Hadley Freeman in the Sunday Times

[Alchemistress]

I'm reading the print edition so don't have a share token but a great column about 'Sex Work' and that paying for sex is not liberating, but abuse.

Great to see it set out so plainly. She doesn't beat around the bush.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/084b9946-d3fa-48b1-86f8-42a3eb99ec08?shareToken=7716836a62bd15850553fe8871370f3f

Thanks @nythbran2

Brilliant article. Thanks for the share token.

Thank you. That Spectator word worker is a real piece of work.

The SWIW brigade have been muted for a while.

I wondered if the coverage of Ian Packer finally coming to trial made a few people rethink their slogans in Scotland.

The whole story around Emma Caldwell's life and death, the stories of the many, many women who also died or were "lucky" to not be another victim (of murder, still brutally offended against) is hard to square with Girl Power.

If you haven't seen Catching a Killer: the Murder of Emma Caldwell then it's on iPlayer. The BBC Sounds Podcast made before he was finally charged is also excellent.

Not all men who pay to abuse women are murders, but Packer's misogyny was not an outlier in that group.

We know this but at last it is out there. “ Sex work” is degrading and dangerous. Men need to stop (not much hope of that though)

Agree with Hadley. Men who buy sex are scum.

Agree with Hadley also. I loved the open contempt dripping from every word.

It contributes to women being seen as objects by society, or anyway by men. I've noticed so many threads on mn recently where women are raped in their sleep by the men who are supposed to love them, and neither party sees it as rape until posters point it out. These women are asking, why do I feel violated? These men (Not All Men obviously) are not asking anything, they see women as the objects they own, warm holes for their personal pleasure. 'Sex work' ffs. It contributes.

Love Hadley go Hadley

Another fantastic piece from Hadley 'getting it right again' Freeman, thanks so much for sharing this. You can't buy consent.

Brilliant article

Thanks for the heads up and the link. I've been a fan of Hadley for years but there was a time when I think she'd have been tempted to sugar coat this kind of writing with a few more jokes. She's got better and better.

I think she won a press award this week, didn't she? Congratulations to her (and an adolescent but very satisfying 'ha ha ha' to the Guardian).

I know a few women who have engaged in sex work.
All of the women (bar one) were privately educated and came from wealthy backgrounds, and they were the ones who claimed it to be liberating etc. The one who wasn't from that background did it out of desperation and hated every moment of it, but is thankfully in a much safer and more stable place and is doing really well.

I know a few women who have engaged in sex work

Why are you calling it sex work instead of prostitution?

I guess "sex work", while perhaps a problematic phrase, encompasses more than just having sex for money (which is what prostitution generally implies). Anyone in the sex industry could technically be a "sex worker" - - "cam girls", porn actors, camera operators, editors, the people who do the casting. I have certainly seen people online using this term expansively.

The term is way too expansive IMO (and could equally include pimps and those in other exploitative positions), and gives the industry undeserved legitimacy, but I understand why some people might use it.

It isn't a term I usually use, but as the pp above me explained, it encompasses a variety of things, not just prostitution. One of the women I know does a lot of cam work/sells feet photos and has never been "paid for sex" as such. I guess it felt more natural to use it here, and it has become a normalised term that I've become used to saying. I get your point though.

Good article. I didn't read that stupid idiot who was so aroused by a lecture that he went for a prostitute, because... well I'm not interested in the thoughts of a subhuman. Which is what I think these persons who think a woman is only a supplier of holes are. They fail the test of Homo sapiens. Should be pilloried.
There has been something very wrong in the evolution of humanity that this obnoxious behaviour has continued. Don't see it in other primates. The males who aren't the alpha have to sweet talk the females if they want to procreate. Or maybe Jane Goodall et al have edited this behaviour out of their papers.

The comments are incredibly depressing

Hadley for Prime Minister

Yes, but I think that's part of the problem. A well of, comparatively privileged could be selling photos of her feet or doing phone work "for a laugh" or for a bit of extra money and basically find it fine, stop after a short while and not be affected by it (though I still think there are issues). So when people talk about prostitution you get "actually its called sex work and I know people who did sex work (selling feet pics for 2 months for a laugh) and they are fine"

I think the whole things kinda sordid and the pressure to move from just feet pics to other stuff is insidious. But we need a word for prostitution.

Great article. I wish we would do more to stop mens feeling of sexual entitlement towards women. Nordic model now please.

This threat is going to get some men along shortly to tell us how much women love it though.

Fantastic article. I wish there was more widespread acknowledgement of how many women who become prostitutes were raped or abused as children, and how many of them became prostitutes before they were 18.

It's insulting to all women to frame prostitution as a choice, but it's particularly insulting to the women who are risking their lives because they have no other option.

Sex work is a very vague term in addition to being used for gaslighting the public about women and girls who've been prostituted. It could encompass sexual health educators, therapists for people experiencing difficulties in their relationships due to sex, strippers, pimps, videographers/website management for porn industry, researchers focused on studying human sexuality, behavioralists who work with men convicted of sex crimes, criminologists focused on sexual criminal behavior...

Almost forgot all those birth certificate sex assigners

Wow, she’s great with words. I totally agree. SINBU

Yes, great article. Especially loved the denouement about how all those thinking it is empowering will of course be encouraging their daughters into the job. Of course it is only empowering for a certain kind of woman, not their child.