R4 Sunday religious sex workers

[ExiledElsie]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbcradioo_fourfm?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Surprising section on Sunday on R4 about sex work. All about opportunities for extra income, how it interacts with religion.

I saw it in Turkey, where I lived for a while. The women paying for younger men (not always younger!) fully believed they were in a real relationship and they were just giving/sending money to help out. The men were often abusive and controlling of the women, sexually, emotionally and financially abusing them. It was really messed up, tbh. I did come across a few women who knew fine well it was a financial transaction and they were the punters - they were exploiting those men and it was every bit as gross as it would be if the sexes were reversed.

I saw male prostitution in Mexico many years ago and thought it was horribly degrading for the men.

I think it's worth specifying, male prostitution when the punters are female. Because male prostitution exists everywhere where the punters are male. Frequently underage and just as vile and full of trafficking as when it's girls. It's massively widespread. I've worked with young male victims in the UK.

@risefromyourgrave @beastlyslumber

That's like saying, "I'm [insert minority] and I don't find that offensive."

You might not find it offensive but I do. There is no comparison between the experience of someone who took on a shitty job of her own free will, with someone who was penetrated against her will. No comparison.

You might not find it offensive but I do. There is no comparison between the experience of someone who took on a shitty job of her own free will, with someone who was penetrated against her will. No comparison.

And I find the idea of conditional, negotiable consent offensive.

What makes your offence more important than mine? After all, if I'm right the risk is traumatised women. If you're right, men will have to wank a little more. Simple cost:benefit analysis.

@MrsTerryPratchett

Yes, indeed, that goes without saying.

And I find your attitude offensive. 🤷‍♀️ We could go around all day, but you cannot say something is offensive to all rape victims when I am a rape victim and am not offended. You don’t get to decide what is offensive to me.

@Crutcher
That's like saying, "I'm [insert minority] and I don't find that offensive."
You might not find it offensive but I do. There is no comparison between the experience of someone who took on a shitty job of her own free will, with someone who was penetrated against her will. No comparison.

I'm really not sure that "work" that carries no statutory employment rights, where the purchase of the services you are offering is illegal, and which has a high risk of rape (even by your definition) and assault can be classed as a job, even a shitty job.

If consent is purchased, it is not true consent.

@Crutcher

The entire thrust of my argument was that you can't conflate sws who do so by (albeit limited) choice, with actual victims of coercion, torture or rape. By doing so you just cheapen the experiences of bona fide victims.

There's plenty of research that shows the vast majority of sws are not trafficked against their will. While the possibility always exists (as it does with various other industries), it is in no way the norm.

No. Your argument was that

"Whatever your view is of sex work, those engaging in it do so of their own free will."

You requested and I have provided quite a bit of referenced evidence that there are a great many sex workers in the UK and internationally who are doing it through modern slavery and other methods of coercion.

You also said this in reply to somebody else:

The evidence is not in your favour. The rare few sex workers in the UK are actually trafficked or forced. Most do it by choice.

Since I have provided sources to back up my argument, please can you now provide evidence to substantiate your claim(s) that there is evidence that the vast majority of sex workers in the UK are not trafficked, forced or victims of coercion?

How dare you tell me what I'm allowed to compare my trauma with? Or how to understand rape? How fucking dare you.

Go and read a book. Rachel Moran's 'Paid For' would be good start. Learn something.

i believe in the Nordic model for this.

no criminal or civil responsibility for the women, punters will get a criminal record and likely jail, especially if they realised that the woman was vulnerable.

Your faux outrage, even with your 'fucking' does nothing for your argument. Especially as you've essentially got it backwards.

You can compare your trauma to whatever you want. I couldn't care less. What I find offensive is when people compare the experience of willingly doing sex work to actual rape.

And true, @MrsTerryPratchett my offense is no more important than anyone else's. But I will continue to call out what I find offensive and outrageous, and you can do the same.

@ThereIbledit , I'm not talking about trafficked sws, who are by definition being raped. Though there are far fewer than some try to pretend. Read Sex, Lies & Statistics by Brooke Magnanti for some real data.

There are many poor people in this country. And there will always be poor people. That is the nature of reality. Most poor people find minimum wage jobs where they have to work for many hours. Some women make the choice to do sex work. Usually it's because they can make much more than in a min wage job for far fewer hours.

Obviously that isn't a nice position to be in, when you have to make a choice between survival drudgery or survival sex. But it's still a choice. They choose one shitty option over the other, but they choose.

They sell their services for money, and of course consent can be bought. As I made the argument earlier in this thread, if consent can't be bought, all work would be slavery. What's more, if consent can only be given freely without any gain, anytime a woman had sex with any kind of ulterior motive, she would essentially be raped. A claim that is nonsensical and offensive.

To come and compare a sw by choice to someone whose choice was stolen from her by a rapist or molester, is highly offensive. At least it is to me. And I'll call out offensive comparisons when I see them.

Some women make the choice to do sex work.

No one has an issue with the women here. As far as I'm concerned they are sisters.

I have an issue with the men who have sex with them, not knowing (or asking) if they are trafficked and not caring that the 'consent' is bought. People who want to normalise prostitution always focus on the women. It's the punters I think are foul arseholes.

I couldn't (and haven't when the opportunity has been there) have paid sex with someone who wouldn't be having sex with me for free. Because it's repulsive. And if the men don't see this, they are repulsive.

Again, I don't believe any woman has paid for sex if she isn't vulnerable. Any man who pays to use a woman's body for his pleasure is disgusting.

It's Not faux outrage, @Crutcher . It's genuine anger that a punter thinks he can tell me how to feel. I'm appalled.

Paying to use a woman's body for sex is rape. It's dehumanising and it's disgusting.

You find it offensive when people compare "sex work" to rape, because you don't want to be known as a rapist.

You use actual rape victims as a shield to hide behind, citing how offensive it is for us if you get called a rapist. You have no right to speak on our behalf or to use our experience to defend yourself.

As far as I'm concerned you're no better or worse than the men who raped me, the men who worked in gangs in Rotherham and other places, the men who traffic women and girls in this country and from outside. Or the men who pay to use those children's and women's bodies - and many of them are children. The average age of entry into prostitution in this country is 14. That's the average - so many girls are even younger.

But that's all fine, as long as they "consent". Right?

💐

Some people have a very very strange understanding of choice and consent and the things that drive people to sex work.

There may well be women out there who are totally 100% doing it of their own free will despite other employment options being open to them.

But when a punter makes his choice out of say 100 women, a certain % will be doing it completely freely, a % will be handing their money over to their pimp, a % will be trafficked and locked in their room between punters. A % will be drug addicts. A % will have hungry children and no money on the electric meter. A % will have originally started out just doing a couple of photos and now are in so deep they can see no way out. A % will be of extremely limited intelligence and have no chance of getting any sort of normal job, and so in debt to men with baseball bats that they think they have no other option.

When the punter hands over his money and sticks his cock in that woman how does he know which group the woman he's using as a wank sock falls into?

Quite simply he doesn't. Therefore in my eyes he's a rapist. He sticks his cock in a woman that may be only in that room with him because she's been kidnapped, drugged and held against her will. Wether that is the case in every instance he visits a prostitute is irrelevant. It could be, he just doesn't care. Knowing that there is a chance the woman is an unwilling participant but sticking your cock in her anyway is rape.

In my opinion.

Think about it, these women (or a men for that matter) are desperate for money, and the only way they can get it is by selling sexual services. Well what happens if you're successful in dissuading every potential customer from buying those services?

From earlier in the thread. This has been followed up with the idea it's a choice instead of a low paid job.

The important choice is made by men. Do you choose to have respectful relationships with women or do you "help" desperate women by using them for your sexual pleasure. These men could employ the women to do actual work if they want to help them.

This is incredibly naive and simply untrue. Some prostitutes do it as genuinely feee choice. Many others are trafficked, enslaved, threatened and forced by pimps, or are economically desperate, or drug addicted.

In general, I notice there is an absence of feminist analysis on societal issues in general.

Actually if you work in this area, you would know that the entry level jobs that employment support programmes get people with low education levels into, you will find that the jobs men go into are much higher paying than the jobs women tend to go into. There’s a high segregation by sex in the job market at that level.

So no, poor women and poor men are not facing the same choices. Also, the men are far less likely to be supporting children who live with them.

Your analysis and argument is badly flawed.

Crutcher

You have stated repeatedly that women sex workers are mostly doing it of their own free will, flying in the face of official statistics, posted here. You've dismissed the figures, based on your perusal of sex for sale websites; I think that says a lot about you. You wish to believe that you're doing nothing wrong.

You have also claimed repeatedly that the women involved aren't raped and that any transaction is consensual. That's absolute rubbish, most sex workers are under the control of pimps, who force them, using threats and actual violence to bring a certain amount of money daily.

These women may say to a man, offering to pay, "Yes, I'll do that for XX £." That you can't see that this is coercive and not actually the free will of the woman, shows there is something quite wrong with you.

If you think that a woman (or child, or man) is having sex for money, but are under dire threats to do so, is consenting meaningfully by saying that they will do whatever is requested, I don't know how anybody can convince you that it's an awful tragedy, that slavery isn't simply the poor career choice of someone desperate.

Your opinion is so well put and gets to the heart of the matter. If we accept that x% of prostitutes are working under duress, which we would be stupid not to accept, then we have to accept that there is x% chance that a punter is sleeping with a woman who is working under duress, hence rape. The fact that he doesn't care to know doesn't make him any less a rapist. And if he's "lucky" enough to be using a "happy hooker", well hallelujah. But he'll never know whether the body he's using belongs to a happy hooker or a slave or a woman in any number of dire situations because he'll never really care. If he cared he'd never pay for sex.

And @Boiledbeetle and @NotDrowningJustCrowing it's worth a little thought experiment to flip the risk.

If using a prostitute had the same risks for the customer as the worker (being really generous with my numbers):

10% of the times you use a woman you will be raped.
10% you will be beaten
10% you will be locked up without your passport and forced to have sex with multiple men
10% of the time you'd enjoy it and have a lovely time
50% you'd risk PTSD

Would men still think it was an acceptable risk to take? Would they think it was 'just a job' if it was the punter being beaten and coerced, even 'just' some of the time.

I'm willing to bet they wouldn't. But they choose that risk for the women.

Well said