Jezebel 
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New York, 3:07 AM
Wed Nov 25
57 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/19/09
I paid my way through my degree escorting, and therefore find it extremely difficult to be objective on this subject as I have zero respect for the men who use these services after dealing with them. Give women all the choice in the world to do sex work, but if you don't do something about the men, they'll never completely be in control.
Ironically I was never raped until after I stopped escorting, but it fucked with my emotions in a million other ways that I would never have expected when I started. I thought I was tough as old boots and could handle it. Due to ill health I couldn't really do any other job with extremely long hours to make up the shortfall in my income, but I would have preferred even strip club work as I found escorting desperately lonely as much as anything else.
The money helped me immensely, but in the long term, I think being in debt would have been better for me. I just don't think anyone should leap into sex work of any kind without thinking it through very careful about how it will affect them now in the future (assuming they have the choice in entering sex work).
I've been honest about my past and it has bitten me hard on the arse. I'm not sure I regret the escorting, but I definitely regret telling anyone about it (which is why I'm posting on the internet about it. Ehem...)
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11/19/09
Also, as always, who the hell do these people think these women are servicing? Aliens? Foreigners? Johns are your fathers, brothers, sons and spouses (ideally future ones). Won't somebody please think of the male children and their self-respect? It's one thing to get paid for having sex, but to stoop so low as to pay someone for it? How degrading! You're out your virtue and a few quid.
11/19/09
And I'm referring to ordinary, "respectable" men (fathers, brothers, sons and spouses) - not creepy guys who scare off women.
11/19/09
11/19/09
In my experience, they're usually over 50 years old, married at least 15 years, have kids and no longer sleeping with their SO (for numerous reasons). They don't frequent bars or clubs or sleep around at work and are not the type to score with women in a public place like a grocery store.
However, they still want sex, so they see hiring an escort as their only option. Of course, there are those who do it for sport or to indulge in a fetish - but that's a whole other ball game.
It's easy for us to look at these men and say "Why don't you work it out with your wife or divorce her?", but the reality of their situation is oftentimes more complicated than that. Or at least, that's the way they see it.
11/19/09
I love peas.
11/19/09
11/19/09
I eat my peas with honey
I've done it all my life
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on my knife.
11/19/09
There are sex workers like Belle who do not get beaten, raped or murdered. There are women who have never prostituted themselves who have been beaten, raped and murdered.
Stigmatising and outlawing sex work is like swatting the fly and leaving a vast misogynist turd to fester. The turd just attracts more flies and you're back where you started.
The debate about the "glamourisation of prostitution" just obscures the real issues, and slut-shames sex workers and not the dangerous, abusive clients.
I'm pro-legalisation for reasons of realpolitik. Criminalising prostitution makes life dangerous for the women who do that work. It doesn't stop demand. It doesn't solve any big problems.
We still need a much bigger social revolution to change the way that women in general (sex workers aren't some special caste) are perceived and treated. I have a feeling that if that were ever achieved, people would probably be disinclined to pay for sex, but till then, prostitutes should feel that they have the same right to report crimes against them as any other person. And that means legalisation.
11/19/09
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11/19/09
For every woman who admits to it, there are legions more who don't.
11/19/09
As a feminist, I find it pays to take women's experiences seriously, whatever they might be. I don't like to tell them that they're silly females and have got it all wrong, especially when I haven't been through the same things as them.
11/19/09
Basically, I wonder if she's told the whole story - and if she hasn't - would we respect her if she did?
11/19/09
And sex work isn't stigmatized because people are prudes, it's stigmatized because women who do it are frequently abused and mistreated or forced into it. It spreads disease, it encourages men to treat women like objects, and it frequently if not always damages the women who participate in it at least psychologically. The laws are to protect women, not men. If they stop prostitutes from reporting crimes, that's really awful, but it's certainly the lesser of two evils.
11/19/09
I've spent the last six months on and off researching sex laws and stats (and when you investigate those, you realise that because of the stigma and illegality, there simply are no reliably gathered numbers for sex work). I've talked to hookers, to social and health workers, to brothel owners, to anthropologists and historians who specialise in the subject. I've read more than my fair share of hooker memoirs.
I find the notion of paid sex icky, but I'm not going to tell women who want to do sex work (and these women exist, and no, they're not just the high-end girls. Go investigate Punternet or similar and see) that they must be dupes who are only doing what a man told them to do.
And as for sex work spreading disease, there are plenty, but plenty of working girls who have a considerably stricter approach to safe sex than women who are having casual, unpaid sex. For obvious reasons.
11/19/09
If people get away with these crimes, it's because of the way that the sex business runs underground, and because of poor policing.
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09
Women wind up with criminal records.
You know what happens when they want to leave sex work and do something else?
They can't, because they have criminal records and a gap in their CVs.
You know what traps women in sex work? Not being able to earn money elsewhere.
11/20/09
It's already hard for sex workers to be taken seriously by the police if they've been raped. Legalisation would help. Legalise it, and provide support for those who want to leave.
If you go back to my original post, you'll see that I'm not denying that there's a lot wrong with society, and the issues of the commodification of women, and especially women from poorer countries working in the west. But when you criminalise working girls it's the working girls who suffer, not the johns. And the johns aren't deterred by illegality.
Which is why I said that I think there needs to be a bigger social, feminist revolution that actually works.
11/20/09
You're arguing that powerful, free-agent women choose to enter prostitution and then bemoaning the fact that criminal behavior keeps them from getting better jobs - isn't that the same with any criminal activity? If these women are so empowered, why do they have to hook? "I just wanted to" is not a good reason - it's illegal and dangerous, so you know, sorry, you're SOL on this one. If, on the other hand, some women can't help becoming prostitutes, what we really need is a mechanism that allows them to ease back into society, emphasizing that they're nonviolent, trustworthy people, rather than public advocacy for a dangerous and immoral profession that hurts its practitioners worse than anyone else.
We're obviously not going to agree on this, but I'm curious: what do you do that you've been researching sex work for the last six months? It sounds interesting.
11/20/09
Some women see no incompatibility between hooking and being empowered. Some don't want to leave the business. Some do.
I'm arguing for sex workers to be seen as individuals, and given the right to claim their own experiences as true. You seem to be intent on making people whom you see as vulnerable into criminals. Which of us is being paradoxical?
11/21/09
11/21/09
#tips
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#tips
11/19/09
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11/19/09
There are also some women who enjoy the thrill of it. I've known a couple of girls who stripped short term because it was edgy and sexy.
The other thing I've noticed is going to be really unpopular with some Jezzies, but it seems to me past sexual abuse can play a role. A year or two ago I read a bunch of sex worker blogs and I was really, really surprised by how many mentioned a rape in their teenage years. I only read ten or so, but something like 8 of them mentioned being raped as teenagers at least once. There were multiple gang rapes. Maybe it was just the blogs I happened to read, but it was really disporportionate.
11/19/09
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I feel like we are having the Jenna "once a porn star always a porn star" Jameson discussion again. The woman has done more with her life than work as a prostitute, and I'd say she sounds like a very accomplished woman. Are we suddenly to ignore everything she's done simply because she spent a few years as a call girl?
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