Women's Issues

.... Pretty much what Shima said, which is the truth for just about any thing really, people will gleefully ignore any one who actually knows what there talking about, just so that they can listen to there preferred talking head.

I guess the true issue is the familiar issue of classism in the media and the readers/viewers they want to attract (generally not blue-collar types). Print journalism in particular, which these days is marketed to only educated professionals.

A brighter future for a darker age.

Anyone interested in the topic should read Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women by Alexa Albert. Advertizing for legal Nevada brothels isn't allowed and the women do know how to recognize signs of ST Ds.

Men can be prostitutes too. Just throwing that out there. I think this is telling because look at all the women who we know thanks to sex, even on a superficial level, like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, but how many straight men are defined by sex and known for it to the same degree? Not many.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I mentioned the north Country stuff some time ago :(

I am not sure if it was here or on another thread, though...dangit, I cannot find it. I had a list of other stuff women had done in that area of fighting for manual labor...

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

We'll, Gabrael, this is the Women's Issues thread and not the General Prostitution thread. It stands to reason we would view the subject through the filter of women's issues.

"Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy."

Male sex slaves and prostitutes get almost no attention as a consequence of the same cultural value that diminishes male rape victims - which is, itself, the flipside of the coin that sexualizes women with one hand while discouraging their personal sexuality with the other: the idea that sex is something that men do and women have done to them.

And on that note, because we define it as a solely female thing, prostitution gets lumped in with sex slavery and rape because we assume that nobody becomes a prostitute of her own volition; that would imply that a woman is making her own choices as to what she wants to do with her sex. The stigma is that people only become prostitutes because they have no other choice or because they're forced into it; that prostitution is just another way sex is done to women by others.

edited 16th Dec '14 9:32:25 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Maybe I'm not the best trooper to talk about that.

"Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy."

I thought a lot of the "nobody chooses to become a prostitute" line came from the sex-negative branch of feminism? It seems to remind me of a woman i used to work for, four years ago, very anti-porn and helming an organization opposed to sex trafficking, and the implication from working there was that all sex workers were suspect in terms of having chosen to do so purely autonomously, an attitude it took me a while to un-learn.

If anything, the autonomous side would come from the patriarchy: "if she's uncomfortable with putting up with clients' abuse, she can just choose to do something else!"

edited 16th Dec '14 9:58:46 AM by Ogodei

Anti-prostitution sentiment has existed for much longer than feminism has.

In modern society, prostitutes are generally seen as either helpless victims of circumstance or amoral temptresses, depending on how sympathetic towards women the beholder is, but never simply as human beings who simply made a lifestyle and/or career choice. On a cultural level, many of us hear "Sex worker" - whether it's prostitution, stripper, porn, etc. - and immediately think there is a sob story of desperation and/or bad parenting involved in this choice, while on a legal level, our lawmakers and enforcers busy themselves trying to protect the innocent bystanders of the world from the perceived evil that sex workers do to the rest of us.

This makes sex work a dangerous industry to be in, and due to the legalities thereof, nowhere is this more true than prostitution. A prostitute has no protection under the law. Nowhere they can turn when clients abuse them, rape them^HEY! Yes, it is still rape if it's done to a prostitute. Hiring a prostitute is not free range to do anything you want to her with no regard to what she is or is not willing to do., or murder them. Some well-meaning but ultimately ill-conceived laws wind up making their jobs even more dangerous, such as Washington DC's law that prohibits women from carrying more than three condoms - intended to discourage prostitution, this instead encourages sex workers to simply do their jobs without.

The fact of it is, sex workers who are in this position by choice are not victims and do not need to be protected by well-meaning but ignorant laws and cultural stigma, and neither do the poor, innocent clients need to be protected from them. At the same time, sex workers who genuinely are not in this position by choice are not being helped by laws passed to vilify them and increase the risks they take.

edited 16th Dec '14 10:38:43 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Which is why I continued to tie it to a feminist issue.

I am a woman. I am constantly viewed, advertised, treated, and governed as a sexual being. However men are not faced with these pressures. That's an issue worth exploring.

It's the slut/stud issue. Why is it when you say prostitute, most people assume "Woman"? Especially when we have growing evidence and signs that men and boys are being trafficked as well?

The simple answer is that women's sexuality and sexual expression is a commodity that needs to be under strict scrutiny according to the cultural norms passed down for thousands of years. If a woman is wealthy enough like Paris Hilton, that can be an asset. However, a casual woman who is not a wealthy heiress would be devastated by the release of a sex tape.

Even when someone is say legally involved in the sex industry such as prostitution or pornography, even if it's just posing not actual videos, they can lose their "respectable" jobs such as teachers and what not.

You don't want women in the sex industry. But you don't want to stop punishing them for it and let them maintain a different lifestyle.

edited 16th Dec '14 10:33:36 AM by Gabrael

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I'm thinking it's mostly movies and books that contribute to the whole "hookers are all victims" thing. "We need a tragic character. An abused prostitute? Original AND creative!"

"Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy."

On that note, American women would rather be pretty than smart, starting from a very young age. Possibly part of why women avoid scientific fields.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

According to Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women the legal prostitutes do choose it. Usually that decision is influenced by someone close to her but even then she chooses to stay and finds pride in her work.

when you say prostitute... men and boys are being trafficked as well Those words really shouldn't be used interchangeably. Prostitutes get paid. Human trafficking victims are raped, drugged, and killed.

@Jinx: You are very right with that one. Most Americans think of hookers as all being scared streetwalkers (thanks to tropes like Disposable Sex Worker) when the reality is less than 15% of them ply their trade that way. Most work out of their apartments, for brothels or "massage parlors", or work as some flavor of escort - all parts of the trade which are less risky and more profitable.

Furthermore, I've known a few women who worked in the trade, and all of them got into it for the same reason most of us have taken a job that wasn't our ideal - financial necessity. Sure, you could count that as being "forced", but I wouldn't. I've taken jobs I didn't really want to do because I needed money; none of those jobs were what you'd call fulfilling, and at least two involved getting exploited by my employers in some way. Was I "forced", or was I just standing up to my responsibilities (mortgage, bills, not being "on the dole") as a citizen and working class individual?

@Loni Jay (from a bit ago): I'd ask you why sex is fundamentally...different, as you say it. I mean as a blue collar laborer I use my hands and my back and my knowledge of how to lift/build things to earn a paycheck. Why is that "different" from a sex worker using her (ahem) other body parts to do the same thing?

@lexicon: I'd couch human trafficking as a fundamentally different situation than prostitution the same way I'd couch paid labor as fundamentally different from slavery. One can at least be done on the level, the other cannot.

And anything legitimate that gets said about prostitutes generally applies to the male ones as well...who make up one fifth of the "workforce", last time I looked at the numbers.

edited 16th Dec '14 8:19:10 PM by drunkscriblerian

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Question: if someone hires a prostitute, has sex with them, but then leaves without paying, have they committed rape by fraud?

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko

hmmm, that's an interesting one. My natural inclination is to say that it's more theft the same way that it would be if you dodge the bill at a restaurant. Though I could be wrong.

It would be a verbal contract for payment of services so yes.

My logic follows that if I do two hours work for somebody and they then refuse to pay me, they haven't retroactively enslaved for for those two hours, they've robbed me of the money they were meant to pay me.

Sounds like theft of services the same as if you run out on any bill.

And those kind of things are dealt with in The Peoples Court. Imagine that kind of case...

edited 17th Dec '14 2:40:53 AM by Memers

That's the exact reason why prostitutes in the United States request money before rendering services: because clients do that, and the prostitute has no legal recourse to pursue them because prostitution is illegal in most parts of the country.

For the same reason why prostitutes have no legal protection against rape and violence, they have no legal means of obligating a client to pay. Taking the wrong client and/or not taking certain precautious can result in a belligerent client taking more than what was agreed upon, refusing to pay, verbal and physical abuse, etc. The wrong client might just leave her beaten, emotionally shattered, and no less penniless than she was before he came.

And if she goes to the police, SHE goes to jail, not him. Because it's legally her fault for being a prostitute.

edited 17th Dec '14 7:52:10 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

You could reframe the question as: "is raping a prostitute rape or shoplifting?" To which the obvious answer is: "of course it's rape". If someone has sex with a prostitute not intending to pay them, then to me that's rape by deception.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Rape is rape. Theft is theft. I rather them be charged with both instead of one or the other.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Hey, why can't it be both?

What's precedent ever done for us?