Help me stay sane and keep my friends.

[loopyapp]

Quick scene setting. Studying sociology, topic of prostitution came up. All fellow students angrily defending the rights of sex workers to sell their bodies.

Did my best to explain all the many ways in which sex work is just exploitative but I'm not very articulate under pressure.

Please post information/links to help me out especially with regards to how sex work enables male entitlement to sexual gratification.

It's disappointing that your friends discussed this angrily and apparently intolerant of a different point of view to the extent that they might decide to exclude you from the friendship group.

I would suggest reading anything by Julie Bindel as a starting point.

' I pay thy poverty not thy conscience' (that's Shakespeare, that is, Romeo and Juliet where the the guy Romeo he is buying poison from is expressing moral qualms about handing it over, and Romeo replies with this).

Just been ranting about privileged uni educated women crapping all over more marginalised womens' rights. And here is another example. These women/men on your course have an empathy bypass. They can't imagine being driven into this by poverty, they can't imagine being enslaved or trafficked. And they have a hyper-individualist view of the world so they are not considering that normalising men buying women's' bodies creates a demand that pimps need to traffick women to meet that demand (though your fellow students probably decry capitalism, so go figure).

Don't worry about not being articulate under pressure - its a skill you can gain through practice - so keep speaking!

Sociology student here. I've decided the less I say the better. There is no way to get through to these people, and you'll only be rewarded with ostracism.

I deeply admire women who are able to withstand this

If anyone uses the "empowering" line I would ask "why, if it is so empowering do we not have the same amount of men doing it?"

Just reflects the absence of any nuanced argument in public life today.

I can see these people on the front lines of the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution or among the Witch Burners in Medieval Europe. Acc

68% of prostitutes have PTSD. So it's hardly the same as working for McDonald's or cleaning toilets.
We also don't allow surrogacy for profit or selling kidneys in this country, so we already limit how people can "sell" their bodies.

@showmethegin

If anyone uses the "empowering" line I would ask "why, if it is so empowering do we not have the same amount of men doing it?"

...and why are we not encouraging our daughters (or sons) to take up this work? Or considering it for ourselves?

I believe there is also evidence that in countries which treat prostitution as a completely legal, problem-free job, trafficking of women and girls increases though I can't remember the source for that.

There's also the issue of if you legalise sex work, can you force those attending job centres into taking it or losing benefits?

www.spaceintl.org/media/full-decriminalization-in-new-zealand/

This is a difficult read but explains what has happened in New Zealand.

Ask them if they they have any idea about the reality of prostitution and who does it? Are they basing their ideas on things like Secret Diaries of a Call Girl? Because I think that's often the problem - media shows prostitutes as taking control, often mouthy, confident etc. It glamourises it.

Ask them if they think a single mum who has fled an abusive relationship and can't survive on benefits but can't get work during the day because of childcare is being "empowered" by prostitution? Ask them if they think that single mum would CHOOSE to do it if she had any other choice. Ask them if they think that all the prostitutes in the world do it because it's a nice "easy" way to make money or can they put themselves in a position where they imagine a woman who doesn't want to be a prostitute but has zero choice!?

The lack of empathy and ability to see more than one side of a story infuriates me. It's like the "well, I worked hard and pulled myself up from nothing to get to wear I am" stories who don't take into account supportive families and programmes, skin colour, lack of abuse etc.

I imagine it is very difficult to tackle this in this setting and a number of different things were said, off the top of my head

"It's like any other job" (You use your body for a desk job, being an Amazon worker, lots of jobs don't have a pension, you don't get annual leave with zero hour contracts etc - which jobs have health and safety advice which includes how not to get raped and murdered?)

"If you are against sex work you must be against abortion too" (because body autonomy cannot be discussed in isolation, issue by issue)

"Women are empowered to use their bodies how they choose in a liberal society and they enjoy sex and like that they can earn lots of money" (which totally ignores the supply/demand of prostitution is dictated to by men and we stop people from selling organs. Women do of course enjoy sex, whether they should sell it or not is a different point.)

Those are just my top three guesses but it will be a matter of picking apart their arguments if you have the energy. It may not be worth your time but I commend you for giving it a try!

My central points on similar discussions have been that there is no little girl alive who wants to be a prostitute when she grows up and any woman who talks about it in these terms never wants it for her daughter, only for someone else's.

I'd add that so many of the "sex work is work!!" people are critical of capitalism, believe work places are oppressive, and claim to be communists. So why wouldn't they adopt that critical stance when looking at "sex work"? If you claim to be against capitalism, why would you want sex to be corrupted by the exchange of money? Why would you want deprived women to feel they needed to offer anything other than enthusiastic consent to sex?

@Rainbowlaceshelp

Sociology student here. I've decided the less I say the better. There is no way to get through to these people, and you'll only be rewarded with ostracism.

I deeply admire women who are able to withstand this

See, this is such a sad statement of how polarised things are today. When I was a student in the 1990s, the whole point of tutorials, and university was to have debate and discussion with people who held different views. That was one of the skills you were learning.

I don't see what the point of university is if people cannot cope with this. At university one should be developing those skills.

I'm not referring to you Rainbow, but to those who would ostracise you.

There was an excellent post on here a while ago that has stuck with me. Wish I could remember the Poster or the thread.

Hopefully someone will recall it.

It was about an iceberg and how the tiny point sticking out the top of the sea, represented the 'empowered sex workers', but the part of the iceberg under the sea, is representative of the trafficked, vulnerable, in poverty etc., rest of the women.

It was far far more eloquent of course, but an excellent way of explaining it.

@JeshusHChr So agree. I remember the abortion debate in my philosophy class... and then we all went out and had coffee afterwards.

My two arguments are:

I support the rights of the women to do what they want with their bodies 100%. They can do exactly as they please. The punters on the other hand, believe that paying someone who they don't know the status of (studies show they don't ask or check) are rapists. The women could be pimped, trafficked, addicted or under-age. The men are rapists, because they know that and do it regardless. A job where the customers are rapists isn't safe or desirable.

If you took all the women who do this and removed the abused, trafficked, addicted, pimped, CSA survivors, poverty line, survival, personality disordered, trauma impacted, and homeless women, there would be a tiny tiny amount left. I don't actually doubt there are women who do it out of free will. But exceptionally few. So if you know the vast majority don't give full and free consent, aren't you a rape apologist?

Offer them ten quid to get down on all fours and bark like a dog. And if they dont want to ask them why.

DorothyZbornakIsAQueen

Was it this one?

18/04/2020 01:19NotBadConsidering

Sex work is like an iceberg.

At the tip, there are the people likeKatesMott’sand friend, the “empowered” “sex work is work” types, who get to see the ocean, the sunshine, fresh air and the world. Life is seemingly nice at the tip. Unfortunately underneath them, joined by covalent bonds are the first tier: they are the women held just under the surface, constantly just submerged by poverty, drug addiction, never making quite enough money, constantly trying to keep themselves afloat and needing to take a breath every time they break the surface.

And underneaththemis the next tier of women: those who are trafficked, beaten, raped, subject to horrors and killed. They are deep underwater, in the freezing depths, so far down that those “empowered” ones at the tip either don’t give one fuck that they’re all part of the same iceberg, or don’t make the connection, because where they are it’s warm and sunny.

It’s not

a refusal to believe that anyone can choose sex work as a valid way of making money

it’s the failure to acknowledge that those who do this are a tiny, small percentage of a huge submerged problem of horror around the world, and the failure to acknowledge that by painting sex work as a glorious opportunity you are ignoring - or deliberately misrepresenting - the reality that the percentage of women who come out of sex work unscathed, financially secure and set up for life is incredibly small.

And by continuing with advocacy for

BTW my actual personal reason is that I sat with a woman one night who cried to me about not wanting to go out and work that night. She needed a fix but didn't want to do what was needed to get it. She went out, with her tear-soaked, swollen from tears face and worked and got her fix. Presumably the punter didn't care she was clearly distraught but I did.

She died of overdose some time later. I still see her sister every now and again.

She is one of many many women and boys I've known and I don't know any happy hookers. I know one happy dominatrix but she doesn't have sex.

The women are paid to waive consent.
Financially coerced.

I'm sure if there were other options to make fast money prostitute women would do that.

@MrsTerryPratchett

My two arguments are:

I support the rights of the women to do what they want with their bodies 100%. They can do exactly as they please. The punters on the other hand, believe that paying someone who they don't know the status of (studies show they don't ask or check) are rapists. The women could be pimped, trafficked, addicted or under-age. The men are rapists, because they know that and do it regardless. A job where the customers are rapists isn't safe or desirable.

If you took all the women who do this and removed the abused, trafficked, addicted, pimped, CSA survivors, poverty line, survival, personality disordered, trauma impacted, and homeless women, there would be a tiny tiny amount left. I don't actually doubt there are women who do it out of free will. But exceptionally few. So if you know the vast majority don't give full and free consent, aren't you a rape apologist?

This is so eloquent @MrsTerryPratchett hope you don’t mind if I use these arguments myself.

@Justme56

www.spaceintl.org/media/full-decriminalization-in-new-zealand/

This is a difficult read but explains what has happened in New Zealand.

Oh my god, what a damning indictment; well meaning policies having catastrophic consequences. Those poor women.

It's mainly female bodies, being bought by males. It permits men to purchase women, without putting effort into being considerate. This follows wider misogyny with men not having to socially consider women as equals when they may be purchased.

@Rainbowlaceshelp

Sociology student here. I've decided the less I say the better. There is no way to get through to these people, and you'll only be rewarded with ostracism.

I deeply admire women who are able to withstand this

Just think of it like this - your classmates are a pretty interesting study case in group mentality (and the belief in utter nonsense despite evidence). There’s probably a PhD in there…