How is it possible to be a feminist and support the sex industry?

[Molesworth]

I've just been reading this article from the guardian. Young girls are being sold to brothel keepers and made to take steroids so that they look older than they really are.

All my instincts say that the sex industry is just plain wrong. I know some feminists think it's OK (although obviously they wouldn't support practices like those described in the article). Are there any sex industry supporting feminists here? What's the rationale?

@ Dittany
The existence of trafficking and its victims has not been denied by anyone on this thread. Posting your link does not actually answer the issue of sex worker migrants and permanently residing sex workers. The link posted makes sad and distressing reading as intended. But again it does not actually address any of the points I and others have made. Similar and truly heart breaking accounts can be found among smuggled slave labours in the UK, Spain and many other industrial countries in the hospitality, agricultural and many other industries. However, the problem does not lay with the work/profession/trade itself but the fact that some people are forced to do the work and are exploited. As consumers we are all implicated in the existence and perpetuation of slave labour. The solution is not stopping the entire profession but to make ethical purchasing decisions.

Actually, with respect to ethical consumer choices, on one industry forum I have linked some European brothels with flat rate admissions and unlimited sex to the equivalent of treating prostitutes as battery hens. Again this simple and admittedly ham fisted analogy is not saying that the concept of consuming eggs represent the exploitation of chickens. The ethical conclusion to take would be do not try and get eggs at the cheapest and lowest price but consider the welfare of chickens and create the best and most pleasant environment to lay eggs. The comparison is really over simplified as we are people and offer services but again it tries to de-stigmatise sex work.

I am quite resigned to see that some posters will not accept that sex work is an acceptable way to earn a living. That is their choice but it isn?t their choice to seek prohibition of the work I would like to do.

thanks for link, both. i'm familiar with the issue, but curious how it was being marketed.

the perceived 'necessity' of the service says rather more about the values and attitudes of mainstream society than either a sex worker or anyone with a disability. it's more symptomatic of cultural values than anything else. (i have a daughter with cerebral palsy. fortunately she's too young to be negotiating that particular minefield yet, although don't get me started on perceived 'worth'.)

re 'visibility' and happy hooker narrative etc - i don't wish to imply that i have any particular opinions wrt sex wrokers per se in this regard - my comments wrt hidden communities and 'heads above the parapet' were largely drawn from other groups that i'm more familiar with - just recognition that there are reasons why (as misshm discussed in her post) workers would not want to be overly visible.

partly that's what i'm asking really - whether the media/ cultural stereotype is happy hooker/ trafficked slave/ junkie (all of which, apparently, are valid sub-groups of sex-worker), what is a woman to do with this information? what effects does it have on the life of every woman in the street? is this a question that (happy hookers?) sex-workers ask themselves?

is it a responsibility of every woman to have an opinion on this? can one particular brand of 'feminist' celebrate the right of an individual to do what he/ she wants with their own body? or does the fact that an individual behaviour/ action might have ramifications for all women mean that individual freedoms should be removed?

(i'm being a bit facetious myself, of course. we can wander down the 'necessity for criminals to exist to keep the rest of us citizens in line' road for hours. and this fence is giving me splinters.)

generally, i'm all for encouraging women to make their own decisions. i'm just uncomfortable that this 'decision' might have consequences for women who are forced into the decision, or any woman on any street where that masculine right to purchase and own (a woman) has become an unconscious belief. i accept that the transaction works well for some women (as someone else said - the privileged few/ many who can make their own decisions about who to take their money from, and when). do they have a duty to consider wider consequences?

i'm curious - when you join the military you have to consider the whole killing issue/ what war does/ is, and come up with some sort of ethical view as to whether you can get over that. does the same thing happen with 'thinking' sex workers, misshm/ manda? not so much from a personal perspective, but more of a 'society' thing?

just rambling. sorry!

apols, lots of x-posts - had the temerity to make a coffee...

Btw Dittany are you disabled? Or do just you feel as entitled to speak on behalf of disabled people of what is disrespectful to them as you presume you can speak for and over prostitutes? Is there any other society segment you don?t? actually demographically belong to but you nevertheless feel you are entitled to speak for and make sweeping judgments for?

Do you ever listen to people or speak to them rather than ignore their valid experiences and shout over them? I really pity you that you live in such a narrow minded little black and white world devoid of individual thinking that might break out from the dogma. I am wondering whether or not to donate some money to your cause so you can buy loads of barbwire and knit yourself an iron curtain to keep any dissidents out.

If everybody knows about these trafficked women in Camden etc. why aren't the authorities doing something about it shut the operations down?

This comes back to my question to MissHoneyMoon about the legality of the flat owners living off immoral earnings of prostitutes. Is this legal or illegal? If it is illegal why aren't the authorities shutting all of the operations down? Are they turning a blind eye and is all the media talk of government action to stop it just BS?

Jesus H. Christ..."eat-all-you-can" brothels [shock}

that is some sick kind of shit

or is it "all-you-can-eat" ??

horrible

Madwomenintheattic - same here I had dinner lol - anyway, I am not sure how easy any parents can cope with burgeoning sexuality of their kids. But I really do not feel equipped to judge carers/parents on how they deal with the sexual urge of whomever they care for. As a service provider the notion of seeing someone who may not be able to rationalise the decision to pay for my services does make me feel uncomfortable. Put it simpler whoever I see needs to have reached either the legal age or equivalent mental age. It would be for me an ethical wrong choice to see and potentially exploit a vulnerable client. Similarly, I re-evaluate any client relationship where I feel that the customer has perhaps a bigger emotional expectancy. As the sex worker I also have to take some responsibility for not exploiting my client if he is falling love or is veering towards an obsession with me. That means not taking advantage of very regular, long and lucrative bookings.

Anyway, I enjoyed your ?ramblings? as I am really actually keen to have a two way dialogue. This will not be possible with everyone ? that is a reality of forum life anywhere. Some people have a need to ram their beliefs down other people?s throats a universal truth that tolerates no other. As long as this is in a cyber format that is fine and it is part and parcel of free speech. We can ignore posters and concentrate on an overall debate. I still sadly do not see much in the way of constructive contributions to tackle sexual or indeed overall labour exploitation. Often people who actually work directly with help organisations both nationally and internationally have to become pragmatists and tackle one particular case on a whole. Passion and anger at injustice is an admirable thing but it does not solve actual situations. My parents worked most of their lives for aid organisations, my mum as a dentist and basic general medical practionner, my father as an architect and structural engineer. Their parents were refugees and their childhood experiences shaped them. They had to navigate a minefield of cultural attitudes, religion, tribal hostility, corruption, ignorance, apathy, total indifference of some towards the plight of others. My parents abhorred the corruption they encountered but they would not have been able to actually achieve anything by merely shouting and railing against it. They paid everyone often the equivalent of a few pennies in order to get medication or materials that had suddenly got lost in transit etc. The main thing I learned from them ? if you genuinely try to help ? first of all you should leave your judgements and own pre-conceived ideas outside and actually offer unconditional help. I feel this kind of attitude should be the cornerstone of any kind of aid work. Sadly many charities operate like some Victorian autocrats that seek to convert the heathens and rescue fallen women. Again I repeat ? help and do not judge!

Ok, just trying to think outloud about why I disagree with sex work even though I'm not in the industry, I never have been, dh doesn't buy services etc (although I have had some experience of working with prostitutes)...

I do think sex work affects all women, prostitute or not. I think it encourages a culture where women and women's bodies are viewed as commodities/objects to be bought and sold. This effects the way men view women, in a sex work experience, in work, in the family, etc. We are all affected by what goes on around us and the culture we live in, which is why I believe sex work is an area where it's not just a matter of 'i want to work in this way, leave me alone'.

I think it feeds the idea that men 'need' sex and women 'need to' satisfy, mainly because it sets up a structure whereby this can happen.

It commodifies sexual experience and offers sexual experience which is 1. deliberately unequal (one person there is for financial gain, one is for sexual gratification) and 2. divorced from emotional commitment of any kind. Even a one-night-stand has to have a certain level of emotional commitment, even if that is only 'we're going to mutually use each other's bodies for short term sexual pleasure.'

Sex is more than a physical experience (sorry SGB back to this ). Isn't there is something to do with emotions, feelings and love in normal sex and sexual relationships. Isn't that important, hence in society we're not all just gratifying ourselves with whoever, but looking for gf/bf/dh/dw's? etc.

madwoman

"generally, i'm all for encouraging women to make their own decisions. i'm just uncomfortable that this 'decision' might have consequences for women who are forced into the decision, or any woman on any street where that masculine right to purchase and own (a woman) has become an unconscious belief. i accept that the transaction works well for some women (as someone else said - the privileged few/ many who can make their own decisions about who to take their money from, and when). do they have a duty to consider wider consequences? "

Good questions, and this goes back to the very early part of the thread when we were talking about the harm principle as justification for limiting freedoms. I suspect that the more visible aspects of the sex industry (lapdancing clubs, porn, lad mags) have a greater impact than prostitution (which tends to be hidden) in creating this unconscious belief that women are objects which then makes the buying of sex that much easier for men to justify.

i'm not framing the debate in that way really - i'm reflecting how that notion might be used in any situation (hence use of 'generally'), including this one, without consideration of consequences/ wider picture. (and completely agree that the wider industry has more impact - don't get me started on soft-porn / glamour models taking part in military exercises for 'charity' and to rally the (male, natch)troops - just my focus here is on prostitution as offered by posters on this thread - it's a small part of a much bigger picture).

misshm - interesting re an individual's transition from large-scale protest/ action to much smaller-scale day-to-day life on the ground. my personal decision to join the military was a sort of grand gender-experiment in itself (on a personal level - many many different individual ideas of what 'feminism' means at any given time). having 'proved' (allegedly) my equality and ability, i spent the next 16 years realising that the west hadn't been won after all, and fighting much much smaller-scale gender battles than my original grand-gesture had ever anticipated. i can fully understand that someone with a grand desire to eradicate poverty could end up marshalling a riot over grain...)

at a distance, i now wonder whether my 'grand gesture' would have been very different. i'm interested that you're now looking at prioritising some other areas of your life - and curious whether in hindsight you might have made different decisions? (i'm not fishing for 'oh, i wouldn't have been a sex-worker', just curious whether you might have been tempted towards greater activism/ normalisation/ legalisation etc)

Dittany: you seem to have missed the bit where MissHoney said she was involved in setting up co-operatives for women trying to get out of sex work and into a different line of work. I have also noted that she says quite clearly that choosing sex work isn't for everyone and that plenty needs to be done to address the issue of exploited abused people.
And I do actually think that what Misshoney and Manda have to say is important and helpful in that they want to help the women who aren't doing it of their own free will to get out of it - they are definitely not suggesting that victims of coercion love it really, or that they should learn to love it. They are saying that if you are going to have sex for money, you should be able to make the choice freely, refuse clients who are not acceptable to you, you should not be handing over all your earnings to someone who is exploiting and mistreating you.

WRT to the more general argument about whether women can defend freely-chosen sex work given the exploitation and cruelty present in the industry as a whole, I think a parallel can be drawn with the fashion/clothing industry, where there is (again) cruelty and exploitation, whether that's the sweatshop labour making clothes for 5p a day, the starvation and psychological abuse inflicted on models (many of whom suffer horribly, develop eating disorders and MH problems and don't get to make big money) or the associated pressure on teenage girls to starve themselves and think of nothing but consumerism. Yet the fashion industry, too, has possibilities (particularly for women) to do something enjoyable and profitable and ethical such as setting up one's own clothing line, designing clothes sourcing fairly-traded fabrics etc.

Dittany: Well, for one thing, not everyone wants a pony.And absolutely NO ONE is denying that some people in the sex industry are horribly abused and harmed. As to the ways to help those people and reduce the possiblity of people being harmed, not everyone thinks that prohibition of the entire industry is the answer, any more than banning the eating of shellfish would have necessarily saved the cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay.
What is being done, at present, to help women leaving the sex industry to make new lives for themselves? Just telling them to leave the industry or indeed arresting and imprisoning the pimps isn't enough: what is supposed to happen to them after that? I have heard that many of those who have been trafficked tend to get deported after the brothels they were in have been shut down, which can't exactly be the best solution. (I think this also happens to victims of trafficking who are enslaved in other industries, as well, but this probably isn't the place to start the whole debate about asylum seekers and helping them build new lives etc). I am certainly not saying that enslaved, abused sex workers should be left to get on with it, but I do think that energy expended harassing the willing ones would be better spent on initiatives to help people who are poor, stranded, or desperate to retrain for other jobs or develop small businesses or something.

dittany, no sorry, we're talking at cross-purposes and arguing exactly the same thing. i don't mean i'm not recognising the debate - the wider debate - just that in this (small scale mn debate/ thread) i'm trying to explore what this very small aspect of the wider whole (ie 'safe' prostitution) means to those actually engaged in it.

i'm quite happy to talk lad mags/ prostitution as a whole, but right now i'm merely curious how one (or two) individual women see their own role in the bigger picture. i'd be equally excited to talk to 'angel', or a trafficker, or any number of other individuals engaged in any area of sex-work (directly or indirectly), as well as punters (i know quite a lot of punters lol). but they aren't currently posting on mn, offering to share their opinion.

that's not denying culpability, that's not denying any other facet of society/ global sex-work/ ramifications of legal/ illegal prostitution for anyone. it's suspending judgement and allowing an individual (or two)to disclose their own reality.

whether you or i condone that reality is just an interesting point in the debate, really. (this debate, not the wider debate)

so i'm not refuting the debate (really that's what my interest feeds into of course - hence my concerns re culpability - both my own as a 'witness' if you like, as well as working girls at the 'safe' end) but just concentrating on making sense of someone else's view of it.

i'd love to know how sex-workers make sense of their role in the big picture. and that's sort of where we started? i think!

of course you are right that the actual op doesn't really ask the 'right' question - what of the men indeed? but it was the op, lol. so that's what we're talking about.

but thread-drift allowing, i'd say that chasing down users of this type of service to get their opinion is even more difficult than forming a representative pie chart of sex-workers - as misshm pointed out, the 'service-providers' are visible if you know where to look. punters not so much.

but i'm being facetious again. i know that this is a male issue. if you read my previous posts i think i make it clear - as i said, i've travelled the world watching my (male) subordinates pay for sex, and have a concern that this (as well as all the other much louder/ more visible stuff) must be in some way intrinsically bad for the female of the species (for all of the reasons you mention).

i am interested to know if 'safe' sex-workers feel that what they do is part of that commodification of women, do individuals see commodification as a problem? presumably not. i want to find out where that thought trail goes. i'm interested to know how a sex-worker sees any aspect of being a woman in british society tbh.

i find the feminist/ sex-worker debate v interesting. a long time ago a few academics did some research into army wives and feminism. it's not relevant at all, but that's also a dichotomy that fascinates me. is it possible to be a feminist and sign over your entire life to a man who will trawl you and your babies (for you will have babies ) across the world for pretty much your entire adult life, making it impossible for you to have a career even if you so desire? can you be a feminist in that situation?

it's all context. my context for this discussion was to get to know a bit more about what makes an individual from the other side of the fence tick. (other contexts are available...)

that was all really clumsy - there's no right or wrong way to engage in debate on mn. i'm just in more of a listening mood today lol (despite the million word posts... )

Madwoman, re: what would have been the 'right' question to ask?

I don't think my question is wrong or invalid: I wanted to learn something about the different positions feminists take wrt the sex industry and the discussion has been informative and helpful.

sorry, superfluous "re:" there