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.

im only talking about onlyfans and nothing else

Sounds like an argument for a basic income for everyone, and hanging for slave traders.

This was sort of the point I was getting at.

I think there is a misconception on here of what most prostitution is like in the current age. It isn't as though men have to visit some dingy basement flat to be greeted by some poor disheveled looking woman who clearly doesn't want to be there. If that was the case men wouldn't want to visit.

There is no more friction visiting a prostitute than say, visiting a chiropractor. Without a disincentive (such as making it illegal) I can't see how things will change.

I'm sorry to hear about your sister.

Over 50% of women of child bearing age are on the pill or similar so I don't think this forms a good argument in this instance.

Sure. Same as if people didn't sell smack and crack, people wouldn't buy.
It's supply and demand dipshit. If there was no demand, there would be no supply. 2 to tango? F U

Is anyone else wondering why a man/men who regularly use prostitutes, and happily so 'cause it's legal, are on FWR?
Seems rather goady, and massively creepy to me

great way to debate, no wonder the us got trump

people want a better society well to get that it works both ways just because something is legal does not make it right to offer the product or service

I think it's good to highlight what the men are seeing / feeling to better understand the problem and hopefully work out ways to fix it.

This thread has touched a nerve. I don't need to name change because I'm anonymous anyway.
I had to leave home when I was 15. I was homeless, and survived for a while by shoplifting. Then I got arrested and couldn't do that anymore, so I took myself to the red light district to make some money to eat.
I was 16 and looked it.
The men that picked me up in their cars must have known I was a child. I got thrown out of cars and not paid the tenner for their blowjob, one creep just wanted to take photos of me in his bath.
It didn't last long because the (vice) police picked me up, abused me, locked me in a cell and then kicked me out on the streets again. I was 16
Decades have passed and I don't think about it much.
But when I see threads like this and how it 'takes 2 to tango', I just want every punter to have their dick shot off.

I'm so sorry @XXylophonic

I have no desire to debate with anyone who argues 'it takes 2 to tango'. What has the US or Trump got to do with any of this? Are you American?

"so I took myself to the red light district to make some money to eat."

i understand the need for survival,

why did you not go to other govt services ?

in was the way you thought swearing would win any points when you swore without any context,

the same way some people try to win political debates by shouting the loudest or by arguing or swearing rather than debating the same that has be said for some that voted for trump, shout loudest etc

if people offer a service reguardless of why then they become part of the very issue that we or society is trying to prevent , they are happy to use the punters when it suits them but when they dont need them they soon go omg how dare others use them etc

You utterly disgust me and the vast majority of women. But you know that, don't you?

The sexworker can also be charged if she is working in the same premises with other sexworkers as mentioned (something NM supporters don't seem keen to talk about), even if it's on different times or days. Depending on NM country, sexworkers are also not allowed to rent property and can face visits by social work to determine if they fit to be a mother because they sell sex.

Sexworkers also don't want their clients to be caught, not because they "like" them but because clients are their business/source of income. Clients can also become more controlling and demand the meeting goes how they want it to to avoid being caught.

"Yes a criminal record, fear of going to jail etc"

AFAIK, no client in Sweden in 25 years who got caught has been sent to prison. The sentence is just a low fine and AFAIK it's the same in other NM countries too. Did I say in the first 2,000 client arrests in Sweden only 2 were convicted? In Ireland any client who is convicted is ordered to make a donation to their court the amount being of their own choice.

I have also mentioned the difficulty in actually catching clients and securing a conviction. Both clients and sexworkers take steps to avoid this (don't admit to anything, be careful what is said when arranging a meeting, don't carry condoms etc).

Out of interest, @Christinapple, do you use 'sexworker' as one word for a reason? Like, for example, 'transwomen' is used to distinguish between men who identify as woman i.e. transwomen, and women who are trans, i.e. transmen?

Not workers who have sex, for example, but something different?

As long as the world's wealth and power is men's, some women will be desperate enough to sell access to their bodies. "As bad as each other" doesn't apply under patriarchy.

EmpressaurusKitty · Today 19:47

If a man would only give up paying for sex through fear of being arrested, not through fear of being recognised as a pathetic misogynist wanker who thinks it’s acceptable to buy women’s bodies, then that says volumes about him as a person.

You've reminded me of a Christian fundamentalist I once had the misfortune to be stuck on a ship with. He insisted that all moral behaviour came from the fear of Jesus watching us, that without God, we'd all be Viking berserkers.

I asked if, without the fear of Jesus watching him, he'd be attacking old ladies with an axe for their pensions, of poking babies eyes out and he said "Yes." I said that I'm an atheist and had no drive to do such things.

I mean, preferring to go without a meal to being a sadistic murderer doesn't take public shaming, it's just something which would never enter my head and if it did, I would wonder if I'd gone mad.

why did you not go to other govt services ?

You have evidently never been a desperate teenager, with no help or support, with an immediate need. I'm not trying to be awful, but goodness, if you even know where to find help, it's slow and desperately inadequate.

A quick look at Punternet's reviews indicates that quite a lot of women are dishevelled and don't want to be there. The men gripe but still show up.

As for your earlier assertion that prostituted women all insist on condoms, there's an entire website devoted to "barepunting". And it has a "streetwalkers" section. I remember from my reading when this topic last came up that some of the streetwalkers offering "bare punts" reviewed were Romanian women prostituted in Holbeck.

Prostituted women don't use punters. It's the other way around.

If you'd been groomed as a teen, hooked onto drugs and pimped by your so-called "boyfriend", and managed to exit alive, you'd want to warn others too. And you'd especially want to warn the women who are naïve- and cocky-enough to think that they are somehow different from everyone else and can "do some escorting" at uni without lifetime negative consequences.

(1) They aren't on the Pill for their jobs. That's a key difference. An occupational requirement is different from a personal choice.
(2) We know from many many threads on Mumsnet that contraception fails. Prostituted women are at risk of an unplanned pregnancy where they don't and can't even know who the father is.
(3) In a marriage, the husband can get a vasectomy and protect his wife from pregnancy. She can ask to see the sperm test results to assure herself that he has done so. Punters don't get vasectomies to protect prostituted women, and even if one punter did have a vasectomy, the woman cannot trust him to tell the truth and all the other punters don't have them so she has.to stay on contraception.

But how many fewer men visited prostitutes because it was made illegal? That is my point. Surely it's worth giving it a go if it reduces the number of men buying sexual services?

Or are we only worried about certain buyers and not the act of prostitution itself?