Prostitution - whose choice is it?

[norton ash]

I have a friend who's a sex worker. She's completely independent, very careful and intuitive, has a background in psychology and social work. Her sex work enables her career as an artist and writer. I know it's a bad gig for many, but it's a good one for her.

[brekin]

Very insightful and thank you for sharing from your background. I think the sex trade will always be with us in some form under current economic systems. The inability to face it humanely just shows the irrationality humans have over Money and Sex. I don't have any grand solutions but hopefully some better systems or compromises can be achieved at some point.

It would be interesting if the profession of Sexual Surrogate took off and their services were so affordable, affirming and the profession so regulated that Johns would patronize them first. The field seems mostly focusing on sexual problems, the disease model, but then isn't most Western therapy/medicine?

Interestingly, the whole field (as far as I can tell) tap dances around legality/illegality and being a form of, or lets just called it, prostitution (a fee paid for sexual services). To me it sounds like it is (kind of) working the model of medical marijuana for prostitution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_surrogate

A sexual surrogate, sometimes called a surrogate partner, is a member of a sex therapy team consisting of client(s), supervising therapist, and surrogate.[1][2][3] Some couples attend sexual surrogacy sessions together, while some people (either single or in a couple) attend them alone.[4] The surrogate engages in education and often intimate physical contact and/or sexual activity with clients to achieve a therapeutic goal.[5] Masters and Johnson introduced the practice in their textbook on Human Sexual Inadequacy, published in 1970.[6]

Most surrogates are women;[7] a few are men.[8] Some surrogates work at counseling centers, while others have their own offices.[9] Many surrogates have training as sexologists.[10]

Although anyone can call themselves a surrogate without training or certification, there is training and certification available.[11][12] The International Professional Surrogates Association, founded in 1971, trains and certifies sexual surrogates and refers clients and therapists to them, as well as participating in academic research and public education.[13][14] Vena Blanchard is its president.[15]

[parel]

I have a friend who's a sex worker. She's completely independent, very careful and intuitive, has a background in psychology and social work. Her sex work enables her career as an artist and writer. I know it's a bad gig for many, but it's a good one for her.

I enjoyed the autonomy it gave me. It wasn't great at entry-level, but then I was underage (and would be classified as 'trafficked' now, even though I walked into the agency of my own volition) but it got better as I developed more skills and experience. Eventually, I was able to pick and choose who I went with. And that is the ideal I guess. They asked me how old I was, and I lied because I wanted that work. The other thing it afforded me, and other sex workers, is more time with our children. In Cambodia, Christian rescue agencies are herding sex workers into sweat shops. They earn a tenth of what they would on the street and they want to go back to sex work because they can be with their children during the day and work at night. On the street, workers look after each other. In sweat shops they are treated like shit.

And I still identify as a sex worker because I reserve the right to do it until the day I die. Once my son finished his education I didn't need to do it anymore. I was able to put him through university and he graduated free and clear, without a debt. He has known I was a sex worker since he was about 16. I told him when I felt it was age-appropriate because I was also doing activism back then, and he asked me something about why I was doing that. I wasn't going to lie to him. He is now 30 and fully supports my activism. So now I do full time activism, which pays badly but is more rewarding because it is helping to build a movement and assisting sex workers who are not as privileged as I ever was. even at my lowest.

A lot of people do sex work through university. This is very common. People at the UN have disclosed to me that they are "part of your movement" *wink wink* but they can't ever come out. I'm sure we have movement players like this all over the place. My sister also did sex work for a very brief period - less than a year. Her reaction to it is quite different though. She just doesn't talk about it, as though it never happened. She is not traumatised by it, but I do think she is ashamed. She now lives a straight life, with a straight husband in a straight government job.

So I guess it will affect people differently, but then the settings where sex workers operate are quite vast too.

[parel]

Thanks for your reply Brekin. I just typed out a big long response with images uploaded and the Chrome crashed.

Basically I was saying that a sexual surrogate would be like a specialist area of sex work. They are dealing with people who have sexual dysfunction don't they? I don't know if the puritanical west is ready for that but perhaps after the revolution... who knows? Basically, you can sleep with whomever you want, but if there is a transfer of funds involved, suddenly people get all high and mighty. I had one client for the last 20 years that I worked. If I had called him "my boyfriend" that would have been ok in the eyes of most people and we would be free to exchange money and gifts and favours without scrutiny. But because you call each engagement a "contract", you're in all sorts of trouble.

Anyway I will post some of our advocacy resources for the benefit of readers here. Mainly to show how much of our time is taken up these days fighting off the carceral feminists, when we could be out doing community-building work or HIV/STD prevention or human rights training or training sex workers to be paralegals. It pisses me off greatly that these women are even in our lives now. We think of them as the client who refuses to pay (or ugly mugs) because they appropriate stories from sex workers for free, tell lies about us, make up statistics, tell horror stories that may or may not have basis in fact and generally just use us to further their own politcal ends. I don't need to elaborate further on how much I hate these women. I think that is already clear.


Logo of the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers.
Tired of seeing sex workers in Asia shunted into menial jobs, we adopted this as our primary logo.



Susan Sarandon with Somaly Mam behind sewing machine.
Somaly Mam was exposed last year by Newsweek for fabricating her own childhood slavery tale and doing the same thing with children imprisoned in her "rehab" centre. Nicholas Kristoff and Susan Sarandon were her biggest promoters and she was, for years, the poster child of sex trafficking. Now, they have abandoned her completely.


Poster from the "Rescue is Violence" series, 2013




Sex workers cannot access the largest pool of HIV funding in the world, PEPFAR because they refuse to sign the anti-prostitution pledge. Instead, they allocate those funds to running rescue programmes.




Protest by Indian Sex Workers




Me wearing our most popular t shirt. In a twist of tragic irony, the slogan was adopted from Gloria Steinem's famous mantra "my body, my business." Now she sits on the board of Equality Now and spies on us.



The White Saviour Cat was borne out of the Equality Now spying scandal




Brown victim cat responds.



Then there is the Carceral Feminist cat series designed to raise awareness about the harm they cause to people they claim to be helping.





























There's more.. but I'm sure the idea has been adequately conveyed.

[Joao]

What a great thread. Really thought-provoking. Maintaining a sense of humor is always a nice touch.

[Heaven Swan]

Parel wrote:

No, that's not what anti-prostitutionists mean. They want sex work abolished world-wide. Conflating sex work with trafficking is the method they are using. This fails to serve trafficking victims and further stigmatises sex workers.

I'd love to see an end to prostitution worldwide. And I'd love to see women (and men) in dignified well-paid work. I'd also love to see an end to male-supremacist sexuality, I advocate working towards a world where sex is an expression of love and mutuality, not domination and submission, with the dominant sex paying.

If women find themselves in a situation where their options are limited, what woman (or person) has the right to then turn around and deny another woman a livelihood? Only privileged women are able to issue these decrees from on high. But please don't pretend it's about "gender equality". If that were true, those women who built this horrid, violent model would have been out in the streets handing out cash from their own wallets. That's what "gender equality" would look like. Women empowering other women to fight gender inequality. Not punishing them for being poor.

It's not true that only privileged women oppose legalization of prostitution and support the Nordic approach. Many of those who have suffered abuse in and out of the sex trade are viscerally opposed to prostitution and pornography. I myself was trafficked and the friend (won't call her my partner since I don't know where this is going) that I mentioned in another thread was born in a country with very high levels of trafficking and was adopted by couple who planned to traffic her. She successfully blocked their plan, in part by emphasizing male traits and is now F to M transgender.

There's an awful lot of trafficking going on and I'm not at all convinced that, just because in some cases the only way a woman can make enough to not be super-exploited or spend time with their kids is to sell their body that that should be supported as a political goal.

And sister, with all due respect, I'm not convinced that there is a huge difference between you who volunteered as a teen and someone like me or many others who, as children or teens were sold and/or coerced.

Sex work has not been abolished in Iceland. It has simply gone underground. We have a members from Iceland in the global network (NSWP). What you are happy about, is that you don't see it anymore. Not that it is forcing male, female and transgender sex worker to work in a more dangerous setting - with greater vulnerability to HIV, STDs and violence

.

No, I can't claim to know everything about everything that goes on in Iceland from my time spent there. When I was researching the Scandinavian situation on the internet I did find quite a bit of writing by Swedish sex-workers who were complaining about how their business had been practically wiped out.

What really appealed to me in Iceland wasn't just how safe-feeling and non-sexualized the streets were, but the way women and men interacted. The respect and higher equality level was tangible.

Slutwalk has nothing to do with sex workers. It was a spontaneous movement that arose because a high ranking police officer in Canada said that women should dress more appropriately if they didn't want to be raped. I know of no sex workers who take part in that event.

I was briefly involved with Slutwalk. In the US they have made a strong alliance with sex-workers rights groups. Men also participate and lead meetings which I read had opened the door to infiltration by the sex industry. Slutwalk seems to be fizzling. Good riddance!

[parel]

Parel wrote:

I'd love to see an end to prostitution worldwide. And I'd love to see women (and men) in dignified well-paid work. I'd also love to see an end to male-supremacist sexuality, I advocate working towards a world where sex is an expression of love and mutuality, not domination and submission, with the dominant sex paying.

You are not addressing the capitalist dictates I have pointed out in relation to placing sex workers into sweat shops. Are you suggesting that sex work is not dignified? If so, we have reached an impasse. It's not about your morality or mine. It's about people having sovereignty over their own bodies.
You want a world where sex is connected to love. Well, I don't. I want to be free to have casual sex if I want to. And I do. The mandatory "love" connection thing is part a patriarchal ownership ritual. That's what marriage is all about. And I reject that as well. In the end, it's about people disapproving of women having multiple partners.

It's not true that only privileged women oppose legalization of prostitution and support the Nordic approach. Many of those who have suffered abuse in and out of the sex trade are viscerally opposed to prostitution and pornography. I myself was trafficked and the friend (won't call her my partner since I don't know where this is going) that I mentioned in another thread was born in a country with very high levels of trafficking and was adopted by couple who planned to traffic her. She successfully blocked their plan, in part by emphasizing male traits and is now F to M transgender.

There's an awful lot of trafficking going on and I'm not at all convinced that, just because in some cases the only way a woman can make enough to not be super-exploited or spend time with their kids is to sell their body that that should be supported as a political goal.

And sister, with all due respect, I'm not convinced that there is a huge difference between you who volunteered as a teen and someone like me or many others who, as children or teens were sold and/or coerced.

Sex work has not been abolished in Iceland. It has simply gone underground. We have a members from Iceland in the global network (NSWP). What you are happy about, is that you don't see it anymore. Not that it is forcing male, female and transgender sex worker to work in a more dangerous setting - with greater vulnerability to HIV, STDs and violence

.

No, I can't claim to know everything about everything that goes on in Iceland from my time spent there. When I was researching the Scandinavian situation on the internet I did find quite a bit of writing by Swedish sex-workers who were complaining about how their business had been practically wiped out.

What really appealed to me in Iceland wasn't just how safe-feeling and non-sexualized the streets were, but the way women and men interacted. The respect and higher equality level was tangible.

Slutwalk has nothing to do with sex workers. It was a spontaneous movement that arose because a high ranking police officer in Canada said that women should dress more appropriately if they didn't want to be raped. I know of no sex workers who take part in that event.

I was briefly involved with Slutwalk. In the US they have made a strong alliance with sex-workers rights groups. Men also participate and lead meetings which I read had opened the door to infiltration by the sex industry. Slutwalk seems to be fizzling. Good riddance!

You use incendiary terms like "exploitation" and "super-exploited" which have no basis in fact and are like bombs in discussions like this. What is more exploitative than capitalism itself, than the rape of our mother earth (who IS a woman and did not provide consent for her bones to be ripped out)? Do you understand how offensive it is to have a (presumably) white woman, a coloniser, talking to me about exploitation. Newsflash: White tribes are propelling us into the abyss!! White tribes brought us racism and are perpetuating slow genocide. Native people are overrepresented in the prison system already. Yet you want to justify your "distaste" for some women's choice of work with flowery rhetoric about dignified work and set the cops onto them and shunt them into prison.

If you were trafficked, then that's trafficking. I am sorry to hear that you suffered but what you went through is not sex work. That kind of thing flourishes under criminalised regimes. Are you equating sex work with trafficking as well as with rape? Because if so, we aren't sisters. We are natural enemies and we might as well part company now and ignore each other. It seems rather selective to focus on the sex and ignore the violence. And you might think that there wasn't much difference between me at 17 and others who were sold but there is!! I was never sold. I got to walk away. Nobody knew how old I was, so how could I have been trafficked? I also started having sex at 14, like most girls my age at that time and in my milieu. I don't think I was "raped" by those guys either, even though statutorily, that's what they called it. I imagine there are young people still having sex around the age they reach puberty, and they will likely grow into healthy integrated adults. And thank GOD trafficking laws weren't in existence then, because I would have been further victimised by the carceral feminists who think it's a great idea to unleash the cops onto women. That's not feminist. That's just opportunistic.

The calls for criminalisation and conflating sex work with rape and trafficking is colonisation by another name.

If they weren't using feminism to justify their violent law and order responses, it wouldn't be so bad. You could call them what they are - misogynists. Instead we have misogynists posing as feminists.

If these western feminists want to stop exploitation then they can get off the colonised lands. Go back to where their ancestors came from and spread their violent ideology there.

White tribes FAILED when it was their turn to rule the world.

Red tribes will rule next and we will be fixing up the mess white people made over their obsession with dominating and subjugating and exploiting the land and genociding the people who sprang from it.

And if sex trafficking is such a big industry like the anti-prostitutionists claim, then why are people like Somaly Mam and Nick Kristoff (NYT) making up stories to raise money? Wouldn't there be plenty of people willing to come forward and disclose publicly? Other than Rebecca Mott and Rachel Moran. Where are they all? Where are the "trafficked victims" that speak in plain english and don't employ abolitionist terms like "pimp" and "john" and "prostiuted woman". Why is every "victim" that they wheel out loaded with these terms thought up by middle class academics?

Where is the organic 'trafficked persons' movement? Do they number in the millions like the global sex worker movement? It's always the same three or four people fronting for groups like Ruhama (formerly Magdalene laundries) and ECPAT & CATW. Very well funded to limit our freedoms I might add, with anecdotal stories of shame and horror but never with any solutions other than the cops and prison.

[Nordic]

The older I get, the more I approve of the idea. It's a service, a form of therapy, not unlike physical therapy only far more intimate. While I haven't engaged in it yet, I can easily understand how it could be greatly beneficial.

I used to have a good female friend who was a weekend worker. When she needed money she would fly to another city and would engage in these relationships. Knowing her, and seeing the effect she had on men (and even a lot of women) everywhere she went -- without even trying -- I had to ask myself who was exploiting whom? The men would just empty their pockets for her. She would sometimes come back to town with not just money, but once a car, once a state of the art laptop, once a really great camera. Pretty much every time she wanted or needed something she could, in a matter of a day, get it.

She confided a hell of a lot in me, and it seems her worst experiences with men were when she was trying to legitimately date them. Then they'd treat her like shit. Yes I know it was part of her own psychology to choose men for her romantic relationships who would not treat her well -- she had a lot of issues and didn't even meet her own father until she was an adult, and then just at an airport bar when he was passing through town.

My point is that she made the "work" work for her. And she always seemed to be 100% in control of it, unlike her non-work life.

When I got married my wife made me unfriend her.

In certain circumstances I could see that a course of action with the least harm to everyone and the greatest benefit would be hiring a sex worker. That situation has not yet arisen for me, and I actually hope it doesn't, but I could easily see the possibility of it.

[Heaven Swan]

Parel wrote:

You are not addressing the capitalist dictates I have pointed out in relation to placing sex workers into sweat shops. Are you suggesting that sex work is not dignified? If so, we have reached an impasse. It's not about your morality or mine. It's about people having sovereignty over their own bodies.
You want a world where sex is connected to love. Well, I don't. I want to be free to have casual sex if I want to. And I do. The mandatory "love" connection thing is part a patriarchal ownership ritual. That's what marriage is all about. And I reject that as well. In the end, it's about people disapproving of women having multiple partners.

If 'sex work' i.e. selling access to ones' internal organs for money is so dignified, would you want your daughter to do it? Seriously. Please think before you answer and answer truthfully. Or perhaps you have a daughter as well as a son. Did you steer her into this great line of work?

Nordic wrote:

The older I get, the more I approve of the idea. It's a service, a form of therapy, not unlike physical therapy only far more intimate. While I haven't engaged in it yet, I can easily understand how it could be greatly beneficial.

Same question for you Nordic. Since you approve of the idea of women selling their bodies, does that approval extend to your daughter? Or is it only for the sub class of women that are either trafficked or end up in it because of lack of better opportunities?

This is why I and many others want to abolish prostitution and support the Nordic model. Legalization creates a shadow sub-class of disposable, receptacle women with whom sex crimes are permitted or overlooked.

I'm 100% against women being arrested for prostitution. Under the Nordic model only the johns are guilty of a crime, which usually doesn't carry stiff penalties but is more of a deterrent. The deterrent works. For example, if Nordic risked being outed to family and community he might think twice about hiring a prostitute, am I right?

De-criminalization does take away the risk of arrest for the women but doesn't solve the greater problem. I agree that we need an overhaul of the economic system and decent well paid work for women (and men) but mounting a campaign to better sell our bodies isn't the right way to go about it.

[Heaven Swan]

And as far as all the 'happy hookers' that several of you seem to have met. Ok you met them, I didn't, but I have met MANY current and former, using your language, 'sex workers'. The former ones, who had aged out of the sex business, were having to scrape by without having built a resume or profession. The only thing they had experience in was the sex industry, so they often continued to work in some sex industry support role such as answering phones at the brothel. Having had little or no help or support, they had to go on living and working on top of a very high and obvious level of unhealed trauma.

The current ones, including those I met at Slutwalk, displayed high levels of trauma and used alcohol and/or drugs to get through the day. If I had met stable, non-traumatized, non flagrant drug-using women, I might have amended my opinion, and concluded that my negative view was due to my having been trafficked as a minor, but no, meeting current sex sellers including the sex worker rights agitators only reinforced my views.

Our discussion is making me think more deeply on this. I can't help but wonder if the sex worker rights campaign isn't, at least at times, funded by the porn magnates who are crafty and ruthless and have money to burn. If I were them I would definitely allot funding in that direction.

[82_28]

I'm 100% against the idea of prostitution. Do I think one should be prosecuted for doing what they want? Not at all. As long as all involved parties are consenting and aware of what they're doing, who am I to say they can't do it? I am still against it though because I do not feel that an ideal society has any room for prostitution and a whole litany of other issues. I associate it with veganism actually. I wish I could be a vegan but I like meat. When there is a vegan or vegetarian option I always roll with that. However when I want a rib eye I get it, grill it and enjoy it. I used to have a Propagandhi shirt that I would take off when going out for BBQ.

Anyhow, to each their own. None of my business. I am just concerned about a society that gives the all clear for exploitation for selfish desires. Everyone needs something but sadly very few get it. Prostitution is an amalgamation of freedom to do what you want and cruelty. One outweighs the other yet also blends. It simply comes down to the idea itself of objectifying others rather than embracing them with support and etc. Prostitution is not the path to equality for all if that is what we at the heart of it desire.

[identity]

I associate it with veganism actually. I wish I could be a vegan but I like meat. When there is a vegan or vegetarian option I always roll with that.

Are you saying that you would prefer to roll with a vegan prostitute, if that option were available?

[norton ash]

Would a vegan prostitute taste better? Asking for a friend.

[backtoiam]

You just made my day.

"asking for a friend"...i had no idea what that even meant until the wombat explained it to me...

[identity]

Parel wrote:

You are not addressing the capitalist dictates I have pointed out in relation to placing sex workers into sweat shops. Are you suggesting that sex work is not dignified? If so, we have reached an impasse. It's not about your morality or mine. It's about people having sovereignty over their own bodies.
You want a world where sex is connected to love. Well, I don't. I want to be free to have casual sex if I want to. And I do. The mandatory "love" connection thing is part a patriarchal ownership ritual. That's what marriage is all about. And I reject that as well. In the end, it's about people disapproving of women having multiple partners.

If 'sex work' i.e. selling access to ones' internal organs for money is so dignified, would you want your daughter to do it? Seriously. Please think before you answer and answer truthfully. Or perhaps you have a daughter as well as a son. Did you steer her into this great line of work?

Nordic wrote:

The older I get, the more I approve of the idea. It's a service, a form of therapy, not unlike physical therapy only far more intimate. While I haven't engaged in it yet, I can easily understand how it could be greatly beneficial.

Same question for you Nordic. Since you approve of the idea of women selling their bodies, does that approval extend to your daughter? Or is it only for the sub class of women that are either trafficked or end up in it because of lack of better opportunities?

I don't know why you limit your questions re: prostitution as career option to their (actual or imagined) female offspring, when we know they both have male offspring and males also work as prostitutes. What difference does the offspring's gender make in a question such as this?

Also, if I would not cherish the thought of my own offspring working in a Foxconn factory, is it therefore incumbent upon me to avoid any and all products that may have been produced in a Foxconn (or similarly exploitative) factory?

If I would not delight in the thought of my own offspring working in a slaughterhouse, should I avoid the ingestion of all animal products, as well as registering my opposition by not lending support to any businesses that sell or serve animal products whatsoever?

And so on and so forth.