Apparently, Feminism is dead!!!
- Thread starter Treacle Toes
- Start date
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Absolutely.
Edit: I can't do a better job than you, Edie. I don't know enough about the realities.
The irony is, I bet if you asked 20 Mums in the playground what they considered to be the most important objectives of feminism, hardly fucking anyone would say 'abolish prostitution'. It'd be so far down the list it wouldn't be worth a mention, yet for some reason the middle class bloody "feminists" that write the books and give interviews ALWAYS go on and on about it!
I mean jesus fucking wept.
Equal wages
Better maternity and fair split with paternity
Women having the chance to choose not to work and bring up their kids, income support to reflect this in it's support of single mothers
Caring work paid better
More women in government
More women writing the media, on the tele
I could go on. Just fucking pick one of them and leave sex work out of it. No one cares about your bigoted views you bunch of patronising bitches. And Moran. Buy some fucking straighteners, you look like a badgers fucking arse.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
The situation for PH, which I know best, is similar to that for AMMAR in Argentina.
As for Britain's IUSW
It posts up this claims at the top:
"There is no evidence that most purchasers of sexual services wish to buy services from the unwilling. In fact, clients can be part of the process of identifying trafficking. In Turkey the government set up a well-publicised hotline for reporting trafficking, across all industries. In the six months to January 2006, 3/4 of the tip offs came from sex workers’ clients. Here, cases have come to court after clients paid tens of thousands of pounds to free women from slavery."
That comment fails to recognise that in many who reported coercion in Turkey did so as 'clients' who were very bravely playing the role but allied with womens' organisations, sent to uncover the reality of the extent of the abuse. Women can't get into to brothels unless they become sex workers, so it was working-class men, mostly leftists I believe, doing it.
The problems with the IUSW accepting pimps and other managers into its ranks are detailed here, there's other stuff elsewhere.
IUSW then goes on to encourage lobbying by all sex worker and john alike, instead of industrial action, against the Scottish government enacting some form of legislation similar to Sweden.
http://www.iusw.org
By asking
and then giving some of these absurd (where not grossly disablist) pointers:
Yay for the IUSW
Punters and working girls alike don't like trafficking. One of the most common (almost ubiquitous) FAQs on AW is 'Are you British: YES I AM'. Cos as a working girl you are CONSTANTLY asked it. Trafficked girls get bad field reports, punters don't like it. And all major boards (saafe, punternet etc) encourage instant reporting to the police of any suspicion of trafficking or underage.
It goes on. I'm not gonna say it doesn't. Legislation would make it MUCH harder for bait n switch to happen.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
So 'girlfriend experience' means good money for those young and suited for their johns to provide it.
Where does it leave those who hate the thought of being penetrated, those who are old and un-desired by 'punters'/johns? The only answer from your perspective is 'sex work is not for them'... as meaningless as telling people who refuse to sell their children to adoption agencies it's not for them.
Do £100-an-hour sessions invalidate the wider social reality? Seeing as you mentioned your experience as an attempt to declare New Zealand but not Sweden the way forward, I will have to explain mine.
I know (not very well) but enough only (via my mother) one woman who 'worked' out of necessity/circumstances at a 'massage parlour'. But the memories of pain are so great that writing about or talking about them are so severe, that many ex-workers do not wish to return to discuss them.
(It was only shared very carefully with my mother, and in particular circumstances and conditions).
As my mother explained it, to her, it wasn't the fear because these were places apparently well controlled by security guards, (the workers needed to be in good condition for 'clients' to choose them) but the life itself that was horrible. But as far as I understand it was good money.
Also I can mention one other thing: a long time ago, on a Friday evening when I was a teenager waiting for friends at a specific location, I was approached by a woman English offering oral sex in a public toilet just across the road for "a tenner". (I sort of shook my head terrified and tried to walk away, and I didn't tell anyone for a long time afterwards but explained it to someone many years later who explained that yes people would go in cars looking for oral sex in their vehicles down that road and it was common, but everyone around was afraid of the johns and/or drug dealers so nothing happened until the place became renovated and more people began using the stretch)
Decriminalisation/criminalisation for johns not sex workers. Sex workers themselves should not be prosecuted, I said it to LBJ and I'll repeat it again here - criminalisation of sex workers and criminalisation of groups of sex workers working from one location must be overcome. But the NZ model is no superior thing compared to scorning it, it's other people in NZ explaining that under-18 females are still being abused as prostitutes in one district of Auckland within the sex industry. That's not street - decriminalisation of johns - without any wider effort remains stuck.
Those in favour of the Norway approach also say that access and take-up of health has increased because of the decriminalisation of sex workers. But criminalising johns in Norway has not stopped the wider reality of the sex trade still going on.
Where have I suggested that people should do sex work alone? I'm saying that forming collective arrangements amongst those able to do so will not prevent lone sex work. How does that endanger a sex worker? Sex workers like other workers should be together to act collectively of course, that's true for them as it is for any other worker.
So I encourage agglomeration and bigger units and collective self-defense. But willing it won't make it happen, and even where it does happen, lone sex work still emerges under capitalist pressure. That's been the experience of Mumbai.
Re:Childcare. If I'm in favour of socialised childcare for the whole of society, then I am I'm favour of it for sex workers too. (I'd prefer it if johns were doing their share of childcare, instead of paying £100 an hour)
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
That's Cath Elliott's criticism, IUSW organising with "punters" and "pimps" and "managers of escort agencies" means it is not as effective, not as accurate a voice.
It's a standard point for the labour movement, when you accept managers and those outside of the field of emotional labour or itself, the managers' perspective, slightly modified, wins - that's absolutely the case be it GMB or UCU or UNITE.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
In my opinion, the way prostitution is viewed by feminist academics can be very quite...well, not narrow-minded, but focused on the "shame and stigma" aspect, rather than taking on board that the "shame" and "stigma" are external values (usually religious) projected onto sex workers. I've got more time for women like Sheila Kitzinger, who does research into womens' attitudes to issues like sex-work and rape, than I do for someone like Caitlin Moran, who's basically a gobshite.
Thing is, I don't think that feminism, especially that espoused by the middle-classes - that censorious and restrictive feminism that's all about "do as I say", not "how can I help?", can bring itself to let go of the sex work issue. Who would such feminists have to look down on, if they had to leave sex-workers alone?
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
I understand the standard point for the sex workers labour movement, but this is a wider point for the *whole* traditional labour movement. And also unions have managers of their own. And also unions modify the workers voices to the employer. All valid criticisms. I'm not sure that I can add anything more than the sex worker labour movement certainly isn't alone in this, so I'm not too sure if it adds anything in the context of feminisim.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Johns are so fixed an unchangeable part of your assumptions here that you've not even identified not the male consumer wing, the "punternet" crew as a major group making working conditions dangerous but feminists effectively lumping them politically with religious people.
I don't know whether I see feminists actively promoting stigma against sex workers or making working conditions dangerous. Even liberal feminists like Caitlin Moran, who is hypocritical about the division between burlesque or strip clubs, don't encourage stigma against the workers of strip clubs but the men and the city banker firms who use them. I appreciate your posts, but that's just a outrageous against feminists. It's creating stigma against feminists.
It's legal to exchange and buy sex for money in the uk. It is ALREADY decriminalised. The law currently protects punters, whilst making sex workers vulnerable. But I think we probably agree on that 
Just fwiw, the myth that all sex workers are young, is just that. A myth. Most sex workers are in their 20s and 30s, but a substantial number are in their 40s, and there are women up to the age of 71 working in West Yorkshire. Most of these will offer GFE.
£100 is a standard incall cost in the north of England. Standard outcall is £120-150. That is not the priviledge "high class" call girl. That is the AVERAGE. I'm just saying this so you can arm yourself with the actual facts
Yes. Some women are very traumatised by sex work. I acknowledge that.
A lot aren't though
: http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=10226.0
edit:
Just fwiw, the myth that all sex workers are young, is just that. A myth. Most sex workers are in their 20s and 30s, but a substantial number are in their 40s, and there are women up to the age of 71 working in West Yorkshire. Most of these will offer GFE.
£100 is a standard incall cost in the north of England. Standard outcall is £120-150. That is not the priviledge "high class" call girl. That is the AVERAGE. I'm just saying this so you can arm yourself with the actual facts
Yes. Some women are very traumatised by sex work. I acknowledge that.
A lot aren't though
: http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=10226.0edit:
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
CE's point was the IUSW's supposedly authoritative voice for sex workers was being drowned out by including male escort agency bosses as members. That's a feminist argument as much as a radical labour argument.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Since the law was changed in 1999 there have been over 4100 men charged with buying sex http://mobil.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article14170109.ab
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Then it's a feminist point for all women who belong to a union where the union admits membership of male bosses (including their own internal FT structure). It's not specific to sex workers.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Not sure that's "grossly disablist" so much as realism informed by working contact with disabled punters. It's always been an issue (with both male and female disabled people) that for some, buying sex to relieve the physical and emotional need is rational behaviour. It means they can do things on their own terms, with "no strings".
And yeah, some disabled people do worry that they'll never experience sex. Square normals may not approve of crips fucking, but that's tough shit for them.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
£100 is a standard incall cost in the north of England. Standard outcall is £120-150. That is not the priviledge "high class" call girl. That is the AVERAGE. I'm just saying this so you can arm yourself with the actual facts
I didn't mention "high class", price demands do vary widely, as you know.
As you know, girlfriend experience doesn't necessarily mean "high class".
Stigmatising punters is stigmatising sex work is stigmatising sex workers. And please stop calling them johns. It just sounds so weird
You don't seem to know that much so I was just tellin you what the average was as you said
which I thought ment you considered 100 on the hour to be not representative. It was just a point on fact
Yep. Blind, deaf, skin conditions, LDs. Had all them.
Maurice Picarda
Actually, might as well flounce.
And please stop calling them johns. It just sounds so weird
Hear, hear.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
I can see we're not going gonna agree.
The idea of what you're writing, that of there being some kind of right to sex is exactly 'a nonsense on stilts' as whoever it was said. I understand why it happens and I believe a less anti-disabled society must be the aim, not a buying-sex dependent society. No strings? Strung up all over.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
You don't seem to know that much so I was just tellin you what the average was as you said
which I thought ment you considered 100 on the hour to be not representative. It was just a point on fact
No, it's social effect.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
"Abolitionist" Feminists tend to use the term "prostituted woman", while many pro-prostitution (and/or "harm reduction") Feminists prefer to talk about "sex workers". Both are highly ideological in intent.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I haven't written, or even implied that there's a "right to sex" of any kind, so please don't put words in my mouth that I haven't spoken. All I've done is state, based on my own receipt of anecdote from other disabled people, that for some disabled people, buying sex relieves their physical and emotional needs where otherwise they might have to rely on being in a relationship (not an option for a significant minority of disabled people). Any idea what it's like to be in a position where you're unable to even masturbate? Somehow I doubt it, or you wouldn't be spouting your Utopian spiel.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
What's the non-ideological feminist position?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Of course they are, what else could they be?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Sitting dead in a chair is about the only position a feminist could be in and be non-ideological.
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