When we talk about prostitution, we should focus on the buyers

[Clymene]

I was just reading a couple of tweets on Twitter about the images that the MSM uses in articles about prostitution - often women's bare legs and high heels.

The author suggested it would be better to have photos of the buyers instead so she linked to this blog by a German photographer who photographed and interviewed Johns in a brothel in Stuttgart

http://www.bettinaflitner.de/index.php?id=1270&L=1

She also links to a website with quotes from over 350 sex buyers from a cross Germany, Austria and Switzerland. I haven't read this because I don't have the stomach today (warnings about graphic descriptions of sexual violence).

dieunsichtbarenmaenner.wordpress.com/menu/

Both have English translations. The reality vs the 'sex work is work' position is pretty stark.

I've been saying this for years: put the focus on the men.

What sort of a man thinks it's okay to coerce consent that wouldn't be given freely?

The answer is pretty damn obvious.

YES. This

1000 times this. "We need to reduce the stigma around sex work" is code for "we need to reduce the stigma around buying sex".

"Sex work is work" is a men's rights campaign with the aim of increasing men's ability to buy sex. How this isn't painfully obvious to everyone is really beyond my comprehension.

@carlaCox I disagree with your statement. Saying sex work is work, is saying that the people who do it deserve representation and worker’s rights, including financial help (in the pandemic for example). Sex workers should be treated as human beings, not ostracised or criminalised.

Reducing the stigma around sex work may mean someone’s family don’t cut them off, or they’re brave enough to come out with their experiences.

I am not supportive of legalisation, but decriminalisation is the safest model. Believe me, the men are awful, but the Nordic Model does nothing but endanger full service sex workers

Absolutely not.

Criminalise the buyers (rapists, in cases of enslaved children/women/men)

Agree Clymene In discussions, the focus (including images) should be on the punters.

Just read the reviews that male sex buyers leave on various websites. Then tell me again that this is a ‘normal’ job.

Even though many will pretend otherwise, this discussion isn’t about whether the women who sell sexual access to their bodies should be stigmatised - of course they shouldn’t! What a stupid thing to suggest! - but whether men should have the right to this access.

Let’s put it like this: even those men who do not buy ‘sexual services’ but insist that ‘sex work is work’ (whatever that means) can be safe in the knowledge that no matter how unattractive and unappealing they personally are, somewhere out there is a woman whose body they can legitimately access. That’s what it’s about, and it is disingenuous to deny it.

Must be an empowering feeling to be able to walk this world knowing that whether you’re ugly, mean, stupid, drunk, violent, you will still be able to find a woman who will give you intimate pleasure and pretend that you are none of these things, while ‘not being your equal in pleasure or consent.’ (S. Ditum) It’s truly an empowering industry (for the buyers).

Reducing the stigma around sex work may mean someone’s family don’t cut them off, or they’re brave enough to come out with their experiences.

I've got to disagree with this. I have a family member who was forced into prostitution (drug addiction, serious mental health issues, a history of abuse). Firstly, how many families would cut someone off who was in this situation? And if they would then do you really think campaigns around "sex work is work" would help? Secondly, my family member does not want to be celebrated for being a sex worker. She's well aware that it represents the absolute lowest point in her life, not because there's "stigma" around it but because it was absolutely horrific. What she needed was a route out of the mess she was in, not regulations to allow her to sell more sex.

No one, in their heart of hearts, is ever going to believe that giving blow jobs to disgusting cretinous men is "work". They're just not. All this "sex work is work" campaign is doing is giving cretinous men the green light to abuse women (and not be stigmatised for it) and increasing demand for prostitution.

@carlaCox I agree that the main focus should be support so women can leave prostitution.

Plus the "sex work is work" campaign has done nothing to change the attitudes of social services or the courts who are still removing children from women who are forced into prostitution and victim-blaming the women involved. If there was a concerted campaign to reduce stigma and victim-blaming in social services then that is a campaign I would get behind.

Sorry, rant over. As you can tell, this issue sits very close to home for me!

@ACatWhoBinds I'm interested in this because I'm generally a liberal, and think that making things illegal is often an unhelpful policy response. I'm broadly in favour of the legalisation of cannabis. I could support legalisation of class A drugs, for example, if it were backed with sufficient government intervention e.g. controlled sales through pharmacies. I recognise though, that there would STILL be illegal sales/imports. So the problem would continue to exist - it would just be a slightly different problem.

I've tried applying the same philosophy to prostitution. If it were legalised, with legal controls/checks to protect sex workers, would that improve things? Wouldn't there still be an illegal sex trade, serving men who didn't want to wear a condom or who wanted to be violent during the transaction?

I genuinely want to be liberal, but I don't think it would help in this case. I completely agree that we shouldn't be prosecuting women (that is, that sex work should be decriminalised) but I don't see the problem with the Nordic approach, which combines decriminalisation for women with prosecution for men. Well, I see the problem - that sex work will continue to be dangerous for the women involved - but I don't see a better way of approaching it.

Sarah Ditum always makes well-reasoned arguments on this issue. Enjoyed her latest article: unherd.com/2020/12/what-choice-do-prostitutes-have/

carlaCox I hope your family member is in a better place now. The argument that it's the stigma, not prostitution itself that's the problem is so non-sensical. Reminds me of the time when Germaine Greer was (rightly) criticised for saying (IIRC) that rape would be less of a social issue if we removed the stigma from being raped.

I often wonder how many 'sex-work-is-work' lib fems actually are friends with women who have worked in the sex industry, and how many of them secretly do despise them.

leafinthewind

Why don't you research what has happened in Germany? They decriminalised prostitution in the early 2000s under a left-wing government and it has been quite an 'interesting' social experiment.

It is common in Germany for male sex buyers to be able to refuse to wear a condom - there is even an acronym for it (AO - 'alles ohne gummi', meaning 'all without rubber'). Brothel owners have become very rich, some convicted of trafficking offences. The enlargement of the EU has brought many Eastern European women into the German sex industry, along with many other migrant or minority-ethnic women (women of non-German ethnicity make up, I think, 80-85% of prostituted women), fuelling a shocking racism that is rarely discussed openly.

Also the German model was touted on the promise that it would bring improved "workers rights" in the form of health care, sick pay etc. All that has happened instead is the rise of Mega Brothels, where prostitutes are treated as "independent contractors" renting a work space. So no health insurance, no holiday pay, none of the promised benefits - instead an average of 6 tricks before you even break even on the room rental and can start earning for yourself.

And that's before you even get onto the plywood sheds in motorway "rest places", or the fact that the price of a blow job on the streets of Hamburg has fallen below the price of a big Mac. Think about that - sucking some stranger's dick in the gutter without a condom and at the end of it you still can't afford a cheap burger.

The Nordic model may have its flaws, but Germany has created hell on earth.

Put the experiences side by side and it is a no-brainer as to which is worse for women. Decrminalization has horrific consequences: the Nordic model wins hands down for harm reduction.

Thanks @dayoftheclownfish I wish I could say "yes she's fine now" but unfortunately not. She's still having problems with addiction and mental health and is currently allowed only very limited contact with her children. She's been completely let down by social services, the courts and the NHS. We're doing everything we can to help her but it's just a nightmare. The "stigma of sex work" really is at the very bottom of her list of concerns to be honest and I think this would be true for any woman in her situation.

how many of them secretly do despise them

I don't know if it's about despising them necessarily. I've seen these Ted talks on YouTube by women talking about loving sex work and feeling rewarded that they're making another person happy and everyone is furiously applauding. I think it's easier to pretend that sex work is liberating and we all just need to be supportive rather than to face up to the reality of what is going on.

I can completely understand that many people think unions and regulations would help women in this situation (as they have done for many sectors) but the reality for my family member is that I highly doubt she would have been eligible for any of this stuff even if it existed. She was seriously addicted to drugs/alcohol and was mentally unstable. There's no way she would have lasted five minutes in a regulated brothel or whatever. And even if she did I suspect it would have made things ten times worse for her as she would never have been able to escape it.

I was listening to the Ted Talk hour, Radio4Extra this morning, reframing, rewording was part of the 'gender' discussion (I was a bit pissed off that they didn't reword 'gender' but hey! They were Americans and I know there is a langauge mismatch).

Simple example

Ted beats Mary
Mary is beaten
(These days we use the term battered)
Mary is a battered woman

3 steps to making the man invisible and making Mary the cause of the issue!

We need to reverse that!

Name the problem...

Agree carlaCox. I also think that listening to people who are in a situation is a virtue: it's good that people want to hear from sex workers before making up their minds on this. A problem arises because the women who are able to speak up are not representative of the women who are suffering.

dayoftheclownfish I read Ditum's UnHerd article and found it really interesting. I've talked to pro-legalisation friends and used the classical economic negative externalities argument myself. I think, as a pragmatic liberal, that it's quite a compelling point. The idea that it is, in any sense, OK for men to purchase access to women's bodies for sex is damaging for all women - not just the women who (appear to) opt in. Trouble is, the women who have been listening to the sex workers unions don't find it anything like as convincing as I do. I got 'grey rocked' by a friend the other day. It was briefly entertaining, as I realised what she was doing. But I really didn't get anywhere.

I recently was shown a university text book in which sex work is defined as ONLY people who want to be doing it and probably enjoy it, because if a woman (or man) is coerced into it, including for financial reasons, or trafficked, then that's abuse and sexual slavery.

It is of course, but I'd love to know what percentage of "sex workers" are left when you remove those other people. My guess is a statistically insignificant number. And yet, they're the ones speaking out on behalf of everybody else. And the ones being heard.

Want to see the stigma attached to prostitution then watch what happens when a formerly prostituted woman speaks out against the sex industry. How many woke sex work inclusive kind people sit up and listen..?

leafinthewind Agree with you, it is possible to see this issue through a ‘negative externalities’ lens, thank you for formulating this so well.

Ditum makes a totally obvious but irrefutable point: if there are these women who ‘just love sex’, why don’t they just go ahead? There are many willing men, no need for any financial transaction. Our society only mildly disapproves of plentiful casual sex, if at all. The point about prostitution is that you are having sex with someone you would reject in all other circumstances.

It is of course, but I'd love to know what percentage of "sex workers" are left when you remove those other people

Exactly. Take all women actually selling sex (as opposed to web cam / phone sex). Then remove all who are coerced or financially coerced into it, remove all who have a history of sexual abuse, remove all who have a drug addition or serious mental health issue. How many women would be left? A tiny minority I suspect.

And yet some people seem to think we should design our entire approach to this issue around this tiny minority.

How many woke sex work inclusive kind people sit up and listen..?

None. Not one. That's because they don't give a shit about raped adults and children.

Quote:""Sex work is work" is a men's rights campaign with the aim of increasing men's ability to buy sex."

I disagree, "sex work is work" is a term used by a large number of sex workers themselves. British-based groups made up of sex workers (or "prostitutes" if you'd rather used that word") include Scot-Pep, IUSW, Umbrella Land and the English Collective of Prostitutes; all use the terms "sex work" and "sex worker" as well as campaign for full decriminalisation. A view also supported by many local and international human rights and health orgs.

"Umbrella Land", I meant to type "Umbrella Lane". whoops

MargaritaPie I know that, and I think the others here do too.

I don't want men to buy access to women's bodies for sex. I think it's bad for all of us if this happens (see 'negative externalities' conversation upthread). I know some people here have made sweeping comments, but my guess is that's borne of frustration and long experience. The strongest thread running through this discussion, though, is that all of us would like to see an end to men buying access to women's bodies for sex.

It's hard for me to turn away from women sex workers giving their own accounts of their own experiences - I'm used to making an effort to listen to women's accounts. But in this case, I'm concerned that the accounts which are being centred in the discussion are pretty unusual, and that legislative approaches which would work for those women (e.g. legalisation) would be bad for (a) trafficked or addicted or otherwise vulnerable women who are part of the sex trade, and (b) other women who are not part of the sex trade.