For those who like to declare that "sex work" is empowering

[prudencepuffin]

No doubt many of us are aware of the material in this film but it is nonetheless shocking and might be worth showing to young people who are told that believing this is a tenet of the new feminism.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-60091717

In the course of my work and volunteering I have regularly had to call the police on behalf of women - and children - in dangerous circumstances including risk of life.

If we can't get a copper out for two weeks with reminders and an escalation, does anyone really believe they are available to help a prostituted woman in the moment?

I always wonder at those who screech ‘it’s just the same as any job’!

Are the people being dragged into the job centre going to be to get forced to apply for that job too? After all, no qualifications needed.

This topic is about trafficked Romanian girls.
Sex work is between consenting adults.
Very different.

Except that "sex work is work" and "swerf" is used most frequently to shut down survivors of trafficking and handwave away women raising the alarm as engaging in a moral panic
It's primarily used to justify men's 'right' to sex, and rarely used to gain support or rights for the women actually selling sex.

Who else remembers a couple of years ago when a couple of idiots protestors disrupted a talk that an expert on child trafficking was giving while shouting 'blowjobs are jobs'?
Or Sammy Woodhouse being called a swerf by a the Labour candidate for MP a few years back?

These aren't terms used to support women. They're terms used to shut down the voices of trafficked and abused women and girls. Anyone using them seriously and thinking they're doing so in good faith is showing incredible naivety and privilege.

You realise sex workers have the right to refuse service to clients with poor hygiene, and to call the police on anyone abusive to them 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@titchy

This topic is about trafficked Romanian girls.

Sex work is between consenting adults.

Very different.

But do you think sex work is empowering?

Margarita, how empowered did Netty, Anneli and Paula feel? Can’t comment on Tania and Gemma as I didn’t know them.

@MargaritaPie

This isn't sex work, this is trafficking. If the person who has spent 2 years taking trips to Romania to investigate this has information relating to criminal activity I hope she has passed it onto the relevant police?

Your naïveté is just embarrassing. Did you watch the BBC doco? The police couldn't give less of a shit. And these girls are being trafficked to the UK, which is clearly shown, again, in the doco. You are truly delusional about who you think has real power in these transactions.

Prostituted women have the right to refuse unhygienic clients.

Until they are raped or their pimp beats them. Christ, it's like some people really live on another planet.

@MargaritaPie

"She was asked whether women on benefits would be pressured into sex work as a job opportunity."

This chestnut has done the rounds over and over on every other discussion on sex work. It's never happened and it never will happen.

Why not if sex work becomes considered just "work"

• @titchy, opinions vary but I understand many sex workers in Britain would like to see the introduction of decriminalisation which would legally permit them to work together to be even safer.*

You still haven't answered my question. I know opinions vary - what is YOUR opinion on whether sex work is empowering?

As an aside I don't see why someone who supports decriminalisation should also regard sex work as empowering. They're two separate issues.

But over to you, what do you think?

@countrygirl99

You realise sex workers have the right to refuse service to clients with poor hygiene, and to call the police on anyone abusive to them 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Sure. That's exactly how it works in practice for most women in the sex trade and is absolutely that easy for the underaged trafficked girls mentioned in the article. And the police are so famous for believing trafficked girls and abused women. It's a bloody pimps charter on here tonight.

If sex work was empowering or even remotely legitimate as a job, it would be:

1. Subject to all UK employment legislation, including health and safety law, sick leave, holiday pay etc, and all pimps would be deemed to be employers and be subject to the obligations of an employer towards its employees;

1. It would be a job advertised though the job centre and anyone of any age, class, sex, disability etc would be subject to applying for said job in exchange for jobseekers allowance;

1. Men would be required to do the job equally to females, regardless of the customer.

No doubt if any of the above actually applied, single sex spaces (i.e. brothels populated only by women) would suddenly be de rigeur again.

As a woman and one who has worked closely with many sex workers, I find it so insulting being mansplained to on this particular issue. I don’t claim to know how every woman feels just because I am a woman, but being told by ‘enlightened, progressive male feminists’ (true story), that sex work is empowering for some women doesn’t sit well with me at all. This particular individual was from a group of males who (a couple of its members) had used sex workers in the past and I really believe it’s a way for them to absolve themselves of all guilt. Even if some women do feel empowered by selling sex (and I would seriously question how this came about - e.g. any past traumas etc), surely the damage done by the industry to women and girls on the whole is what we should be focusing on here? Just yesterday there was a documentary posted about the scale of sex trafficking between Romania and the UK, which girls as young as 10 are groomed into, often from their school gates. It makes me so mad that it’s become trendy to view sex work as somehow a subversive feminist act, when it literally exploits millions of women and girls across the globe.

Ah just saw a lot of what I’ve said has already been covered - took me so long to write the post as this topic makes me so mad!

Sex work is between consenting adults.

Define 'consenting' in this context please?

If a woman is giving a man a blow job for money because she is addicted to drugs, is that 'consenting?

@MargaritaPie

"She was asked whether women on benefits would be pressured into sex work as a job opportunity."

This chestnut has done the rounds over and over on every other discussion on sex work. It's never happened and it never will happen.

Why won't it ever happen? If 'sex work is work?

You realise sex workers have the right to refuse service to clients with poor hygiene, and to call the police on anyone abusive to them?

Ahahahahahahaahahahaha

Sure they do PIE and they they go skipping off together down the yellow brick road, past the soda fountain and into bubblegum island where they get to play with the unicorns and mermaids. Oh such fun

MargaritaPie wrote - "You realise sex workers have the right to refuse service to clients with poor hygiene, and to call the police on anyone abusive to them?"

Which rights legislation is this based on?

Is it in a prostituted woman's "written contract of employment"?

@LilithOfEden

If sex work was empowering or even remotely legitimate as a job, it would be:

1. Subject to all UK employment legislation, including health and safety law, sick leave, holiday pay etc, and all pimps would be deemed to be employers and be subject to the obligations of an employer towards its employees;

1. It would be a job advertised though the job centre and anyone of any age, class, sex, disability etc would be subject to applying for said job in exchange for jobseekers allowance;

1. Men would be required to do the job equally to females, regardless of the customer.

No doubt if any of the above actually applied, single sex spaces (i.e. brothels populated only by women) would suddenly be de rigeur again.

Yup.

Along with NI, pension contributions, contract of employment etc…

Are proponents of SWIW advising putting ‘sex worker’ / sugar babe etc…on their CV?
I’m sure employers will be impressed with SW or whatever euphemism under term time / holiday job. Or plugging the CV gaps.

CV
Graduated 2:1 Eng Lit 2021
Employment history
July ‘21 ongoing: Sex Work (self employed)
Responsibilities:
Negotiating client deals
Customer services
Payroll

Fucking bollocks.
The day employers (legal, teaching, financial etc..) come out and publicly declare SWIW & that they’d actively recruit known xSWs, I’ll show my bare, fat arse.

I feel sick just clicking on to this thread.

@MargaritaPie

"She was asked whether women on benefits would be pressured into sex work as a job opportunity."

This chestnut has done the rounds over and over on every other discussion on sex work. It's never happened and it never will happen.

It was happening in Germany shortly after prostitution was legalised in 2002. There was a thread about it on here some years ago.

It’s the logical next step on from declaring that “sex work is work”, so I don’t know why you’d think it’s never happened and never will.

@HobnobsChoice

Prostituted women have the right to refuse unhygienic clients.

Until they are raped or their pimp beats them. Christ, it's like some people really live on another planet.

Rape is illegal, so is pimping, so is assault.

Many sex workers are independent. They don't all have a pimp.

"It was happening in Germany shortly after prostitution was legalised in 2002"

www.snopes.com/fact-check/hot-jobs/

Claim: Women in Germany face the loss of unemployment benefits if they decline to accept work in brothels.

Status: False.

Oh you're back marg - again I ask - do you think sex work is empowering?

Rape is illegal, so is pimping, so is assault.

What difference do you think this makes, in reality? None. None at all.

Have you ever even met someone who works in the sex industry?

Many sex workers are independent. They don't all have a pimp.

And you know this how? An awful lot more do.