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

Oh, and checked the conviction rate for rape recently? It's essentially legal.

Rape is illegal

@MargaritaPie and yet it still happens regularly, often with no consequences for the offender.

Marg, you're talking such bollocks, it feels like you're trolling.

You can piss off with your bullshit and plucking soundbites out of thin air comments.

@MargaritaPie

"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.

It was reported in both The Telegraph and Der Spiegel.

Status: true.

I lived in the Netherlands and saw with my own eyes ads in the job centre. Snopes and fellow apologists can do one.

Consent cannot be purchased

@Darhon

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?

Shall we start listing prostituted women murdered over the years (not trafficked)? The much higher rates of murder, assault of prostituted women?

The punter sites where they give their reviews of women they’ve exploited for sex?

Once we remove all the women with addictions, the women who can’t survive on the benefits given to them with the UC cut, the underage girls and the trafficked women - how many ‘consenting adults’ are left?

Or the "buffet" one price option in German brothels. I wonder how much say the women there have in declining punters.

@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 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You 'ave to larff, otherwise you'd cry.

I have two daughters. Sex work is not work. It is not something I would talk about with them when discussing careers.

I don't even like the word client when discussing the men using prostitutes. Talk about euphemisms.

I know other people are better placed to talk about consent but surely it is not consent if you have no choice in the 'transaction'.

Wholeheartedly agree with previous poster. If prostitution was work it would need to have clear safe working practices and risk assessments. Pension planning would also need to be in the employment offer.

"It was reported in both The Telegraph and Der Spiegel"

feministire.com/2015/01/30/happy-tenth-birthday-to-the-telegraphs-brothel-job-hoax/

Despite being a hoax, it's done the rounds on social media and blogs thousands of times as some sort of golden-ticket for prohibitionists.

Nooone has been forced into sex work by a job centre, or being threatened with losing their benefits. It hasn't happened.

@MargaritaPie

"It was reported in both The Telegraph and Der Spiegel"

feministire.com/2015/01/30/happy-tenth-birthday-to-the-telegraphs-brothel-job-hoax/

Despite being a hoax, it's done the rounds on social media and blogs thousands of times as some sort of golden-ticket for prohibitionists.

Nooone has been forced into sex work by a job centre, or being threatened with losing their benefits. It hasn't happened.

So the sources you posted at lies but the sources you posted are the unvarnished truth? Got you.

Should say “so the sources I posted are lies but …”

Freudian slip

@MargaritaPie

"The punter sites where they give their reviews of women they’ve exploited for sex?"

The sex worker can also leave a review for the client for other sex workers to see to help them decide whether to meetup with said client or not if he were to request a booking.

@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.

In tonnes of jobs employees pair up for general safety, yet this isn't legally allowed for sex workers.

Can you not see just how ridiculous this comment is? How many ‘sex workers’ leave 1 reviews after some leery punter has forced her to have sex without a condom with him? How many punters look at those reviews and do their best to get a better review next time - like an Uber driver maybe? How many ‘sex workers’ pimps check the reviews to make sure his girls only get to be forced into sex with 4 punters? Absolute nonsense.

What % of sex workers are in a position to pick and choose their clientele?

@MargaritaPie

"It was reported in both The Telegraph and Der Spiegel"

feministire.com/2015/01/30/happy-tenth-birthday-to-the-telegraphs-brothel-job-hoax/

Despite being a hoax, it's done the rounds on social media and blogs thousands of times as some sort of golden-ticket for prohibitionists.

Nooone has been forced into sex work by a job centre, or being threatened with losing their benefits. It hasn't happened.

That’s because it isn’t actual work. It’s exploitation.

"So the sources you posted at lies but the sources you posted are the unvarnished truth? Got you"

Read the snopes article, it gives an explanation.

"How many ‘sex workers’ leave 1 reviews after some leery punter has forced her to have sex without a condom with him"*

Well if that happened I hope the first thing the sex worker would do is report him for rape.

One thing that I always muse about posters like MargaritaPie who make their arguments for “sex work” is what do people like MargaritaPie gain from it? How do posters like Pie benefit from trying to shift society’s view on prostitution? As far as I can see there are only 3 possibilities:

1. that Pie is determined to stick up for the rights on the 0.00001% of women in the sex trade worldwide who have “chosen” to do it, feel empowered to do it, have control over their “clients”, have a safe environment and have the protection of the police and law behind them should something bad happen. The remaining 99.9999% of women don’t matter.

2. that Pie is actually about making sure men always have the right to access a woman’s body whenever they want, and this is more important that those 99+% of women who suffer worldwide.

3. that Pie just enjoys posting contrary beliefs just for the sake of it, because Pie enjoys stirring the pot and the lives of women in the sex trade don’t actually matter to Pie because it’s all just a game.

None are a good look really. But like Pie’s twin barleybadminton, whose posts are very similar, I welcome Pie’s posts and think they’re doing a terrific job, because no one makes their misogyny and that of the “sex work is work” brigade any clearer than those who post repeatedly in its defence.

I think many young girls especially are being influenced by our culture to regard presenting themselves as highly sexualised as empowering. Female sexuality obviously can be empowering in many ways, but somehow this has become conflated with the pontification of women and presenting oneself (or literally acting) as a sex object to serve men.

I think the porn industry and capitalism have a lot to answer for as women are being encouraged to view themselves as commodities and the narrative that is pushed (and serves capitalist interests well), is that it is empowering for women. It’s still patriarchal, misogynist bullshit wrapped up in a different guise that would have women believe it’s empowering to objectify themselves.

It’s not progressive at all PIE, or helpful to the vast majority of women and girls who are victims of the industry. Is pushing this narrative worth the damage caused to them? I believe many women who sell sex as they apparently find it ‘empowering’ are also victims themselves of this damaging narrative, as when you scratch a little deeper below the surface there is often some kind of trauma there.

*pornification not pontification

Someone did an interesting documentary on this topic, I think it might have been Louis Theroux. In it some of the girls who were sex working while studying at university and claimed to find it ‘empowering’ were actually sexually abused as children. It’s well known that victims of childhood sexual abuse can become highly sexualised as a coping mechanism for their trauma, this narrative is dangerous as it enables the continued exploitation of such vulnerable women, as well as more obvious victims of the industry.

I don’t see them as selling sex. I see them as being very poorly compensated for rape and/ or bodily injury, after the fact.

O hai Marg! Like clockwork onto any prostitution thread to try to convince us that men’s sex rights are Wonderful and paid rape is just tickety boo. And still with the same old disingenuous tone, I see!

Well if that happened I hope the first thing the sex worker would do is report him for rape.

You’re a big fan of the virtues of Punternet, as I recall, Marg. Does reporting a client for rape go down well on there? Given the rape conviction statistics are a risible lows of something like 4%, how often do you think the CPS takes forward a charge for rape against a john?

You’re an absolute joke.

@Curiouserandcuriouser1

Someone did an interesting documentary on this topic, I think it might have been Louis Theroux. In it some of the girls who were sex working while studying at university and claimed to find it ‘empowering’ were actually sexually abused as children. It’s well known that victims of childhood sexual abuse can become highly sexualised as a coping mechanism for their trauma, this narrative is dangerous as it enables the continued exploitation of such vulnerable women, as well as more obvious victims of the industry.

I watched that. It was really quite sad, there were 3 women. A woman in her 50s who's husband had got her into his fetishism for watching her with other men. A woman in her 30s with kids who did it to pay the rent and a university student. It struck me how vulnerable they all were, and how even they people who were profiting off them didn't see how they were being harmed. They all had a history of CSE and recognised they had a twisted view of sex and relationships. He did a really good job of getting past the "Sex work is work" bravado to how they really felt about their lives.