats]

As I said before I think non-judgemental support for women who face poverty or prostitution is vital. A university giving it tacit approval as an opportunity to supplement their income as the academic behind the toolkit does, is different:

"The point is really that sex work is generally legal, it's a legal activity between two consenting adults and universities are not there to give moral judgment in relation to what people do."

As if it's just another job, when it's a job that increases the risk safety of the individual on all sorts of levels. Prostitution is much more likely to bring a young woman into contact with violent punters, criminal gangs, drugs, sexually transmitted diseases and psychological distress than your average barista job. This isn't a game.

[ThatIsNotMyUsername]

If it was merely ‘work’ there’s be a City & Guilds cert you could do in it surely?

[FannyCann]

NVQ I'd have thought?

[LiteratureMichigan]

What if she doesn't meet punters. What if she has a private OnlyFans account? The amount of money some of these women are making from an online - no contact in person - private account is insane. A lot of them don't even post nudes but sexually suggestive photographs. I'm talking thousands a week for bikini pics. Or a cleavage pic on snapchat for a couple hundred.

[LiteratureMichigan]

Kaya Corbridge, from Colne, Lancashire, earns £30,420 a month selling snaps on Onlyfand. 30K A MONTH. No meeting in person.

A 28 yr old Medical student by the name of SweetArches makes 58K PER YEAR selling photos of.....her feet!

That's not so seedy and dangerous. She's not being exposed to the dark world of gangs and crack cocaine. She's posting bloody toe photos.

[HecatesCatsInXmasHats]

This is a sex work toolkit we're talking about, it includes prostitution. Plus have a little read of this and see if you think onlyfans comes without a dark side:


www.refinery29.com/en-gb/bbc-onlyfans-nudes4sale-young-women

[Grellbunt]

Comes down to values.

Not everything is about money.

[InterfectoremVulpes]

Kaya Corbridge, from Colne, Lancashire, earns £30,420 a month selling snaps on Onlyfand. 30K A MONTH

Sounds like an MLM sales pitch, but for sex work instead of wax melts.

For every Kaya earning thus amount of money only selling photos, how many desperate, drug addicted and abused women do you think there are being forced into a £10 a go blow job in a grimy back alley to line a pimps pockets?

Its so easy to quote the tiny number of women claiming yo be making thousands for "only" flashing their tits and minge on a camera, whilst closing your eyes to the actual realities of the vast numbers of sex workers face.

[Gurufloof]

Government needs to really really look at the consequences of austerity and the social changes from the internet like the ubiquity of porn, very carefully
On the porn aspect, the UK government could ban porn overnight but we have to take on the rest of the worlds governments to ban it. The internet being a easy port to any countries web sites.
On the austerity I too agree, but that's not the only reason driving prostitution. I dont know how many of the trafficked women even show as claiming benefits etc.

The downside of all this is that eventually women will no longer go to university, then again women will miss out on lifelong advantages. Or other women will rise up and create women only universities. And other places that women need.

[Gurufloof]

What is Kaya Corbridge going to do when she gets older, no longer gets the money shes on now? Cant see flipping burgers as a good alternative to prostitution money wise. But no way will she get a decent job anywhere else. Remember that employers Google (or should) potential employees.