Men urged to ‘stop using prostitutes’ as MPs debate modern slavery

[IwantToRetire]

Sarah Russell said a “significant” number of women are brought to the UK under false pretences before being forced to work in the sex industry.

“If I could say one thing, I really, really wish that men – and it is predominantly men – would stop using prostitutes, could you just stop?

“Because the number of women who are being brought to the UK under false pretences, believing that they’re going to do a different form of work and are then put to sex work against their will … kept in physically confined situations, which they’re not allowed to leave, and having had their passports taken away from them is really, really significant.

“The other thing that happens is that some women, who come here knowing that that might be an element of their work, if they then complain about it or want to stop, are told that their children back home will be harmed if they do, so are unable to go to the police when they are being systematically raped.

“So please, please, men, stop using prostitutes.”

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/jess-phillips-russell-home-office-mps-men-b1219328.html

Also this:

Jess Phillips said the Overseas Domestic Work visa, which allows workers to come to the UK with their employers for six months, was “servitude”.
https://www.perspectivemedia.com/minister-keeping-keen-eye-on-visa-that-allows-wealthy-to-bring-staff-to-uk/

There have been so many stories about how women trapped in this "servitude" are exploited, abused and isolated.

The point is that these women aren’t able to be freely consulted. They aren’t happy hookers, they are being raped.

i don’t care if there is even one woman in the world who wants to make her living doing sex work. There are too many who are exploited for the practice to be allowed. The men who pay for sex belong in prison.

Decriminalization makes being prostituted 'just a job' so women can be told by the local Job Centre to go and get said job at the local brothel.

In Nordic model France the number of prostitutes has decreased and the Nordic model - where punters and pimps are criminalised but not prostituted women - is what most women who have escaped prostitution want. The figures on murders that you refer to are uncertain, too. Meanwhile, in Germany, where prostitution is decriminalised the number of brothels has ballooned and they can be found anywhere, including next door to schools, and the number of women prostituted has also increased - the opposite of what we want. There is no evidence that violence against the women involved has decreased, either. The same can be said of decriminalization in New Zealand.
Decriminalization does not solve the problem of trafficked women, of women tricked into being prostituted, or offer a way out of prostitution for the women involved.
The sex and pornography industries want decriminalization since it allows them to pursue their disgusting trade as though it was legitimate business, and not utterly destructive of society in general and women - and attitudes to women and sex - in particular.
If you are in favour of harm reduction then decriminalization is not the route you should be following but the Nordic model which allows women a route out of prostitution and discourages men from buying sex.
There can be no harm reduction in a trade where women sell the holes in their bodies for unfettered use by men.

There's always one.

The problem with greenlighting the prostitution of women is that it tells men that it's OK to hire, buy, and sell women's bodies. It tells men that it's OK to pay to turn a woman's no into a reluctant yes. It tells men that women are wank sheaths for hire, not people. It tells men that it's OK to put someone at risk of pregnancy and STIs as part of their "job".

When something demonstrably harms all women as a class, the few who mistake their own exploitation for "empowerment" don't get to silence the rest of us. Stop telling radfems "not to talk over" the minority of prostituted women who could leave easily and instead ask why they get to talk over the schoolgirls harassed and women abducted off the street and raped in Holbeck, the trafficked Romanians walking the streets, the groomed schoolgirls pimped out by adult men, the Filipino women enslaved in pop-up brothels, and ordinary women who don't want to live in a world in which it's accepted and normalised for men to commodify women's reproductive organs, anuses, and mouths in this way, endangering our health in the process.

Amazing post, I’m gonna save it!

I don't understand how, in an age where every human quirk and difference is pathologised, a man's 'uncontrollable' sex drive, completely guiding his behaviour regardless of the harms he causes to others, is treated in the opposite way: its normalised. A sex drive is not a reason to cause harm. If it does drive someone to do so, it's potentially a disorder to be treated. A society that truly saw men and women as equal humans would be giving serious thought to testosterone reduction treatments for men who seem incapable of controlling harmful sexual behaviour.

It's not as simple as the pimps' unions try to make out. https://nordicmodelnow.org/2019/12/22/has-the-nordic-model-worked-what-does-the-research-say/

Bilateral orchidectomy would work brilliantly for testosterone reduction and also stop the bastards from leaving any future victims pregnant.

The men that use prostitutes should be criminalised, they should be publicly charged and have it widely reported just like any other crime. Once again, it’s a man issue and women pay the price.

I was thinking temporary, dose adjustable and voluntary myself, but your way would certainly get the job done!

I know voluntary sounds silly- what man would opt for that?? But just like the male pill (the existence of which removes any excuse for a man to ever accidentally impregnate a woman and logically should lead to iron clad CMS laws) if men CAN use medication to control their harmful sexual behaviour we can stop excusing it as a society. The existence of these options should change the way we view the situation.

Can you imagine as a woman thinking 'I can't help it, I have to use prostitutes even where there's a high likelihood they're trafficked and suffering' and then NOT immediately thinking 'Shit, I need medical help!'

I dont think it is about "sex drive" or any other type of analysis.

This is just about being the dominant power group.

If you think how much people are made to be embarrased or to feel inadequate for not having friends, it's because it implies they aren't interesting, attractive, worth knowing etc.. And what people would say about you if you paid to have "friends".

But somehow paying for what is the most intimate interaction with another human being, is thought to be okay, natural. Which sort of implies that to men sex isn't a personal or emotional experience.

Which sort of implies that to men sex isn't a personal or emotional experience.

I'm a bit unclear whether you believe that to be true, or not? And either way I think it would be OK if they didn't think it was an emotional experience as long as they saw it needed to be a truly consensual and mutually enjoyable one.

I think the DISCOURSE of men's mythical uncontrollable sex drive is the issue, and that can be dismantled.

Edited to add: obviously combined with men being the dominant power group- agreed.

I have first hand experience of sex work, albeit a long time ago. "These men" are your husband, your brother, your bank manager, your dentist, your child's teacher, the nice guy that fixed your roof and your lovely male colleague. There is absolutely no one type, no back story, no demographic, no age group and no common denominator. A few of them were what you might call "seedy" and some of them were ugly by societal standards and probably wouldn't have got laid any other way. But most were definitely not. Most had steady/professional jobs and nearly all of them were married and content with their lives. A lot of them were working away from home, maybe contractors or business men/professionals at conferences, some were on a stag do or away with a hobby or sports group and some were regular and lived locally. They were "ordinary, respectable men". Women badly underestimate how easily men can compartmentalise sex as just another bodily function, like having a poo.

I don't believe that men have an uncontrollable sex drive and that's why they use prostitutes and commit rape. Men would like us to believe it because it absolves them of responsibility.

Bottom line is, men use prostitutes because they find it exciting and that's the sort of sex they like - paid for, with a woman they don't know.

Men rape because they find raping exciting - they like sex where they know the woman doesn't want it.

I'm a bit unclear whether you believe that to be true, or not?

It's more to do with what they thing, or society accepts what they think.

Because if they / society think it is okay for a man to pay to have sex with a woman, when they would ridicule him for paying to have friends, what does it imply that men, society think about sex.

Its almost like going back to the days when a young bride was told by her mother not to worry about what might happen on the wedding night, but just to lie back and think of England. (Or something like that.)

Men would like us to believe it because it absolves them of responsibility.

Totally agree- that's why we need to give them the option of a little pill of responsibility back!

This isn't an argument I've seen on here before- I was genuinely curious to see how it went down but probably should have started a new thread- sorry OP, I think your original point was excellent and both depressing and positive in the ways others have said.

Men rape because they find raping exciting - they like sex where they know the woman doesn't want it.

I suspect this is closest to the truth.

Its not just the act, its the right to dominate.

The right to dominate women.

To make women passively complicit in the domination.

But a bride should worry, even if she expects to lie still whilst he wanks in her, because she can suffer pain; catch STIs; get pregnant; get a UTI which, untreated, can mean kidney infection and death; be torn by him; and get BV or thrush, and all that's assuming that he's not violent.

What the pro-prostitution lobby love to ignore is that exactly 0% of men who pay to commit rape would be happy to bend over and take it up the arse themselves for cash, which tells you that they aren't interested in "empowering" women by letting them sell sex because they would feel empowered themselves by doing so if they were sincere.

When German anti-prostitution advocates talk about the situation of prostitution in Germany, we hear the same responses, over and over: “You’ve got to be kidding!” or “How is this possible?” When we do presentations in other countries, people in the audience will often start to cry or ask for a break after 15 minutes to get some fresh air. The same presentations in Germany cause outrage as well, but we’ve noticed that people have become so accustomed to the situation, their emotional response is subdued. In fact, German men will often openly and proudly out themselves as sex buyers at abolitionist events. There is no shame in being a commercial sex buyer in Germany. This is an obvious and alarming sign that decades of legalized prostitution have shaped society.

https://fightthenewdrug.org/germanys-legalized-prostitution-industry-looks-like-a-real-life-horror-movie/

This is what normalised prostitution looks like and what it means for those enmeshed in it.

Women carry shame.
Men do not.

And that's why 'urging men to stop' will make fuck all difference.

They seem women as nothing. They are just their for the use of men. And they deserve it. And if they don't those women should be ashamed.

How about we reduce testosterone in all boys/men until they prove they can behave appropriately towards girls/women....I really think testosterone is a harmful hormone for a civilised society

I'm not sure when that was. For most of history most brides have known about sex - and usually wanted it. It's a myth men have a higher sex drive than women but men feed this idea because they like using women as prostitutes. Outing them for doing so and offering prostitutes away out of selling their various holes etc is the way to end prostitution or at least stop it rising. Men should be shamed to use a prostituted woman, it's the same as rape.
Edited for spelling

Bottom line is, men use prostitutes because they find it exciting and that's the sort of sex they like - paid for, with a woman they don't know.

Also when men pay for sex, they don't have to make any effort to please the woman or think of her needs. They don't have to try and convince her to perform certain acts.
They can demand any sex act they want and control the whole interaction.
Very few regular women would willingly participate in such one-sided interactions.

Women are often trafficked, they did not 'choose' to sell their body. And this is not new. In 'Pericles, Prince of Tyre' the heroine, Marina, is sent to a brothel, where she is to be raped to break her to the trade but she persuades all the punters not to violate her and at last is allowed to leave by the brothel owner. Eventually she meets her father, Pericles, and both are reunited with Marina's mother etc.

Unfortunately, most 'Marina's' are not able to persuade the punters to refrain from having sex with them - that's the reality of prostitution for many. They are trafficked, duped, drugged, deprived of their passport. Additionally there are the women with no other recourse either because they have become (sometimes tricked into becoming) drug addicts or they are so poor that there is no other way to earn a living, i.e. in many developing countries women have few skills because they are low on the list of those to educate, and if left destitute e.g. by widowhood or divorce have no other way to earn money.
I don't think any of those reasons can be accounted choice.
And if you think of the courtezans such as fictionalised The Lady of the Camelias, or the real one, Barbara Strozzi, the composer, their stories are much the same. Strozzi claimed she was raped by the man whose concubine she became, which suggests coercion at the very least.

Prostituted women are routinely raped and forced to acts that other women who have some free choice, would not agree to. Prostituted women are just like me and you (if you are female) but with worse life choices.

My question is where does the attitude that this is ok come from? I’m assuming it’s a minority of men but it’s enough that this is still a big problem. Why do most men get the message that buying sex is wrong and some don’t?