To those who consider prostitution rape...

[Ahsoka2001]

I recently found some old MN threads where posters debated whether a man who has sex with a prostitute commits rape. Those in favour argued that the woman's consent is not freely given - it is conditional on the basis money is exchanged and consent cannot be bought -

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3012135-Is-prostitution-rape

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/2791778-does-having-sex-with-a-prostitute-constitute-rape

To those who agree with this position, I'm wondering where exactly do we draw the line? If all prostitution is rape, then -

a) What about female pornstars? They only have sex on camera on the condition that they are paid for the shoot. Does this mean every male pornstar in history is a rapist because the woman's consent was bought and not freely given?

b) What about mainstream/narrative cinema actresses? If a female Hollywood star only consents to a sex scene on the condition of receiving a paycheck for the role, does that mean they're being sexually assaulted when they perform a scene in which they're kissed/touched sexually? Does this mean male Hollywood actors who partake in these scenes are sexual assaulters?

...Surely not! But again, if all prostitution automatically equals rape, then how and where do we draw the line?

@dervel,

Yes, we are both fathers, but I don’t have daughters. I am not sure personalising it is helpful. If I somehow had the choice of one of my children selling sex for a few years, and setting themselves up for life, or having to work in a grinding job for 40 years, I think I might prefer the former, though hopefully that won’t be their choice.

I think ‘monkey business’ is important, not as a ‘gotcha’ but in framing the discussion.

If it is a natural behaviour, then prostitutes are not necessarily always victims and punters are not necessarily abusive, or no more so than happy to pay to have their bogs cleaned (I mean I don’t see many volunteering to do it for fun!).

Again, I don’t see this as a final and winning argument, as there clearly is a lot of coercion within prostitution, and it is a business closely linked with crime. Like drugs, though, there will always be users. And, as with drugs, there are many different approaches to the problem.

Well as fate would have it I’m a father of a son and do not have any daughters either as yet, but I’m not so sure that lets us off the hook. Surely it’s therefore incumbent on us to raise the next generation of men who will partner with women and not seek to exploit them and perpetuate their abuse?

In term of what is in our nature I happen to agree with you. Aggression, violence and being territorial are embedded in our natures, and are present and correct in my shadow too. You will also notice those are the most regulated with the most complex lattice of social convention and legal controls to limit their negative impacts on wider society. Why not apply the same to our sexual natures also?

This also doesn’t have to be an argument at all I’ve no interest in “winning” anything here. It looks like there are many points of consensus between us, and within the parameters of those I’m sure we cobble together a workable approach better than what either of us could come up with alone. All it requires of us are open minds and creative collaboration.

@Newbutoldfather But the "monkey business" doesn't frame any argument at all. You first introduced chimps as an example of how we can't expect too much from young men. Then said that there was evidence of chimps doing sex work when in fact this was a capuchin monkey in a controlled experiment. (It is interesting that that behaviour could happen with the introduction of money.) Then the article on Bonobo's engaging in "prostitution" (what was actually happening was a subordinate bonobo female grooming a higher ranking bonobo female in exchange apparently for sexual affection). The authors framed this as a sexual marketplace and in its own way it is but its very different to the earlier example off the Capuchin monkey trading "money" and different again to chimps.

So all the various examples you gave showed is that behaviour across primates is incredibly diverse, especially sexual behaviour. I am all for looking at how our close relatives behave as a way to inform understanding about humans but what I took from your examples is you can't because primate behaviour varies so wildly.

And it doesn't really address the central argument at all - the exploitation of human beings by other human beings. Its interesting. But it doesn't really frame anything.

Edited just to say: that came across as more argumentative than intended. I just don't think the arguments you are making actually make as much logical sense as you think they do, when viewed objectively.

I don't understand it.

It's either women are autonomous people with their own free will or they're not. I mean, where's the line? Oh yes, well she agreed to star in a porn movie, but the poor lamb was talked into/coerced/lied to/she has ishoos/she's poor/yadda yadda/yadda yadda. Yea, life's not fair, some people have issues, some people are poor. You can go work in McDs or you can suck dick on screen, the choice is yours. Or isn't it? So if a woman is trafficked - that's a crime. If a woman chose such work herself - she's 'misguided' in some way. If a woman chose such work herself and says that she likes it - she's also misguided and she'll 'see' in the future. So can she choose or not? Doesn't matter I guess, it's always men's fault anyway.

I know one minor pornstar who's also a so called 'high class' escort. She doesn't hide it and says that she's perfectly happy with her choice. She likes the high life, designer stuff, traveling, doesn't want to work in Asda, doesn't want to study. She finds fucking rich men more lucrative. So does she have a right to choose her own path or is she supposed to be forcefully 'saved' because someone decided that her choice is wrong?

And obv no, bar trafficking and revenge-porn I don't consider prostitution/porn rape at all.

Just when you think humanity can't sink any lower.

Do you have any views on the men paying the cost of a McDonald's to get their dick sucked by a woman who is hating every second and just doing it for the cash?

I do.

@Hitchcockshandkerchief but how is it different to someone selling organs for money (their body their choice) or someone in desperate straights (e.g. homeless/drug addict) being paid to degrade or hurt themselves for someone else's amusement. In all those circumstances I would be uncomfortable with the "their body their choice" argument and I think the focus for most people would be on the person buying the organ, the person paying the homeless person to tip hot coffee on themselves for laughs etc. But in prostitution the punter mysteriously fades into the background and all focus is on the agency of the prostitute.

Besides which the issue being discussed was prostitution not porn. Porn is its own discussion (and usually involves being paid to have sex) so of course there's a massive overlap. But the conflation of everything under one sex work umbrella deliberately muddies the waters. So people start talking about prostitution and then someone else talks about how "if they want to suck dick in camera they can", and someone else asks whether we would consider a woman selling feet pictures on only fans exploited. Its a spectrum but combining everything again disappears the man paying money to have sex with a woman he knows doesn't want to have sex with him. How convenient.

If the above is too long. Some things shouldn't be bought and sold.

Also, if your friend is really in that career path she is likely to wind up as one of those hard faced woman pimping out much younger eastern European girls from back home in order to keep making the money she used to be able to make herself. Tale as old as time. Not ALL prostitutes are exploited. But the tiny minority who aren't but who are committed to defending sex work based on their own (rare) experience at the expense of the much more numerous badly treated women are.... usually not very nice people. I don't care if that makes me judgemental. You don't seem to like your friend yourself based on the language you used so...

When one is aware that men will pay extra to have sex with a woman with self harm scars, to have unprotected sex with a pregnant woman, to be "allowed " to hit a woman during sex, to strangle a woman during sex, to have sex with underage girls, one is aware that prostitution is not an employment opportunity. How many of those advocating sex work as work, would suggest it as a career choice for a young woman of their acquaintance?
How many of the prostituted women "work" without a pimp, of some description? How many of the other primates who received payment for sex gave a percentage to another primate to "protect" the one who was being paid?

In the case of prostitution I don't actually think that saying paid sex or paid rape does take away from bodily autonomy.

It is not illegal in the UK to accept money from someone who wants to use it as a masturbatory tool to ejeculate in or over. Certain activities which facilitate the use of living aids to masturbation are illegal - pimping, brothel keeping, soliciting in public, but there is still bodily autonomy to be used as a living aid to masturbation. The person using that body is deluded if they think there's any genuine consent.

Maybe that's splitting hairs but I think the lack of consent falls on the punter.

But in prostitution the punter mysteriously fades into the background and all focus is on the agency of the prostitute

That's so true. Nobody defends the right to pay homeless people to degrade themselves for money.

I agree
It's up to everyone to ensure they have enthusiastic consent from a sex partner, or its abuse. Punters should be no exception.

Much of the sex industry ends up being rape because women are trafficked and the buyer isn’t buying her consent, they are renting an enslaved woman from her pimp or madam.

There are very few women who choose to freely sell sex.

Terrible typos in my post , but I hope the gist was clear.

Should say

In the case of prostitution I don't actually think that saying paid sex is paid rape does take away from bodily autonomy.

and
It is not illegal in the UK to accept money from someone who wants to use your body as a masturbatory tool

Another point, I can't think of any recognised job, where it is entirely normal to carry a knife in one's boot, as a protection against potential lethal acts by one's "customers ".

Since the john has no way if knowing whether the prostitute has been trafficked and forced, then he certainly is not much better than a rapist.

I do say that means they haven't genuinely consented. It's not that they aren't capable of consent as people, but that the circumstances are such that free, informed consent is not possible. If you have to take a dangerous job because you'll starve otherwise, that's not consent. Consent requires other viable options to be available.

She has the right to choose to do that, but the punters don't have the right to fuck somebody who may or may not have freely consented to do that kind of work, who may in fact be enslaved.
Legal prohibitions should focus on the johns and the pimps, not the hookers. I'm for throwing them in prison. Forget about "john school." You can't teach unethical, creepily selfish and abusive people the error of their ways.

I've been thinking about this thread for days and struggling to put what I think into words.
I haven't had heaps to do with prostitution or prostituted women, but I did work in inner city psychiatric wards in Melbourne. From what I saw and heard there, I would say that in the sex industry it's not that there isn't consent, it's that consent is completely incidental to whether or not sex between john and prostituted woman happens, to the whole industry in fact.
It's not just that johns can never be sure the woman who he is doing his sexual activity to/on isn't trafficked. From my experience, if a woman becomes floridly psychotic, such that she's no longer capable of giving consent (to anything - someone so psychotic that a surgeon would be disciplined if he went ahead with surgery that needed informed consent from her) the johns will turn up at the appointment times arranged and in most cases sex will happen. So even a woman who feels very in control of her job, and is consenting to sex for money, her consent is still actually incidental. If she suddenly became unable to give consent her clients would rock up and have sex with her anyway.

I'm not sure I've put that very clearly. I know lots of other people are saying something similar, but I just think it's something that applies even to the most contented of sex workers (people who identify their own work by that term). I don't know what it would be like to be doing that kind of work. Even in my job, if I knew people were going to ignore extreme emotional distress and psychotic behaviour and just expect me to get on with it I would feel quite worthless. And I'm not expected to give strangers blow jobs.

But a lot defend the right of a woman to be humiliated for money. And hurt.

I think the whole idea of bodily autonomy is full of difficulties. We do not have bodily autonomy. We cannot decide a great many things about our body and the idea that we can leads to all sorts of strange ideas, such as (current Labour party policy) abortion up to the point of birth. Ummm - that sounds like infanticide. We also do not have bodily autonomy when we become ill. We may be able to choose what treatments to accept but that's not a real choice, nor informed consent unless you are a specialist in your own illness. It seems to me that bodily autonomy is a way for people to become irresponsible.

'My body, my choice' is the most amoral statement. It's saying that a person wants to be selfish and has a perfect right to be so in all circumstances. What about the other people around you? Do they not have rights? If what you choose to do harms them do you have the right to do it? I think there are circumstances where the answer to that question is that you do not have the right to act as you want because of the consequences to others.

The OP’s use of ‘porn star’ is interesting: most on camera in porn industries are not ‘stars’ or well paid.

...current Labour party policy...[is]... abortion up to the point of birth....

Really? I missed this. That doesn't sound like a vote winner!

There are plenty of circumstances where rape has been committed "even if the woman doesn't think so".

Examples would be in marriage, when asleep, when the man ejaculates inside without consent, when the girl is underage. We all call these rape.

I agree that buying sex is rape. Would YOU be happy to be bought for the sole purpose of being a hole for a man to use for his gratification and not yours? Because that is what prostitution is. You take a woman, you reduce her to a thing with a hole.

There's a reason why society hates prostitutes and not the buyers. Prostitutes have to be dehumanised and it makes us all look down on women who reduce themselves to holes. It dehumanises all women to some extent. That any woman, desperate enough, would accept this.

This is my critical thinking, not my own personal view. I'm talking about generally.

Just going back to my previous, rather facetious, post up thread. I believe Germany has or is considering bringing back some form of national service. It also has legal brothels. What would be the problem with their youth being offered a place in brothel instead of the army?