Louis Theroux: Sex work is valid work

[Hestyo]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6b668836-8849-11ec-a837-0153f5f4adaf?shareToken=82f93f7a57c728c82da0d575b5201d55

"It’s not something you’re especially proud of using. But there are times in your life when you can’t get a decent meal, or you’re in a rush, or you’re just trying to get a need met."

Theroux added that his children were approaching an age where their internet searches may lead them to pornography. “I have said to them, ‘When you see porn, if this is something you’ve stumbled across, just so you know, that’s not the real world. That’s not how people have sex,’ ” he added.

He said sex work should be seen as an acceptable alternative to a traditional career. Forbidden America will investigate the OnlyFans phenomenon, which has given performers their own online following and financial independence.

Elly Arrow, a German women-rights activist, reports that 81% of women in prostitution in Germany are immigrants. This includes trafficking victims- yes, women are trafficked from other countries to meet the demand amongst male Germans.

Here's a thread from her.

New YouTube video out on "Unique and Disproportionate Health Risks of #Prostitution". t.co/2e7DtRguvE It bears repeating that countries that permit "sex buying" permit men to do things to women that violate workers' health & safety, as well as human rights, left and right

Either we roll back workers' health & safety rights by decades and accept that anyone may legally be subjected to bodily fluids, STIs, sex acts, unwanted pregnancy, etc on the job - or - we say women in #prostitution are the only workers where these protection laws will not apply

You tell me which one it is because it's one or the other if you believe #sexworkiswork. Currently, places like Germany and New Zealand have decided that most workers' protections will not be applied in prostitution (because they can't be). Not even laws protecting pregnant women

twitter.com/EllyArrow/status/1463650154230206468?t=51r65aq6rbHVMhxAFu_h_g&s=19

@Bordois

Is purchased consent actual consent?

Of course it is. Almost all of us go to work only because we get paid. Money, without which, we wouldn't have a roof over our heads or food in our mouths.

Almost any sex worker could just as easily find a low paid job. These are available everywhere. From shelf-stacking, serving in coffee shops, cleaning and so on. But these jobs are long hours and low pay.

So some women (and some men actually), decide to take the route of less work higher pay, but at a greater mental cost. It's not as if the only option available to most SWs is SW. I mean look at the men in equivalent situations - what do they do? They can't do SW, so they take low-paid jobs for long hours.

This option exists for the SWs too, but they make the conscious choice of doing SW instead because it frees them up to make their own hours, and they get paid far more. IME any semi-decent SW makes at least £1k per week cash. And that is why they do it.

They know they can make £500 pw minus tax minus benefits loss for working 40 hours. But for them doing SW is the better choice. To claim this somehow isn't consent is ridiculous.

This article about prostitution in Germany was posted on another thread last month.

s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/welcome-to-paradise/

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4452593-Help-me-stay-sane-and-keep-my-friends

A couple more links from that thread:

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

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/30/new-zealand-sex-work-prostitution-migrants-julie-bindel

LT has made his career from spending time with people involved in porn and prostitution. Acting the innocent abroad. Whether or not this began with good intentions, or just for the ratings, it must have a desensitizing effect after all those years. Or maybe he has always been drawn to that world, only he knows. What I do know is that he is in no position to lecture the rest of us.

Men can do sex work - there are men who will pay to access male bodies as well as men who will pay to access female ones. It's a smaller market, but it exists.

But far fewer men spend their youth being told that being a prostituted teenager would be a romantic, fun way to pay their uni fees.

From one of the articles OldCrone posted

“She tells me about a 17-year-old Russian - let’s call her Klara – whose father had fallen ill. The family was getting desperate for money so when Klara saw a newspaper advert offering temporary work as a prostitute in Germany, “she thought, ‘it will be awful but for three months I can bear it.’ And then she was raped by several men the night she arrived to “get her ready” for prostitution. They took her passport. There was another girl there who wouldn’t do something a customer wanted and they broke a bottle, a glass bottle, and raped her with that. She was cut inside. It was shown to all the others.” Klara was trapped there for four years.“

From the Telegraph article OldCrone posted

“Myria Vassiliadou, the EU anti-trafficking co-ordinator, tells me about a Nigerian woman she met recently in London. This woman was trafficked to Britain where she served up to 20 clients a day. “She was telling these clients that she didn't want to be there, that she was forced and that she would be killed if she didn't do what the traffickers said. She told the men and the men would say, ‘I don’t care. I paid for this.’”

Was consent given here in your view @Badois?

@EishetChayil

I said that it’s part of society that is not going to go away.

It could go away if strict laws were passed that punish the makers, distributors, and users.

How well has that worked out in the war on drugs?

@ScrollingLeaves

From one of the articles OldCrone posted

“She tells me about a 17-year-old Russian - let’s call her Klara – whose father had fallen ill. The family was getting desperate for money so when Klara saw a newspaper advert offering temporary work as a prostitute in Germany, “she thought, ‘it will be awful but for three months I can bear it.’ And then she was raped by several men the night she arrived to “get her ready” for prostitution. They took her passport. There was another girl there who wouldn’t do something a customer wanted and they broke a bottle, a glass bottle, and raped her with that. She was cut inside. It was shown to all the others.” Klara was trapped there for four years.“

This is so upsetting to read. The poor girl, what terrifying experiences. I wonder what LT would say about this.

If my kids were desperate for food and I'd get 50 quid for fucking or blowing a dude in a car to buy said food- I would do it. In a heartbeat.
I've fucked dudes for less.
And I've had a very stable loving childhood, blah blah blah but I do know that I would do what it takes. I'm educated. I'm a lawyer. I'm fucking lucky.
Any woman who claims not or who would critique a desperate woman's choices is either a liar or just an asshole/ä. IMHO.

How well has that worked out in the war on drugs?

How surprising the self-styled voice of working-class women is so blasé (à la Kipling and his oldest profession bullshit) about prostitution.

Any opportunity to support the subjugation of women, eh?

People like him think it's ok because it's not something anyone in his circles or his family would find themselves having to resort to as work. I've always thought he was an arse.

As for sex work - @Dobedodo sums it up perfectly.

“Alonelonelylonersbadidea

If my kids were desperate for food and I'd get 50 quid for fucking or blowing a dude in a car to buy said food- I would do it. In a heartbeat.
I've fucked dudes for less.
And I've had a very stable loving childhood, blah blah blah but I do know that I would do what it takes. I'm educated. I'm a lawyer. I'm fucking lucky.
Any woman who claims not or who would critique a desperate woman's choices is either a liar or just an asshole/ä. IMHO.“

Is it not the case that in this scenario “having kids desperate for food” might mean the blow job in the car wouldn’t really, in the truest sense of the word, be a “choice”?

That’s what is troubling about punters who think they’ve simply hired an employee.

Aww, for Fucks sake why did you have to go and say that *Louis Theroux•

My pool of decent men is getting smaller and smaller….

Sex is not shelf-stacking or drink-mixing.

For sex, the consent bar should be enthusiastic and the idea that it need not be is misogyny. In practice.

He's an investigate journalist who has spent a fair amount of time researching these issues. He does know what he's talking about.

I know from talking to women to women involved in sex work through a project connecting to my work that it's incredibly complex and diverse. There's a lot of assumptions made on this forum, made by people who are not in this position and who have never even met a person in this industry which are simply not the case.

I've met women who enjoy their chosen work - they get paid a far higher amount for less hours and genuinely don't see the problem, one said to me that is she who is exploiting men. I've also met women who were being pimped, who had been trafficked and who were on drugs at the time. It's true that some of the issues are caused by the underground nature of sex work, not all but it really doesn't help.

I do not want anyone to be forced into selling their body but if you choose to you should be respected and the law should protect you which it doesn't currently.

@FrancescaContini

I have young adult daughters and no I wouldn't promote sex work as a good career but nor did I suggest retail, warehouse or hospitality were good options.

There is a difference between protecting people legally and suggesting it's a desirable career. Would I be disappointed - yes but then I would be disappointed if they dropped out and worked shelf stacking too, I'm being honest

Yeah, I don't think 68% of shelf-stackers have PTSD.

It's interesting (read horrible) to look at the reviews men leave of prostituted women. They get very resentful when the woman doesn't put on a good enough act for them to forget that they're essentially forcing sex on a woman who doesn't want it and is actually deeply traumatised by it.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

How well has that worked out in the war on drugs?

How surprising the self-styled voice of working-class women is so blasé (à la Kipling and his oldest profession bullshit) about prostitution.

Any opportunity to support the subjugation of women, eh?

Not at all, but increased criminalisation will not work. What will work is free education, adequate benefits or even a basic income, higher wages, high quality social housing for everyone who wants one.

When as a society we condemn the poorest women to desperate poverty, homelessness, soul destroying low paid work and make it near impossible for people to get an education or training to improve their circumstances then sex work will flourish. Attack the cause, not the symptom. Of course that would mean the affluent middle classes paying significantly more tax.

Not at all, but increased criminalisation will not work. What will work is free education, adequate benefits or even a basic income, higher wages, high quality social housing for everyone who wants one.

I live in a country which, while not a socialist paradise, has a pretty decent welfare system, and prostitution is decriminalised. As a result of the fact that most women don't need to work as prostitutes to survive hardly any do (because regardless of the empowerment narrative its not something most women choose). So instead women are trafficked from abroad instead (more than 90% are from abroad). As well as legal brothels in the red light district, there are still illegal brothels elsewhere. Both types contain co-erced and trafficked women. Decriminalisation doesn't help women. But it does help men persuade themselves they are doing nothing wrong.

Attack the cause, not the symptom.

The cause is the men who pay for sex, and the pimps who profit from it. I absolutely agree we should be targeting the cause.

Utterly distressed by this ... come ON Louis!? Wtf??

So instead women are trafficked from abroad instead (more than 90% are from abroad). There was a line on tv recently - Call of Duty, a scene that showed a prostituted woman, who was referred to as "live stock". When we have reached this place, where women can be referred to on an entertainment programme in the UK, as "livestock", we are serious trouble. No-one can justify this. There is no dignity for anyone in this position. It is unarguable in my eyes.

I went off him awhile ago, his shtick got very old. Exploitative muppet.

Do you remember Dirty Pretty Things, about immigrants?

"we are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs. We clean your rooms. And suck your cocks."