The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

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Suppressed 3 06 March 2013 6:34pm

Buy some drinks and jump through some hoops for sex, no problem. Trade the price of the drinks and your hourly rate for hours of boring hoop-jumping in cash?

Oh, thou horrible criminals! Disgusting!

I would LOVE to do a study of all the men in maximum security, with just one question: In the 24 hours prior to committing the offence that got you jailed, had you either had satisfactory sex or been in a position to lawfully get some if you'd wanted?

And I'm willing to lay heavy odds that there would be a significant difference between their average degree of frustration and that of a similar group of non- serious offenders.

We're all real keen to allow PMS as a defence or mitigation for anything up to and including murder, and yet no-one wants to admit that being on testosterone can make you want to hump any leg in sight, or thump the hells out of the first thing that pushes your buttons.

Prostitutes do good, honest work and I won't hear a word against them!

Oldfeminist 1 06 March 2013 6:06pm

Any women here living with men care to comment on how they feel, or would feel if they know their partner, father brother or son goes to visit prostitutes? How many men are prepared to tell the women in their lives they do so? Do these men care about how their mother partner daughter sister feels about this? I suspect not....so chuck out these shits from your lives, sisters. Just because you feel like doing something or enjoy it is just not good enough....Time to take responsibility for the mess that results from your exploitation of women and just say No.

Leon999 2 06 March 2013 5:47pm

I will make this point once again - the "Ban All Prostitution and Criminalise the Client" brigade only want to do this for heterosexual males - note that they never talk about a ban on Gay or Lesbian Prostitution,which certainly exists (especially for Gay Men, where there is a rampant thriving commercial sex industry). Same things applies to the banning of pornography - again only targeted at the male

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 1 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

heterosexual market, and completey ignoring the gay/lesbian market. And the ban of prostitution in Sweden again follows this pattern - virtually every person prosecuted under this lunatic law has been a male heterosexual, while gay and lesbian clients are left completely alone. What gross sexist discrimination by a totally bigoted bunch !!

Delite 06 March 2013 6:01pm

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fb177 3 06 March 2013 3:49pm

I think we need a balance to this article where we recount the ways that Magnanti (and those on the pro side) has outright lied about people like Somaly Mam (re- tweeting an unfounded accusation that she was bribing people, put out by--guess it-- a pro-sex work group), defamed people, skewed facts to fit her agenda, stretching things so far as to try to connect the far Right with feminists, because they share an opinion about prostitution, called people who disagree with her "Man hating feminists" So, if we can get people to stop attacking prostitutes, do you think we can get people like Brooke Magnanti to stop attacking critics of the sex industry? It goes both ways, you know.

Extragloves 5 06 March 2013 3:00pm

I used think legalising prostitution would be a good way of ensuring the safety and regulation of the prostitutes.

However, having seen a documentary about prostitution gangs in Amsterdam and having seen recent news reports about gangs grooming young women and men, I'm not so sure.

If more of a legal a demand/sex tourism is created, there'll be more unscrupulous characters trying to make money from it. Legalisation does not mean every prostitute will be interviewed to establish whether he or she hasn't been trafficked, brow beaten or bullied into their profession.

pimpmasterkdogg 06 March 2013 3:25pm

@Extragloves - It will make achieving justice much easier for victims, surely? And it will substantially reduce / completely destroy demand for

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 2 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

street prostitutes?

But as Holland has shown, you also need international action to legalise drugs and prostitution. One country doing it is not enough.

Extragloves 06 March 2013 4:51pm

@pimpmasterkdogg - I think it will increase the demand for prostitution. If it becomes a legal activity, those currently put off through not wanting to break the law may partake. Stag dos, too.

For example, you get more strip bars opening all the time - look at Portsmouth Council's decision to increase the number of strip licences.

Amsterdam isn't free from gangs of pimps abusing the prostitutes. Not to mention 'lover boy' pimps:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/18/loverboy-child-prostitution- netherlands

Delite 06 March 2013 6:00pm

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fb177 06 March 2013 1:28pm

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MissIndia 06 March 2013 9:10am

Great article

daisyboo 3 06 March 2013 9:07am

Hi amirite, thanks for your replies, I don't target sex workers but I would try my utmost to stop a young girl going down that road. Come on. Do you really think a young well adjusted young girl from a normal family where she receives unconditional love and support would chose such a seedy http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 3 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

existence. Don't tell me its not seedy, it is. What good father would want that for his dear daughter. None. I absolutely do not have a naive view of care, on the contrary I have a very clear view of it. People go in to care as a last resort, when everything else has been tried and failed. Typically they are left with abusers (family) so long they are badly damaged by the time they do go into care. Unfortunately the myth that children are always better off with their natural parents is wrong sometimes, its the worse place they can be. Yes the care system can be abusive that is why I believe care workers should be paid more and carefully selected. The care system I work in is thankfully very good. A young girl I know of 16 is fostered recused from a mother and her very violent boyfriend (who she chose over the safety of her child) seems to be heading in the wrong direction, she self harms, she has no self esteem. Easy prey, easy for her to end up in an undesirable situation. We are doing everything we can to stop her from endangering her self. Care can and does save children. But no, its far from perfect.

DouglasDaniel 1 06 March 2013 11:22am

@daisyboo - the thing is, like many critics of the sex industry, you only see the worst case scenarios, and naturally this has shaped your views on the industry as a whole. Your focus seems to be on young, vulnerable girls who become prostitutes as a result of abusive family relationships etc. The reality is such women make up a small part of the sex industry. Their plights are unfortunate, but the simple fact is it was not the sex industry that created the circumstances they find themselves in. More to the point, if a young girl is selling her body on the streets as a last resort, it's unlikely the legality of prostitution is one of her main concerns.

Do you really think a young well adjusted young girl from a normal family where she receives unconditional love and support would chose such a seedy existence. Don't tell me its not seedy, it is. What good father would want that for his dear daughter. None

I'm sure there are a lot of "good fathers" who would hate the idea of his daughter having sex with multiple partners for free, never mind for money. Not to mention those who would disown their daughter if she brought a woman home with her. How many "good fathers" would like the idea of their daughter being involved in a threesome etc?

Should we ban promiscuity, homosexuality and multiple-partner sex just because someone's father would find it ikky to find out his daughter indulged in one of them?

Oh wait, I forgot - girls coming from loving families would never partake in behaviour that society still frowns upon, for whatever reason, because there is a direct link between our sense of morals and how much love we were given at home. That's why privately educated people have never, ever indulged in drug abuse or gambling. Ever.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 4 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Oh...

daisyboo 06 March 2013 2:41pm

@DouglasDaniel - Your focus seems to be on young, vulnerable girls who become prostitutes as a result of abusive family relationships etc. The reality is such women make up a small part of the sex industry. Douglas, you are wrong. for whatever reason, because there is a direct link between our sense of morals and how much love we were given at home. That's why privately educated people have never, ever indulged in drug abuse or gambling. Ever. What make you think privately educated people are always are loved at home? Money is not love. Just because people have money does not mean they are good parents. Does unconditional love from supportive parents (rich or poor) give you a good set of morals, high self esteem, confidence well usually, yes.

Bandarlog 3 06 March 2013 12:51am

Unlike the general sentiment among the Guardian journalists and the posters here that in Sweden we live in a hell of rapes and criminality , we don't have the problems you talk about or a conflict between feminists and prostitutes.

We don't have feminists saying that prostitutes should be shot. Or journalists creating such a clash. In the end, all women share the burden of the hatred for women that we see so much of on the Internet and indeed on the Guardian 'Woman' site. Some people here are just ...

The American and British women have been fooled to let the men speak for them and they are told that feminism is bad for them. Independence and self-respect is something they need not have as grown women. The paradox is that they do not´t get anything in return. except the 'right' to prostitution.

Extragloves 1 06 March 2013 3:06pm

@Bandarlog - I'm not saying they don't exist, but I've genuinely never met anyone who has said they hate prostitutes. I've heard of people not liking prostitution, however.

I'm not sure why feminists (which is a bit of a loose term) are getting such accusations thrown at them. I'm sure lots of people may have a problem with them for all different reasons (religious people, men etc). In

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 5 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

fact, I haven't heard of many feminists killing or beating prostitutes.

So perhaps the question should be, why do some people hate them.

Mrobspierre 1 06 March 2013 12:29am

Feminist mysogny against sex workers comes from fear of depowerment - its roots are the sexual tyranny of conventional women over men and the hatred arises from the threat of the loss of that tyranny. Haters hate either those they envy or fear, or both.

fb177 2 06 March 2013 4:12pm

@Mrobspierre - a misogynist, telling women that they are misogynists. That's so Meta.

LuckyGreenKat 2 06 March 2013 12:22am

Prostitutes should be as entitled to make her own decision about sex and their working lives as anyone else and should allowed to do so safely, peacefully and above all legally without interference.

The difficulty here and the reason prostitution provokes such moral outrage in both men and women is because both feel a certain amount of disgust at the idea of paying for sex which may include men who have actually been to a prostitute.

Women's reasons for hating prostitutes are numerous but at the most basic level I think they feel a sense of betrayal because prostitution throws out the rule book with regards to the subtlety of flirtation and the importance of monogamy which are crucial ingredients for any sexual encounter that is more than a one night stand. Even if a man is single when he goes to a prostitute many women would conclude such a man places little value on sex beyond physical pleasure making it difficult to believe that sex within the confines of a loving relationship is, for want of a better word, "special".

Ultimately we end in a dichotomy; can we only overcome society's hatred of prostitution and thereby of prostitutes themselves, when we overcome our revulsion of the idea of anyone willing to pay or be paid for sex which refers to both the client (who can remain anonymous or be "forgiven" an indiscretion) and the seller? The difficulty here is, SHOULD we WANT to overcome that revulsion or will such acceptance of sex as a commodity like any other devalue our concept of what loving relationships are thereby damage relationships themselves?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 6 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Winipig 05 March 2013 10:24pm

Did you really just compare child abuse to prostitution? They are two completely different issues and you have skewed the whole discourse by bringing up a child abuse case. The aggression she faced from her peers as a teenager for her sexual exploitation has a different psychology behind it to that a prostitute may face.

daisyboo 4 06 March 2013 9:26am

@Winipig - Child abuse and prostitution are intrinsically linked in as much as most prostitutes have had a chaotic and dysfunctional upbringing and are vulnerable at an early age. So they are not really two completely different issues. A young girl with a male twice her age or more (and they tend to like um young) feels like child abuse to me, tho technically its not.

Leon999 05 March 2013 10:09pm

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kristinekochanski 3 05 March 2013 8:53pm

This is a very simplistic article which does not take into account that there are different kinds of ''sex workers''. Some may be empowered who choose their job, some may be just temporary sex workers as they go through uni or whatever, some may be doing it as it is the only way they can make ends meet, & some may be doing it out of sheer desperation, addiction, coercion, or because they have been trafficked.

So just as Rhoda Grant is adopting a one size fits all policy so is Hannah Betts. There are some forms of prostitution that should not be accepted.

My personal view is that prostitution should be legalised, taxed & regulated. That would make it an honest employment choice for those who wanted to make it. However those who are involved in trafficking or other methods of force should be regarded & treated as criminals, & people who use sex workers who have no choice should be regarded as rapists, as without any choice there can be no consent.

My way would ensure that sex could be legally & safely bought & sold but would enable police to tackle the foul underbelly of prostitution which Hannah ignores.

Maglor http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 7 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 11:10pm

@kristinekochanski - Leaglised, taxed and regulated

Sex work is already legal. Just some silly laws that make it dangerous.

Taxed. It is already is taxed. All earnings, (except gambling) are taxed. As with any cash industry, there are those who pocket money without paying their tax. Many well earning escorts pay tax. Explain those large regular payments into your bank to pay the mortgage to the tax man.

Regulated - Hands off regulation is the best. Full licensing of brothels is a disaster. All local authorities would ban them, (you only have to look at strip clubs), and we would be back to an illegal industry. Licensing large brothels yes, but not the small two /three sex worker brothels that exist in probably every large to medium size block of flats in this country.

This is basically what New Zealand did and South West Australia, where there are some of the happiest, and STD free sex workers in the world.

fb177 1 06 March 2013 1:34pm

@kristinekochanski - yes, let's legitimize the sale of female sexuality. Let's legalize the idea that women are marketable goods, valued for their sexual convenience. Because, taxes. And we'll catch rapists somehow. Not like we could find any other way to do that, let's just take the lazy way out. BTW, when a "commidity" (ridiculous that we're actually talking about women's bodies here) is so astronomically lucrative, there will ALWAYS be a black market.

fb177 1 06 March 2013 1:36pm

- one other thing: when we stop making women's bodies so "in demand", I think you'll see there will be far fewer traffickers, and even far fewer rapists. Prostitution distorts the view of women's bodies not as their own, but something for men to attain... whether they buy it or steal it.

usini 05 March 2013 8:36pm

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sistermaxine

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 8 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 8:17pm

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Kendall99 3 05 March 2013 8:06pm

It's funny seeing "But most feminists aren't like that!" comments here.

Never mind that Object, London Feminist Network, UK Feminista, the European Women's Lobby, and other anti-sex work groups are among the biggest and most influential feminist organisations around, somehow mainstream feminism is being misrepresented...

Furry Girl's rebuttal to this argument is the best one I've seen.

"Good feminists" are outliers, and the fact that they think they represent the majority feminist viewpoint just shows the degree to which they're devoted to willful ignorance of anything that conflicts with their images of themselves and their cutesy, feel-good interpretations of feminism.

BorisGoodenough 2 05 March 2013 5:57pm

Sweden does not allow any USE of prostitutes. Those who pay for sex are likely to be accused of money laundering. This because in Sweden about 90% of the women who prostitute themselves are forced to do so. To protect women from being exploited their tolerance levels are very low. This knowledge would put the ball in the court of the government to provide legislation and registration. If there is to be organised prostitution, and legally allowed, then it will have to be under business registration, with approved premises, regulated working hours, taxation, the lot. A good start would be to map prostitution in the UK thoroughly. Keeping it local and in the dark will never lead to a trade that is protected and fair for all users.

David Smith 05 March 2013 7:56pm

@BorisGoodenough - And where did you hear "90%" of sex workers are forced? From feminists?

richmanchester 1 05 March 2013 9:05pm

@BorisGoodenough - "This because in Sweden about 90% of the women who prostitute themselves are forced to do so" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 9 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Are, or were before the law? Either way that sounds a lot.

"A good start would be to map prostitution in the UK thoroughly."

And while it remains generally criminal and certainly unacceptable socially good luck.

Maglor 05 March 2013 11:16pm

@BorisGoodenough - What a load of rubbish.

There are as many sex workers in Sweden as before. Now they are more abused, making dates with people they can't vet.

Norway followed the Swedish example, and have reported how violence has escalated.

Total decriminalisation of sex work is the only way. Decriminalisation of the seller, the manager and the client.

New Zealand and South West Australia did this. Employment rules, health and safety and hands off planning laws have resulted in safer happier and healthier sex workers. There is much evidence to support this.

In NZ the bigger brothels have problems recruiting, because SWs know they can work on their own, or in Small Owner Operated Brothels. SOOBs, which are not controlled by planning regs.

usini 3 05 March 2013 5:10pm

Prostitution is going to occur,like it or not. thus the key factor becomes the safety and wellbeing of the women in this dangerous trade. If prositutes themselves think that legalisation is in their interests then I support them.

robi 05 March 2013 4:21pm

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JerryMander 4 05 March 2013 3:47pm

I cannot claim to be that au fait with Hannah Betts' ouvre - get me - but if this is typical, I wonder why she doesn’t invest a bit of effort in reading about http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 10 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

developments in feminism over the last 50 years.

If I had to describe this article in one word? Lazy.

Feminism isn’t one united thing, any more than Islam or Christianity or Marxism is.

There are many flavours, from the reactionary to the revolutionary, from progressive to conservative.

Within that there is a version or versions that would more than adequately square the circle. Somehow Hannah Betts ignores the intellectuals who can address the matters she raises, and who put forward a world that would see an end to patriarchy, and it’s symptoms.

That some progressive feminists might criticise prostitution seems a reasonable position – after all it concerns the commodofication of sex, the objectification of women and the patriarchal exercise of power. Yet it is quite possible, intellectually consistent, and indeed uncontroversial to simultaneously oppose the victimisation by others of women who sell sex, including those who may describe themselves as feminists.

Such a position would also criticise the institution of marriage, the practice of monogamy and all other artefacts of patriarchal ideology.

Trouble is you might have to work a bit harder to turn it in to an article that would interest the editorial team.

LibertarianLou 5 05 March 2013 4:03pm

@JerryMander - exactly, it reminds me a bit of the conservative logic that critiquing war culture means you disrespect or hate the soldiers who give their lives.

richmanchester 3 05 March 2013 4:59pm

@JerryMander - It seemed to me that Ms Betts was not criticsing feminists, prostitues or even prostituion, but sepcifically those feminsist and others who, in the guise of attacking prostituion instead choose to attack prostitutes themselevs, Ms Magnanti not with standing, surely amonst those least able to defen themsleves, most in dnager of actual attack anyway and most in need of feminists help and support?

fb177 2 06 March 2013 1:58pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 11 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@JerryMander - exactly. There is a huge middle ground between these issues, but like you say that doesn't make for as dramatic an article. And the fact that neither side is addressing those middle ground issues only tells me that they are not at all interested in discussion as they constantly claim. They have their wall and they want to stick to it. And they'll keep insulting everyone's intelligence by using the most simplistic of arguments.

And can I just comment on the disingenuous nature of the arguments I keep hearing from the "pro" side: that sex work is just as bad as bussing tables, anyone who works any kind of job is exploited the same way, if you support abortion then you're a hypocrite if you don't support sex work--because those issues must be totally the same thing somehow because they both involve women's bodies... and funny how many men who don't know the first thing about things like women's suffrage or sexual harassment laws are VERY in interested in a woman's "right" to use her body for the satisfaction of men. Thankfully not all men are like that by any means, but they all flock to the Guardian for "Legalize prostitution" articles.

LibertarianLou 6 05 March 2013 3:46pm

Also, the other side of the argument sometimes needs to be a bit less screamy, accusing anyone who critiques the sex industry, any aspect of it at all, or analyses the effect it has on our culture, or on other women, etc, anyone who says any kind of word about it can be shouted down as frigid, uptight, hating men, sex negative, judgmental bitches. THAT needs to change as well.

LibertarianLou 5 05 March 2013 3:44pm

This is a really good article but this bit stood out to me:

Obviously, lots of people do criticise and campaign against exploitative marriages, and criticise marriage as a financial transaction? And certainly criticise the idea that marriage = buying/contracting sex. Including lots of people who campaign against sex work.

I'm not anti-sex work and certainly not in favour of criminalising/disproportionate punishment, etc... but this article, whilst totally fair in everything you do say, doesn't acknowledge at all that there are loads and loads and loads of critics of sex work who don't hate or judge or dismiss the actual sex workers, at all. Some even used to be sex workers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 12 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

taninfan 4 05 March 2013 3:12pm

The answer is to regulate it and ensure that those who mistreat or abuse sex workers are punished. That would have a knock - on effect for other women as more men would be encouraged to treat all women decently.

David Smith 5 05 March 2013 3:02pm

Criminalizing sex work would be stupid and dangerous. I hope Scotland sees sense and drops this bill.

kristinekochanski 05 March 2013 9:02pm

@David Smith - There is no danger of the bill being passed.

Maglor 05 March 2013 11:18pm

@kristinekochanski - I definitely hope what you say is true.

neithereither 1 05 March 2013 2:53pm

A good little article. Thank you.

RallyCrier 4 05 March 2013 2:46pm

It is as if their work renders them inhuman.

Yep, that's the trouble with dehumanising work.

pimpmasterkdogg 2 05 March 2013 2:51pm

@RallyCrier - once I had a job as a warehouse operative. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 13 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

taninfan 11 05 March 2013 2:26pm

Anyone who thinks they have any right to prevent adults who want to sell sexual services from doing so, or any adults who want to buy them from doing so has a grossly inflated sense of what their own rights are, and needs a strong reminder of where they end.

fb177 1 06 March 2013 2:04pm

@taninfan - anyone who sees this issue only as about an individual's rights and does not take into account effects on other people has a ridiculous idea of what it means to share society with other people, and needs a strong reminder that the world does not function according to their personal overly simplistic anarchic ideals.

taninfan 1 06 March 2013 3:16pm

@fb177 -

If someone is coerced or forced into prostitution that is one thing and all possible steps should be taken to eradicate that. If some someone makes a choice to sell sexual services that is another, and if someone chooses to buy then provided any tax due is paid it's no one else's business. Finding it distasteful is no reason for banning it. And if some women treat prostitutes like dirt they can hardly blame some men for doing the same. It may suit their agenda to pretend that every women who is a prostitute has been forced into it, wants to get out and is a victim, but the reality is somewhat different. By denying that some women (and men) choose to get paid for sex they simply demonstrate failure to comprehend, intolerance and hatred of a nature and mindset different to their own.

fb177 2 06 March 2013 3:40pm

@taninfan - By denying that prostitution is an industry driven by the sale of female bodies -- and that has consequences for ALL women-- demonstrates a failure to address reality.

taninfan http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 14 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

07 March 2013 2:20am 1

@fb177 -

Some prostitutes are men too. Regardless of that, if anyone somehow assumes that because a tiny percentage of women/men choose to sell sexual services (which is not the same as selling a body) that somehow makes other women/men more into sex objects, or more available to them that is a completely illogical assumption and fault on their part for which they must take responsibility. You might as well suggest that women should all walk around covered up deliberately not looking attractive or sexy, because if they do they are sending out a signal that all other women are sex objects too and it's unreasonable to expect men to control themselves given such provokation/stimulation. Of course there are people who propose exactly that but they're not generally known for their respect for women's rights to choose how to live.

Fractelle 9 05 March 2013 1:49pm

Campaign the government for funds to help the street girls, get them a safe home, get them health workers but most of all get them away from their pimps and get them bloody help instead os just spoutin rubbish all the time and not actually doing anything to help

Excellent comment Delite, I really couldnt agree more!!

Delite 10 05 March 2013 1:31pm

I also want to add that those who think sex workers cause men to rape, do you actually have any clue of what rape is actually about? It has nothing to do with sex. Rape is about control and power. Those that rape would never visit a sex worker as they know we have complete control over our bookings.

I also did not mention the street girls. Most of these girls have pimps and have to turn tricks for as little as £5. Perhaps if they were not homeless they would not have been on drugs in the first place so would not have neded up working for some slimy pimp. If we looked after our homeless people and gave them the help they needed this would never happen.

After all why would a woman turn tricks for £5 - £20 when she could be in a nice apartment earning around £150 an hour.

We sit at home disgusted by these girls but noone does anything to help. There should be enough hostels etc and childrens homes for these kids to be put in so they are not on the streets. There isnt and that is the fault of the government. They cut all funding. Social services now try to leave abused kids in the home and give the family parenting classes instead as they have nowhere to put these poor children. These kids then run away and end up under a pimp working the streets. How do we stop this as it is already illegal. We cant as the government let them all http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 15 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

down so badly they are far too damaged now to re enter normal society. How can a girl who has been abused from say aorund 5 then run away and was abused daily ever hope to become mentally stable enough to hold down a real job.. what should happen is these young girls should be taken to a safe unti where they will get all the help they need, mental help, educational help and hopefully given their self esteem back.

It is ok shouting make it illegal. Its wrong. Street walking is already illegal as it is soliciting. Has it made it stop??? NO! These young girls need help not judgement. No one would choose to have sex for £5 on a dimly lit street in the middle of winter. They have to. There is nowhere else for them to go and nothing else they can do as they are damaged. Why not leave us who choose to do this job for a lot of money in the comfort of our homes in peace and start helping those who have no choice. Dont prosecute them, give them counselling, give them self confidence again. teach them a basic trade. Most of all give them sonewhere safe to live while they get the help. surely that is a better approach than demonising them. Feminists say they were abused and have no choice so why the hell make them feel worse and give them a criminal record. they are victims and need support. Give them that support. Leave the indoor workers along and help those that really need it. Campaign the government for funds to help the street girls, get them a safe home, get them health workers but most of all get them away from their pimps and get them bloody help instead os just spoutin rubbish all the time and not actually doing anything to help

DrChris 7 05 March 2013 1:38pm

@Delite - Again you are telling it as it is.

pimpmasterkdogg 8 05 March 2013 1:53pm

@Delite - Your contributions to this thread are hugely valued, I'm sure. Thanks a lot.

HelenWilsonMK 9 05 March 2013 1:57pm

@Delite -

Leave the indoor workers along and help those that really need it.

Tell that to the large numbers of women trafficked across the globe to work 'indoors', usually under the false premiss of a legitimate job from traffickers only then be told the have to work off the debt of getting to this country in as an escort!. The idea that just because a sex worker is in a http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 16 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

residential setting and that the clients pay more it means she is not being exploited is delusional and ignores the reality of the growing problem of sex trafficking into the UK.

Fractelle 1 05 March 2013 2:05pm

@HelenWilsonMK 05 March 2013 1:57pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.

In fairness Helen, she did mention them in the post further up the page.

Delite 8 05 March 2013 2:25pm

@HelenWilsonMK - I had already addressed the trafficked women in another post above my last one. That is why I called for licensing. Do you also know that a lot of these trafficked girls are actually bonded? That means they know they have to work to pay off the money as a prostitute but they chose that to get into the country illegally and once their bond is paid they work for themselves That is their free choice. Ok some are trafficked illegally and as I said the police will do sod all unless the girls are willing to prosecute their pimps. if they refuse they are just sent back to them. The police are not interested in helping the girls. They would sooner arrest brothel owners as these are easier to prosecute and it means that under POCA they can seize all assets and monies. Much better for them than helping forced women they just arrest someone who only employs women who make the choice instead. If it was licensed then these traffickers would not be able to make any money off their women as guys would be arrested and receive a prison sentence if they visited an unlicensed sex worker. Licenses would also mean that only those who 1. were legally allowed to work in the UK worked, 2. were health checked regularly, 3. were working of their own free will. This would leave the pimps with no option but to find another way to earn money. The trafficked girls do not have a legal right to work in the UK so would never get a license, do not get regular health checks as cannot get seen under the NHS and would not be able to prove they were working of their own free will as they did not work for A. a legal brothel or B in their own property.

It is a simple solution that the government and police dont really want. The police would lose all the funds they take under POCA from brothels that offer a safe place to work and the government would lose face as they never bothered before with such an easy solution. They could even make money charging for licenses much like the security industry now do.

There are also trafficked people in other industries? men brought into to work as slave labour on farms. This is a bigger problem than prostitution. There are not as many trafficked women as the government would like http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 17 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

you to believe. Check out operation pentemeter 1 and 2. Huge police operations to find trafficked women and see how many they actually found over the couple of years these ran. Hardly any These were full on nationwide operations to try to eradicate trafficking.. Shame they hardly found any at all. read this guardian article after they finally got the actual result http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking- enquiry-fails either the whole of the UK police force is useless or the government make up figures to satisy their own agenda on how many trafficked women there are. I dont deny there are some but nowhere near as many as the hype states. They are also easy to spot. Adultwork is a website where they are normally advertised and they are moved from town to town weekly and the police would have to be stupid to not see who they were. Yet even when reported nothing is done. Trafficking is already illegal yet the police do nothing as it is easier to arrest escorts who choose to work together. The trafficking can actually be blamed on the police as they refuse to act. I in the past month alone have reported 3 groups. The girls are moved around by the group owner weekly, the profiles are easy to spot as are all the same and the girls are at a seriously low price and non are English most are Thai or similar and speak no English yet the police refuse to act. It is not sex workers faults that girls are trafficked. We report them all the time. It is the police who refuse to act. Perhaps again the feminists should campaign for the police to go through the website I mentioned and get off their backsides and arrest the pimps moving these girls around. It is easy, all they have to do is ring and book an appointment and they will be given the address to raid. There they will find 6-8 forced girls at a time. Make that the next campaign

MikeOzanne 1 05 March 2013 2:35pm

@Delite -

"It is the police who refuse to act. Perhaps again the feminists should campaign for the police to go through the website I mentioned and get off their backsides and arrest the pimps moving these girls around. It is easy, all they have to do is ring and book an appointment and they will be given the address to raid. There they will find 6-8 forced girls at a time. Make that the next campaign"

We here about institutionalised 'isms in the police force, and how they are a bad thing. We never get to the basic discussion, particularly with the Met' , that they are institutionally shit at what they do, mostly down to the urinal poverty of the management and command level. I sometimes feel that we should perhaps tackle that problem first, then go after the 'isms afterwards.

DrChris 5 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 18 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 2:41pm

@Delite - In Austria sex workers have a passport with a health record which is in line with your suggestion.

Shizzlemanizzle 7 05 March 2013 3:29pm

@Delite - Rape is about control and power. Those that rape would never visit a sex worker

Sex workers are never raped? This is never a risk of the industry?

I would be extremely surprised to discover NO connection between paying for sex and the sense of power in doing do that is a driver for some individuals, just as money and power is often linked elsewhere.

scuba100 3 05 March 2013 3:56pm

@Shizzlemanizzle - sex workers are raped usually the suspect has been violent, strangely behaved, maybe in posession of a weapon The sex worker has attempted to escape from the scene but is physically prevented and the offence commited. Those who rape sex workers are the same people who rape other people. The motive is the same control and domination. I am familiar with some scenarios where the customer has refused to pay after the event. This isnot rape and would not be treated as such.

Delite 4 05 March 2013 4:11pm

@Shizzlemanizzle - Sex workers are never raped? This is never a risk of the industry?

Now this is not what I meant and you know it. sometimes sex workers are raped as are nurses, traffic wardens bar maids, solicitors and women from any other walk of life. What I am saying is the rapist dont visit escorts as a client as they get no satisfation from having no control over the proceedings. Their satisfaction is from the control of a woman, the power over her. These gusy are normally married so it is their wives http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 19 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

fault? After all they allow a rapist to have sex with them. if you blame prostitutes you also have to blame the wives of these rapists. I and most escorts I know have very tight security procedures in place which you will only know about if you try something you shouldnt. We are more concious of safety than women who do not do this job. We are less likely to be victims as we are always more aware. We have to work alone so we have no choice but to be extra aware and have extra precautions set up. When walking to your car in the dark how many security precautions do you have with you? I have around 10 I can get to easily just on or around my person as do most escorts I know not counting that we always have a security buddy who knows where we are and the car registration of the person coming into our property as we text it to them when the client arrives and when they are due to leave. if no call they then call the police. The other security measures I wont mention as I dont want them known but suffice to say most of us work very safely and only a fool would risk anything. rapists are not fools they are very clever men who carry out hideous crimes. To those that say we cause a rise in rape you really have no idea of the real world at all do you? The rise in rape is due to society as a whole as well as the lack of prosecutions brought when rape is reported. Ifpolice dont prosecute rapists or the CPS drops the case or the courts give a lenient sentence then more and more rapists are allowed to roam free. Best to blame the prostitutes though as saves blaming society or the police as prostitutes are an easier target arent they as they dont have a regulated voice. Infact they are never actually heard just ignored as lesser beings.

Also please remember a job does not define us as people. We are not prostitutes we work as a prostitute. We are people who do that for work. We have feelings and families just like everyone else.

DrChris 05 March 2013 4:39pm

@HelenWilsonMK - Could be solved by proper registration and penalising punters who use unregistered escorts

Shizzlemanizzle 3 05 March 2013 5:07pm

@Delite - if you blame prostitutes you also have to blame the wives of these rapists.

These gusy are normally married so it is their wives fault? After all they allow a rapist to have sex with them. if you blame prostitutes you also have to blame the wives of these rapists.

To those that say we cause a rise in rape you really have no idea of the real world at all do you?

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I simply was making a point that it would be ridiculous to suggest that men never rape sex workers, and that there is of course a connection in power.

I said absolutely NOTHING about sex workers somehow guilty of causing a rise in rapes in anyway shape or form. Have no idea where your repeated accusations have come from in that post. This wasn't even close to my stance on the matter.

Delite 3 05 March 2013 8:30pm

@Shizzlemanizzle - So these are not your words then

I would be extremely surprised to discover NO connection between paying for sex and the sense of power in doing do that is a driver for some individuals,

Men have no power when they visit escorts. That is where the pre conception is totally wrong. They have to abide by the rules the escort puts in place. They have very little power. It is a mutually beneficial transaction. In my bookings I have total control over everything that happens and nothing happens that I do not permit and it is the same for all the sex workers I know. So how does that act as a driver for men to rape. There is no correlation between the two and to suggest otherwise is very blinkered and factually incorrect. Any Psychologist will tell you the same thing. Men have very different motives for rape that have nothing to do with prostitution. Sex has become a commodity. It is buyable. Shop sell buyable items does that make people steal? NO! Its ones own psychological behaviours that cause a person to commit any offense. It has nothing to do with the fact the commodity it for sale. End of post to you so you dont quote bits that are not for you again . As a specialised nurse who worked with patients with mental health issues and who often commited horrendous offenses against men and women I could bore you to tears with why men commit rape but I know it will never change the mind of a bigot so there is absolutely no point in trying. carry on believing the media hype and live in your closed minded bubble. Prostitutes are the cause of all evil. we entice men away from their wives. It could not be that these men are searching out a way to have sex with someone else it is all our fault for being there. We are marriage wreckers and all drug takers who have been abused and are now forced to work in this way. Does that sit better with you thn the fact that we are educated, liberated as well as self confident women who are not only drug free but enjoy sexual activites with strangers and get paid for it as well? I really despair of some of you who have posted on here as although we hear it all the time I was actually hoping people were more socially aware and not so bigotted about something that harms no one. Two ocnsenting adults choosing to bring money into a sexual activity. As I keep being told you cannot argue with a close minded person as they can never see the facts, I posted them earlier about the lack of trafficked girls found in both national police operations only the hype they have read. Of course the media never sstereotypes or fudges the numbers or facts to make it

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more sensational do they. I am done. Some people will always live in their own little view of the world and will never see outside of their bubble

jameslegrand 05 March 2013 9:05pm

@Shizzlemanizzle -

These gusy are normally married so it is their wives fault? After all they allow a rapist to have sex with them. if you blame prostitutes you also have to blame the wives of these rapists

. Glad someone introduced reason to the discussion. Yeah right, let's let these people decide about everything!

Shizzlemanizzle 06 March 2013 12:58pm

@Delite - There is no correlation between the two and to suggest otherwise is very blinkered and factually incorrect. Any Psychologist will tell you the same thing.

Well I'll be getting my lecturer fired then!

Sex has become a commodity. It is buyable.

This is hardly a new concept... prostitutions been around for rather a long time!

As a specialised nurse who worked with patients with mental health issues and who often commited horrendous offenses against men and women I could bore you to tears with why men commit rape but I know it will never change the mind of a bigot so there is absolutely no point in trying. carry on believing the media hype and live in your closed minded bubble.

I studied it actually, but thanks for your absolute hypocrisy of branding me unnecessarily.

Believe it or not, you are not the only sex worker in the world, and your situation is not a carbon copy for every other individual. It's an insanely complex issue. As mentioned, In one breath you talk about your control and how you hold the power, the next you mention vulnerable people getting into the industry due to addiction, homelessness etc.. it's a complete contraction!. So please spare me the bigot accusations. You may very well be a very strong individual, but not everyone is.

Your points on the concept legislation was extremely interesting, AS I pointed out in a previous post.. but due to your attacking accusations to anyone that is concerned for the women that *are* in a vulnerable situation, I'll discuss it with others that can handle another point of view. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 22 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

fb177 06 March 2013 2:09pm

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fb177 2 06 March 2013 2:17pm

@Delite - it harms no one? Sorry, delite, but you can't discuss this issue while you're being deliberately obtuse. Beyond trafficking, there are very real social concerns around the sex industry-- and as a woman i do not at ALL support you in making my sexuality something that can be ordered up like a pizza. Your "profession" affects ALL women, it perpetuates the idea that we are here ot service men, and that is a truth you will either address or give up hopes of anyone (other than your choir) listening to you. And no, sorry but you don't have as much power in this situation as you'd like to think. Basic economics. Men are the "demand" women are the "supply." Demand sets the price for supply. Demand sets the conditions that the supply is sold in. So if you're so hyped up about this idea that sex sells (women's sex sells, that is) then you can take ALL the bad consequences of that. That includes that fact that your body is a product, subject to all the abuse and manipulation and exploitation of the markets.

fb177 1 06 March 2013 2:59pm

@Delite @Shizzlemanizzle - um. I can attest to a few sex workers (they were upscale escorts, not street prostitutes) who have been raped. That's a VERY dangerous statement you made, there, delite.

Shizzlemanizzle 1 06 March 2013 3:48pm

@fb177 - Yep... 2 escorts I know (one female, one male), have both been attacked in an environment they were too both convinced they were safe. Although NEITHER of them would claim it was a career they actively seeked out and do not see it in such a 'shopping transaction' sense - It was a way out of financial desperation at the time, and a decision that will problem impact on them both in different ways forever.

To suggest there is no risk and not an important issue is reckless.

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fb177 1 06 March 2013 4:02pm

@Shizzlemanizzle - and I don't know why this would surprise anyone. (I do understand, however, why sex workers would try to deny it.) "Upscale" prostitution does not give any more respect to women as human beings. When women are objects, it does not matter what context they are used in. It's like saying that labeling a steak as "grass fed" would keep animal abusers from buying it. (Sorry for the crude connotation, but sex workers themselves are trying to claim that sex is just like any other product, so I'll just play by their rules. )

DouglasDaniel 9 05 March 2013 1:24pm

Hannah, this is an excellent article. The demonisation of prostitution seems far more about our continued uneasiness with sex than to do with protecting those who find themselves in a situation where they feel compelled to sell sex to survive. More importantly, it completely ignores the fact that many in the sex industry (most, even?) are there through choice. The drug-addicted hooker (trafficked in from Asia) selling blow-jobs in a dark alley (with a free side of STDs) is actually by far the exception in the sex industry, rather than the rule. Yet we make laws for the whole industry as if they are the industry in its entirety.

It's understandable that people don't like the sight of prostitutes standing on street corners, but continued anti-prostitute (and I do indeed mean anti-prostitute, rather than anti-prostitution) legislation like that proposed by Rhoda Grant MSP will only make such a sight MORE likely, rather than less. Instead of trying to eradicate an industry that will always be around, it makes far more sense to accept it is here to stay and legislate accordingly.

For example, it is currently illegal for two or more women to work under the same roof - despite the obvious security and financial benefits such an arrangement brings to the sex workers in question. How does forcing women to work on their own make them safer than if they worked in pairs or groups?

We may not like the idea of "brothels", with the images of men trotting in and out for sex with women half their age (or younger) that their very existence brings to mind, but if it's going to happen anyway - and it is - why not take it out of the shadows a bit, to make life safer for these girls?

Bills like Rhoda Grant's (which, if passed, would see sex workers having their client pool reduced to men who are not afraid of breaking the law, which makes it both shallower and more dangerous) seem to be more about forcing women out of the industry through poverty and fear, rather than through conscious decisions. In what way is that remotely close to the ideals of feminism or social democracy as a whole?

People always talk of getting those who are directly affected involved in decision- making in order to make better laws. Why is prostitution apparently the only exception to this rule?

And nothing gets my goat more than the assumption that people couldn't possibly have entered the sex industry of their own volition. There are a whole range of jobs

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which are only done because people need to put food on their table and clothes on their child. Who would choose to be a street sweeper or call centre worker just for the LOLZ? And surely there can't be much difference between the type of person who becomes a dominatrix and the kind of person who becomes a traffic warden? They certainly both screw you for money...

msprawn 2 05 March 2013 1:14pm

FYI - she said that poverty was a price worth paying NOT violence, this is a misquote of the article

' And whilst Rhoda Grant pledged to fight poverty she was not prepared to recognise that her proposals would plunge sex workers into even deeper financial straits. Indeed, when asked about her justification for the collateral damage her legislative changes would cause, she suggested that damage to individual sex workers was a price worth paying for the settlement to be established.'

MikeOzanne 2 05 March 2013 1:18pm

@msprawn - Well as far as we can tell from where it's been tried, the result will be more violence against women, no matter what words come out of her lying politicians mouth.

RoryYeo 6 05 March 2013 1:08pm

And Rhoda Grant is a Labour MP. Surprise, surprise. Still addicted to social authoritarianism so absolutely not getting my vote at the next election. Labour: sort it out. It would be quite nice to be able to vote for you again at some point in the future. Otherwise, we need a new left of centre, libertarian party.

DouglasDaniel 1 05 March 2013 1:29pm

@RoryYeo - as much as I hate people making a distinction between constituency MSPs and List MSPs, the fact is Rhoda Grant received no one's vote in 2011. In fact when she stood for a constituency seat in 2003, she was rejected by the electorate.

You'll never get to vote for her, because she wouldn't get in standing for a constituency seat!

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Delite 14 05 March 2013 1:06pm

I have read through most of these posts with dismay. I had hoped that people were slightly more open minded and not caught up in just the media stereotype of us prostitutes. The great majority of us do actually choose to do this work from the safety of our own homes or rented aparmtents. We are not forced or coerced. We are educated and have not suffered any abuse of any form in our lives. I can say pretty much most of the escorts I know and before you say that is not many I keep in touch with a lot through forums, chose to so this work as we had either become dismayed with the employment we had or were heavily into the swinging scene and realised we could work much less hours for much more money. Most of us even pay tax as we have websites which the tax man can easily find so it would be stupid of us not too. Why should we be treated any different to any other tax payer? We get little to no help from the police even if the very rare happens and we get attacked. The police although this work is not illegal are not even sure of the laws themselves so often arrest us for being attacked before having to let us go and do nothing about those that attack us. There is one man who is well known to the police in the Midlands who has robbed and attacked over 200 women yet they refuse to prosecute him as we are just prostitutes. This work needs to be legitimised. If it becomes a legitimate choice of work that is not constantly portrayed badly in the media then our lives will be easier. It would also mean there would be no need for trafficked girls. These are the girls and women we need to be worrying about but again the police wont help them unless they will prosecute thier owner. Thats correct I said owner as these guys own these girls and they are too frightened to do anything as their families back home wil get hurt. The police know about quite a few in my area as a decent escort will report the traffickers to the police as soon as they move into the area in the hope they will get the girls out yet the police will leave them with their pimps unless they agree to speak against them in court. These girls/women have been beaten abd raped so often they have no will left and would never feel safe doing that so the police leave them with their pimp.. This is what the staunch feminists are calling for. By making prostitution illegal the only ones working will be the forced girls/women. Therefor the demand will be so much higher as us women who choose this work wont be around so many many more girls will be dragged in to cover for the demand. Such a nice thought isnt it that if these so called feminists get their way thousands more will be subject to abuse and violence on a daily basis. Making it illegal pushes it further undergroud. drugs are illegal but they can still be bought in every town and infact on most streets. Thankfully women are not raped on a constant basis for drugs though. They are for sex work.

This job should be licensed though. If you see a woman without a license then yes you should be prosecuted but if she has a license, meaning she has had her health checks every 6 weeks, she pays tax, and she has proven she is doing it of her own free will then there will be no trafficked girls anymore. if it is legitmate then there is no need for it to be underground. No matter what happens prostitution will always be around so make is safe.

I personally feel that I am as good as any other human being. I have a career if I choose to go back to it. I was a fully trained specialised nurse for 18 years until I chose this work instead. Why should I be treated as a second class citizen just because I have a very high sex drive? Men who visit sex workers do not do it without reason. Some are very lonely and need someone to hold them without any sexual activities, some have wives who refuse sex daily so prefer to visit us as they http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 26 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

feel their only other option would be to have an affair as they have not had sex for years. They dont want an affair as that would lead to a divorce as they would probably then be easily tempted to leave their partners. Some are single and do not have the time due to work commitments to find a partner so see us instead. In four years I have never been abused. I have only met one rude man who i told to leave. Infact everyone who visits myself and my friends is polite, does not make demands on what they want and quite often full sex is not even wanted. Its the closeness to a woman most men want and they do not get it at home due to family, work etc. I am one of the lucky ones though as I also have a partner who works so I do not have to do this I can work as and when I feel in the mood. I wanted all of you who think we are all doing this because we have to, to be able to see it from a different side. I dont have to. I choose to and I enjoy it. Making it completley legit and licensed would stop all the abuse that some have to suffer

DrChris 7 05 March 2013 1:15pm

@Delite - exactly. But some of those commenting here have no idea about the reality of this business and make false assumptions based on prejudice.

Shizzlemanizzle 1 05 March 2013 3:00pm

@Delite - This job should be licensed though. If you see a woman without a license then yes you should be prosecuted but if she has a license, meaning she has had her health checks every 6 weeks, she pays tax, and she has proven she is doing it of her own free will then there will be no trafficked girls anymore.

Would this realistically be possible to implement? Do you genuinely think our gov and police have the ability to embed this effectively? Imagine the cost to enforce 6 week health checks alone.

I am not saying this is a bad idea, just challenging the practicality.

richmanchester 2 05 March 2013 3:28pm

@Delite - "This job should be licensed though. If you see a woman without a license then yes you should be prosecuted but if she has a license, meaning she has had her health checks every 6 weeks, she pays tax, and she has proven she is doing it of her own free will then there will be no trafficked girls anymore. if it is legitmate then there is no need for it to be underground"

While I would agree normalisation of prostitution would be best for all http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 27 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

concerned (except those who feel their attitudes are correct and must be enforcedon everyone else), I fear you may go too far and, by instituting a state inspector, with the licensingand all it entails actually create both demand and supply for underground trade and trafficked trade. Better to make regulatioin as none onerous as possible, in my view.

Fivecard 2 05 March 2013 4:11pm

@Delite - Thank you for your comment, which is full of common sense and actual experience! Too many on here have an axe to grind, and do not feel the need to base their comments on facts or reality.

Kendall99 11 05 March 2013 12:49pm

To me, one of the nastier feminist arguments (and one that I see all the time), is the idea that sex workers cause other women to be raped. I've seen several well known feminists who've written for Guardian repeat this, none of them backing it up with any solid evidence.

You can find plenty of examples if you look at the (Guardian supported) feminist campaign to shut down Britain's sex shops and strip clubs. Groups like UK Feminista and Object repeatedly used bogus statistics to claim that those establishments increased rape in their vicinity. This was used by them to dismiss and demonise sex workers who fought to keep their jobs. Feminists portrayed those sex workers as victims when it suited them, but then attacked them as "gender traitors putting their greed ahead of other women's safety" when they stood up for themselves.

Gail Dines is one of the worst for this, with blaming "bad" women for causing rape a big part of her schtick. Even women who pose in bikinis for magazines like Sports Illustrated, or "sexualised" celebrities like Madonna, are directly accused of causing men to go out and rape other women and girls. It's a great way of arguing for authoritarian and puritanical policies, like Iceland's porn ban, while pretending that it's all about the safety of women and children.

Feminists rightly fight against the idea that women are "asking for it" if they're flirtatious or wearing a short skirt, but suddenly that argument seems to become acceptable if it's aimed at blaming and shaming sex workers. What's the big difference between blaming a woman for causing herself to be raped, and blaming sex workers for other women being raped?

Sophiestry 9 05 March 2013 12:55pm

@Kendall99 05 March 2013 12:49pm. Get cifFix for Chrome.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 28 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I've seen several well known feminists who've written for Guardian repeat this, none of them backing it up with any solid evidence.

Evidence or it didn't happen.

Kendall99 5 05 March 2013 1:08pm

@Sophiestry - I'll find some more examples when I have time later, but for a start there's this presentation by Gail Dines, who's written for the Guardian a number of times:

http://nopornnorthampton.org/2007/05/05/2007-anti-pornography-slide- show-presented-by-gail-dines.aspx

20min:20sec - Porn suggests that all women are ready and willing to offer up their bodies to men

"Males in our culture are socialized in a society where they are bombarded with the 'fuck-me' look, where it offers visual entitlement of ownership of women's bodies. And what is rape and sexual assualt if not taking men up on that offer that she's offering [slide displays cover of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue]. The only trouble is that she's not walking down the street, we are..."

"So when Madonna in her 'feminist' way goes out and talks about women, puts out the message that women are indeed exactly as men thought they are (pornographic men), it's all right for Madonna to say that because you know why, she travels with big, beefy...guys who protect her. It's you and I walking in that fucking parking lot at night that [have] to deal with the guys that believe this."

Sophiestry 9 05 March 2013 1:26pm

@Kendall99 05 March 2013 1:08pm. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Gail Dines' argument against pornography is that it normalises disrespectful, entitled attitudes towards women's bodies. It wouldn't necessarily lead to rape as such (and indeed, the evidence suggests that it doesn't, as Dines recognises), but it would encourage attitudes like thinking you're entitled to sex within a relationship at least once a week (or whatever). Because people are encouraged to think of women's bodies as not really theirs in some way, but objects for male consumption, it shifts the boundaries of the normal.

It's a rather subtle argument, and I'm not really sure I agree with it, but it's not evidence of what you're talking about. You need examples of Guardian feminists arguing that sex workers increase the likelihood of rape, which is what you claimed you'd seen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 29 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Kendall99 3 05 March 2013 6:56pm

@Sophiestry - I fail to see anything subtle about Dines' argument.

She's directly blaming women in porn (which includes bikini models for Dines), along with specific celebrities (who behave sexually in a way she disapproves of), for sending a message that causes women to be raped. She explicitly states that men who rape are just "taking them up on their offer".

How is that different from the argument that a woman who wears a short skirt is sending a message telling men to rape her?

There's nothing subtle about her scaremongering comments regarding women not being able to safely walk the streets, and she's clearly blaming that on the behaviour of other women. This is the argument she uses to dismiss women who say that it's their choice what to do with their own bodies.

When a conservative man says things like this, about women going out drinking and clubbing for example, there's an outcry. But when a feminist like Dines uses the same arguments (albeit dressed up in feminist language) she's defended and excused.

Sophiestry 1 05 March 2013 10:32pm

@Kendall99 05 March 2013 6:56pm. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Well, I've already talked about her more general position, but you want to talk about that specific bit. OK. Well, I'll try to explain it if I can.

She's talking about the 'fuck me' look. The point is that, through the model's oh-so-subtle suggestion of perma-availability, porn embodies the attitude of the rapist - it suggests an entitled attitude towards women and women's bodies.

But that isn't to make a crude causal claim along the lines of "Man see porn rape woman". Her point is structural: she's saying that porn, by its nature, is unhealthy. She's trying to get you to see what she sees when she looks at that Sports Illustrated magazine cover, not make a causal claim.

Kendall99 1 06 March 2013 3:11am

@Sophiestry - I think your interpretation of this is over generous in the extreme. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 30 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

When Dines says things like:

"it's all right for Madonna to say that because you know why, she travels with big, beefy guys who protect her. It's you and I walking in that fucking parking lot at night that have to deal with the guys that believe this. So the problem when women talk about their choices is that every single one of us suffers in some level."

That sounds like a crude causal claim to me.

She's scaremongering about rape without any evidence to support her claims, and using that to blame and shame women who make choices that don't fit her puritanical belief system. You can interpret her ranting differently if you like, but I don't buy it.

For other examples you could have a look at Object's campaign against lap dancing clubs. The bogus statistics linking strip clubs to increased rape are used to directly attack dancers who defend their jobs. Sex workers themselves quoted examples of this in the #whenantisattack hashtag that inspired this article.

Sophiestry 1 06 March 2013 9:05am

@Kendall99 06 March 2013 3:11am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

I'm still not sure you've even grasped what is supposed to be my overgenerous interpretation. She's saying that Madonna displays an "I'm alright Jill" attitude, and doesn't do anything about changing the underlying culture. She doesn't need to, because she's rich and protected. There's no causal claim there. Sorry, there just isn't.

I'll try an analogy. It's like criticising a rapper who lives in a gated community writing 'songs' about killing their enemies. It's offensive for someone who is so insulated from the reality on the street to show such disregard for the way this casual disregard for human life and the triumph of ego just tears communities apart. It's not that their 'songs' cause street violence. It's that their songs are offensive in their "I'm alright Jack" mentality. At the very least, they ought to come down to the street and see what it's like before they so thoughtlessly trumpet the culture that's so damaging for so many.

RoryYeo 9 05 March 2013 12:47pm

This is an excellent little article and chimes with Libby Brookes' recent call for the decriminalisation of sex work on the New Zealand model which as, a number of serious academic and research analyses have shown, has positive outcomes in protecting the human rights and improving the working conditions of sex workers as autonomous professionals through the establishment of SOOBs. There has also been no noted increase in the amount of prostitution and, as of 2010, no cases of trafficking. Some of this might, of course, be due to NZ's isolated geographical http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 31 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

situation which makes it less vulnerable to trafficking and organised crime, but I would argue that states such as Germany and the Netherlands which are always wheeled out as indicative of what goes wrong when sex work is legalised are not great examples from an empirical point of view.

In Germany's case, its decentralised system means that, in reality, some states simply ignore central laws and continue to suppress sex work while at the same time the German model never went far enough down the decriminalisation road. The same applies to the Netherlands where the strict interpretation of the legalisation model by local authorities (for example, imposing high barriers to entry into the sex business) actually encourages illegal behaviour. Moreover, trafficking statistics are so broadly defined, ideologically driven and inaccurately modelled, that they have little or no reliability.

And as for anti-sex work feminists portraying themselves as the defenders of prostitutes. Five minutes reading the kinds of abusive comments Scandinavian anti-sex work feminists make about sex workers, listening to anti-sex work feminists in a debate with an unrepetant sex worker or scrutinising Scandinavia's anti-sex work laws (which are incredibly harmful to sex workers whether male or female) will illustrate to you just how much many anti-sex work feminists despise sex workers but, in particular, those sex workers who refuse to be victims or play the party line. That so many of them also seem to hate transgender people tells you everything you need to know about the Stalinism of that brand of feminism and its ideological unease, despite its denials, about female sexuality and, ultimately, sex itself.

Happily, there is another kind of evidence-based pragmatic feminism as Hannah Betts shows. The fact that successive governments have attempted to clamp down on sex work and fight a hopeless war against drugs even though all the evidence shows that both are losing battles simply proves Freud's point about the definition of insanity.

freespeechoneeach 7 05 March 2013 12:45pm

Militant and separatist feminist thought sees heterosexual intercourse as men using violence to oppress women. In this understanding, a woman prostitute is a collaborator in an ongoing war or revolution. It's quite realistic to say that some feminists hate prostitutes. They hate other kinds of people too; also, apparently, out of attachment to militant or separatist feminist ideas. So I'd say this interesting article raises good questions about what militant/ separatist feminism is; how it affects the world, and what responsibility other feminists take for their fellow- travelers. The other side of the matter is the legal/ social approach to prostitution. For my money; workers' health and safety must come first, moralistic interference can only make ( /is only making) matters worse; so legalise, regularise, educate.

jabral 1 05 March 2013 12:03pm

I will not call them prostitutes but sex workers and better still social workers who are helping hard up and over sexed men to relive themselves by paying them a http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 32 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

price for their services and labour. It is as good good a job as any woman would do in an office where she is paid for the labour she puts into her work that she is given to do. But, she has no choice to refuse her boss and withdraw her labour as long as she contracted to perform her office duties.

Most of these prostitutes now a days are unprofessional who stand on a dim lit street corner after dark and offer their services to earn few bucks to help their kids buy new designer clothes every month and to send them to private schools, help themselves pay rent, mortgage, buy expensive clothes and some young girls have to do it to finance their education and paying exorbitant university fees. And even some mothers have to do to it to buy a nice meal for their children and husbands who are jobless, drug addicts or do not want to work and are happy their wives or partners earning for them.

An some do it as an addiction to buy drugs and some do it to get as much sexual experience as possible while young and healthy with an added bonus for being paid for it for few minutes social work, .

Ocoonassa 8 05 March 2013 11:58am

Notably, said bashing includes a cohort of feminist critics

The anti-sex-league is almost exclusively comprised of those nutters and religious nutters.

ratherannoyed 9 05 March 2013 12:39pm

@Ocoonassa - If it's so effing notable it won't take you a second to find some links to prostitute bashing feminists then. Let's have it.

As far as I can see the only people doing the bashing around here are Betts and Manganti. Oh, and you.

Shizzlemanizzle 4 05 March 2013 1:54pm

@Ocoonassa - The anti-sex-league is almost exclusively comprised of those nutters and religious nutters.

Are you saying that you seeing nothing wrong with the concept of paying for sex? Genuine question.

MikeOzanne 3 05 March 2013 2:39pm http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 33 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@Shizzlemanizzle -

Why would there be anything "wrong" with the concept? Most of the ethical issues seem to stem from the circumstances and the conditions rather than the concept.

Shizzlemanizzle 3 05 March 2013 3:38pm

@MikeOzanne -

Because many believe funding it creates a market for sexual exploitation. If you don't have a willing audience, you don't have a market place. Pretty simple concept to get.

A number of individual's seem confident to say they see nothing wrong with prostitution, yet not so quick to say they are someone that would be comfortable paying for sex.

MikeOzanne 1 05 March 2013 3:48pm

@Shizzlemanizzle - "Because many believe funding it creates a market for sexual exploitation."

Yes but isn't that a consequence of the circumstances and conditions in which prostitution occurs rather than being implicit in the principle of it. i.e the market is driven by the pimps, ponces and trafficers rather than run by the actual providers.

"A number of individual's seem confident to say they see nothing wrong with prostitution, yet not so quick to say they are someone that would be comfortable paying for sex."

But is that because of the criminal environment which surrounds prostitution, rather than inherent ?

richmanchester 05 March 2013 4:18pm

@Shizzlemanizzle - Its a liberal thing, while we may not want to do something ourselves that does not make it wrong, nor mean we should try and prevent others doing so.

The first question is perhaps more interesting, does the existence of prostitution (indeed of other services of an adult, sexual or erotic nature) have a wider impact on society as a whole, and if it does, does the states

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 34 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

view, in terms of legislation affect this?

I don't know, but would tend to think that reducing harm to the individual and respecting individual liberty should outweigh more fuzzy notions of the greater good, but thats just me.

In which case my conclusion would be thatmost harm is casued by the presence of criminals in any process, so their input should be minimised.

So we should either normalise the process, so the transaction becomes one between consenting adults, either in organised venues (brothels) on on an individual basis by advertising. Or we decide prohibition is the best way forward and dedicate sufficient time and resource to actually stopping something happening. This would mean enough police to raid brothels, clear the streets of prostitutes, track down the owners of websites, and chase down the pimps and gangsters,and put sufficent fear of arrest in the users minds that they desist, and enough social and support services to help those in need. Also considerable resource to police the police would be needed, as the above conditions would be ideal for bribes and corruption.

The current half way, well its mostly illegal but we'll mostly ignore it creastes the perfect scenario for the gangsters to prosper.

Shizzlemanizzle 2 05 March 2013 4:45pm

@MikeOzanne - If you don't have a need, the market won't be driven to support it.

If it prostitution was legalised tomorrow, it wouldn't mean it suddenly wasn't perceived as sexual exploitation. Which is why I don't think many people would be over the moon to see loved ones take up the profession, because they would have their best interests at heart. I may be generalising, and would be interested in someone that would be happy to *genuinely* recommend prostitution to a close friend/ family member.

If you can say you wouldn't be happy with your daughter/mother/ 21 year old son taking up the profession, then it's pretty hypocritical to say there's no problems around someone paying for sex (the customer).

Shizzlemanizzle 1 05 March 2013 4:56pm

@richmanchester - The impact does have a massively negative impact on gender (sorry)- as it continues to promote female exploitation. This is the personal aspect that troubles me.

The current half way, well its mostly illegal but we'll mostly ignore it creastes the perfect scenario for the gangsters to prosper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 35 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I do completely agree with this- very well put. Even though I would much prefer the latter, more expensive option due to the wider issue of exploitation (which is my concern with legalising it: the acceptance that exploitation is a way of life could be counter productive within society and needs to be fought where possible), however I do accept that the first option is probably safer in terms of the direct risk/impact on individuals in comparison to the current state we have.

richmanchester 05 March 2013 5:19pm

@Shizzlemanizzle -

Is it what politicians would call "sending a message"? If we accept that something happens and move to normalise it, it sends the message that something's ok and more people will give it a go? It may be true in the short term, but I think I would always conclude that things should be allowed unless they cause demonstrable harm to those not involved.

As to the wider impact on gender, I am not convinced (but who cares what I think?), would legalsied brothels contribute to senior politicians decision on how far their hands can venture up a young lady's leg? Or whether police would accept allegation of rape at face value or seek to have it withdrawn to improve the stats? Would young women's claims of gang rape still be ignored because they were from chaotic backgrounds, or does prostituion contribute to this? Does knwoing prostitutes are out there somehwere (and they dont take much finding) affect the way men and women interact on a daily basis?

Ocoonassa 05 March 2013 6:04pm

@Shizzlemanizzle - Are you saying that you seeing nothing wrong with the concept of paying for sex?

Correct, done in exchange for cash it's just a form of labour that beats digging ditches or being stuck as a grunt on a battlefield waiting for death.

Personally I think the concept of paying people to pick up guns and do murder on your behalf is of far more concern than what hookers do, and yet that is something that all these pious complainants are quite happy to do. Make of that what you will.

jameslegrand 05 March 2013 8:56pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 36 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@richmanchester - Shizzlemanizzle and richmanchester What makes you think the gangsters will go away after the legalization? They won't --they will just continue after the same model freely with no risk of getting caught and perhaps diversify into a new field.

And rich, of course prostitution becoming all legal and acceptable would have a huge impact on women in society, harassment would rise cause women would be seen increasingly as free game as nothing would be wrong with trying to persuade even non-practising ladies into a perfectly legal transaction--general respect of women would likely plummet as prostitutes would be more visible and would thus contribute more to the overall image of women. And who knows what else? Probably some unforeseen results would turn up , too. Particularly in relation to young people who are the first generation to experience it.

richmanchester 05 March 2013 9:15pm

@jameslegrand -

The act of prostitution itself is legal in England.

I don't know where you are but prostitutes are already visible here, on the street and in not at all concealed massage parlors.

fb177 06 March 2013 2:31pm

@Ocoonassa - ah yes, if you hate what the other side is saying, just paint them with the old "anti" label. Thus, people who oppose prostitution (but who rather like sex) can just be labeled "anti sex." People who oppose abortion are "pro life" therefore making those who support abortion "anti life." right? No thinking required.

BTW, Brooke Magnanti does this "just label them "anti sex" and be done with it" crap all the time. For someone so desperate to be taken seriously in more academic realms, she sure does fall on some very non- intellectual means of getting her point across.

Ocoonassa 2 06 March 2013 2:58pm

@fb177 - The anti-sex-league are an ancient fixture on these islands and have serious psychological problems resulting from the Judeo Christian conception of human sexuality as something special and sacred rather than a merely pleasurable sensation originally and occasionally for propagating more apes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 37 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

To the anti-sex-league sex is just for 'loving' 'meaningful' relationships and procreation, they have an essentially mechanical interaction built up into some Walt Disney bullshit that it just isn't. People who sleep around or sell themselves jar with that conception, the anti-sex-league will ban them all, they'll also ban words and pictures too.

fb177 06 March 2013 3:37pm

@Ocoonassa - still trying to make the label stick? if you need to hide behind simplistic labels instead of discussing, I understand.

Ocoonassa 06 March 2013 5:02pm

@fb177 - It's not a question of trying to make the label stick, those people I speak of exist, you taking issue with what I call them is a small matter.

Shizzlemanizzle 9 05 March 2013 11:57am

I knew one sex worker. She was neither happy, liberated, or independent. People that view it as a standard transaction of services for those involved are deluding themselves.

metalvendetta 12 05 March 2013 12:05pm

@Shizzlemanizzle - They're deluding themselves based on your survey of one person?

Shizzlemanizzle 6 05 March 2013 12:10pm

@metalvendetta - No, on the basis of the well documented Mental Health/ outcomes and implications of those involved. My 'personal' observation however it's far most fitting than the people trying to suggest the majority of sex workers are having the time of their lives.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 38 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Shizzlemanizzle 6 05 March 2013 12:21pm

@metalvendetta - Also, I wouldn't be too surprised if people mention their own first hand experiences on posts Personal experiences often shape people's views. Not a shocker really. You'll bore yourself very quickly picking at everyone on here that does it. Unless that's your thing.

metalvendetta 11 05 March 2013 12:22pm

@Shizzlemanizzle - I don't think that anyone is suggesting that the majority of sex workers are having the time of their lives, though those that I know well are - if not necessarily always happy - independent and liberated. I've also met heroin addicts forced into sex work to pay for their drugs, who I wouldn't describe as happy, liberated or independent. It's a complicated issue, and your blanket dismissal of those who don't agree with you as deluded is neither helpful nor accurate.

Shizzlemanizzle 9 05 March 2013 12:58pm

@metalvendetta - My point was more aimed at the "but women enjoy sex!!" attitude that's' coming out of this discussion, and the mythical sense of empowerment in the majority of cases, which belittles the seriousness of the situation. Yes women enjoy sex.... doesn't mean that it's a perk of prostitution if you would rather be working in another industry but have little alternative to bring in an income. Does the fact women enjoy sex mean that we should be less lenient on rape? of course not. The risk being created here is that legalising prostitution brings with it a laid back feel about individuals being paid for sex. It doesn't, and it will still attract vulnerable women. Of course, the concept of removing pimps/ traffickers by legalising is great, but it doesn't change the fact selling sex will still remain a form of exploitation, and by legalising it, the people using these services, are being told that it is acceptable.

logicalthought 1 05 March 2013 11:54am

Besides the ILLOGIC of making it illegal to do for pay something that it is illegal to do for pay, there is also the ILLOGIC of it being legal to be paid to have sex on camera, while being illegal to be paid for sex when the camera is not rolling.

Now what nitpicking lame excuse will you illogical UK anti-prostitution posters use now that the example of ILLOGIC applies equally to both the US and the UK?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 39 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

LittleRichardjohn 13 05 March 2013 11:53am

I've never heard or seen a feminist 'hate' a prostitute. Pity as another marketplace sucker, yes. Especially the drivelling nitwits who claim they are 'empowered' by skilful exploitation of their 'erotic capital' - which is the style of the time. But hated, no. That will be the men who rent the erotic orifices, I think you'l find. Just as it is routine and even natural to despise a used-car salesman.

DrChris 7 05 March 2013 12:52pm

@LittleRichardjohn - punters don't rent orifices. They pay for a service that it involves the whole range of erotic experiences for both parties. And it is not natural or acceptable to despise a used-car salesman, as most of us rely on buying used cars (not that this has anything to do with the topic at hand).

devonguy 7 05 March 2013 1:26pm

@LittleRichardjohn 05 March 2013 11:53am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

Especially the drivelling nitwits who claim they are 'empowered' by skilful exploitation of their 'erotic capital' - which is the style of the time. But hated, no. That will be the men who rent the erotic orifices, I think you'l find. Just as it is routine and even natural to despise a used-car salesman.

Those drivelling nitwits almost certainly feel the same way about people with your attitude. The ease with which you despise people you don't know (and used car salesmen - seriously, you can't find a better example of someone to despise?) doesn't reflect well on you, however noble you think your views are.

LittleRichardjohn 4 05 March 2013 2:42pm

@devonguy - I have met prostitutes, and a sorry bunch they are. Have you? You ever met Pol-Pot or Rose West come to that? What do you think of them without meeting them? Actions speak louder than tete a tetes. . And the politics of prostitution are as clear as day, but more pathetic. Why is a used car salesman any better than an orifice rental service?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 40 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

LittleRichardjohn 2 06 March 2013 2:43am

@DrChris - 'Punters' do rent orifices. Unless they're Nappy-fetishists or some other special needs group. And my pity, as I said was for the nitwits who believe being a used - orifice agent is even as 'empowering' as selling cars. It's not. Your body is not a machine, and your mind is effected by its abuse.

fb177 1 06 March 2013 2:34pm

@DrChris - they rent women's bodies. Don't try to tell me they rent a human being that they can hold hands with and connect with when all the ads for escorts have their faces marred out but bodies full on display, their bios and names completely fake.

These men are renting any women who will do.

Sneezy2013 19 05 March 2013 11:42am

This article is a classic example of the disconnect between the Gaurdian world view and that of the general public.

Prostitution is exploitation. Wheeling out a single woman who looks like a model as a supposed example of the legitimacy of this activity is about as relevant as a deep south plantation owner parading a "happy" slave who would cheerfully say how well dear ol' massa' looked after him.

Prostitution is not a "life choice" and arguing as some below the line have that it should be an option for poor people who have kids and drug problems lacks a basic empathy with huiman beings. It simply endorses the exploitation of vulnerable people.

What's it going to be next; telling people in famine zones to eat their children as a short term solution to their problems?

Areas with "tolerated" prostitution soon become dangerous or at best highly unpleasant for women to be in. The much praised toleration zones in Holland are finally being admitted top be a disaster and quietly rolled up. Here in Edinburgh women walking home from work and even young girls in school uniforms we routinely being harassed by johns., yet here we are again, making a case for the legalised degradation of women.

But of course its all about "choices" isn't it? No-one acts under duress of because they have no "choice" or because they feel worthless and miserable. Goodness me no! and anyway its their problem, eh?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 41 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

No, its liberty hall and whatever we do we should never "judge" anyone or anthing - unlessof course its a Tory, an American, an Israeli, a Christian or anyone who does not sign up to the Guardian world view.

Let's all be dead kewl, louche and unfazed; what is all the fuss about after all? The degradation of society just so a few posers can show how chilled they are. Christ!

So it's legalised drugs in all the corner shops; a hooker on every corner; a contraceptive implant in every adolescent girl;schools that teach useless rubbish and a blind eye turned to inconveninet social consequences.

Welcome to the dystopian paradise that is Guardian world.

Only of course none of this will affect the Guardian staffers who will use money, connections and privilege to live gated lives far, far away from the nightmare they are planning for the rest of us.

And just for the record Ms Betts; wearing shiny things, high heels and make up is not equivalent to prostitution. It is normal behaviour and I doubt if you really see yourself as acting in the same way as a hooker by doing so, but if you are allowing an eight year old child to do so, you might want to have a think about your parenting skills.

pimpmasterkdogg 7 05 March 2013 11:55am

No they're not. Nobody has said they are a disaster. They are being scaled back but Holland has no intention of going back to street prostitution.

Here in Edinburgh women walking home from work and even young girls in school uniforms we routinely being harassed by johns., yet here we are again, making a case for the legalised degradation of women.

Are you saying this would be more likely to happen if prostitutes were not plying their trade on the streets but were doing so in licensed premises? It doesn't happen in Holland.

Shizzlemanizzle 13 05 March 2013 12:06pm

@Sneezy2013 - I am a liberal, guardian reader. But I am lost on this one. How so many people seem unfazed by the blatant exploitation involved in prostitution is depressing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 42 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

MikeOzanne 3 05 March 2013 12:32pm

@Shizzlemanizzle - Oh agreed, the blatant exploitation is horrible, Now if we could get the victims away from the pimps and connected with health and addiction services, given some basic security etc we could then see what proportion continued in this line of work, whether the situation of those who continued improved and whether the overall level of harm is reduced. I can't see how how making the sex trade even more criminally frowned upon is going to help anyone but the pimps and trafficers.

DrChris 5 05 March 2013 12:53pm

@Sneezy2013 - the fact that you say it's so does not make it so. It contradicts the varied experiences of people involved in this business on both sides.

callaspodeaspode 7 05 March 2013 1:29pm

@Sneezy2013 -

This article is a classic example of the disconnect between the Gaurdian world view and that of the general public. Prostitution is exploitation. Wheeling out a single woman who looks like a model as a supposed example of the legitimacy of this activity is about as relevant as a deep south plantation owner parading a "happy" slave who would cheerfully say how well dear ol' massa' looked after him.

Poor old Sneezy2013, you wanted to get a dig in at 'Guardian readers', which is fine. The only problem is that on this subject, your account of what the 'General public' thinks, is, ironically, exactly the sort of thing that one might expect from a 'Guardian Reader'. That is, 'prostitution is exploitation', full stop. Which is rather a classical radical feminist approach, to be proclaimed from these lofty pages, I would have thought. Now, if you said it was 'immoral', then we might identify it as possibly emanating from a more religious point of view, which would be, I suppose, the territory of something like The Tablet.

In fact, doesn't the preponderance of comments here which basically amount to 'leave it to the market, subjects to certain checks and balances' indicate a view that may well be the majority in newspapers that are (supposedly) the diametrical opposite of the Guardian? And, of

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 43 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

course, enjoy a much wider readership than this organ, thus being more representative of the great general public? And thus, by your lights, right and justified?

What's it going to be next; telling people in famine zones to eat their children as a short term solution to their problems?

Daily Telegraph and Daily Express readers would purr with approval at that sentiment, just to name two outlets more in tune with your particular brand of reactionary idiocy, poorly camouflaged by crocodile tears about the poor streetwalkers.

If I may be so bold, you hate the Guardian and all its nasty elitist readers and staff who stand for that which so differentiate it from the 'general public', but you really have no actual idea about what this differentiation might comprise of in this instance, do you?

Thus, an article, the substance of which and the responses that have so enraged you could appear to be more calculated to gain approval from the dessicated gnomes who work at The Spectator, than the radical Marxist lesbians you appear to think comprise the Guardian staff, are, de facto 'typical Guardian'.

Why? Because it must be.

Yes, dear.

groucho1980 6 05 March 2013 1:40pm

@Sneezy2013 -

Surely this depends on the circumstances of the individual prostitute, if she is working, or coerced, on behalf of a pimp then I can indeed see your point that such a situation is exploitation and clearly wrong.

If however she is an escort working independently then how is that any more exploitative then a "normal" job? Don't get me wrong I am under no illusions that prostitution is an easy profession, or good for the physical and mental health of the prostitutes, but if she isn't under the influence of a pimp and not underage surely she is an adult making a personal choice and not being exploited. She can do what she wants with her body even if other don't agree with it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 44 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

TonyN1965 6 05 March 2013 2:16pm

@Sneezy2013 - Nearly all work is exploitation. Would people work at MacDonalds or clean toilets if they were not getting paid? Don't you think nurses are exploited?

People go on about the Scandinavian model. Has it stopped prostitution? No. Has it made sex workers lives better? No. Has it made their work more unsafe? Yes. There is a piece from an escort in Sweden that basically showed how disconnected politicians are from the real world and that they don't even accept the implication that there maybe more violence because of it.

glamorganist 3 05 March 2013 5:21pm

@Sneezy2013 -

There is more to life than pounds, shillings and pence but a few moments' research (in the arms of Google, unfortunately) suggests that many prostitutes working in London, as an example, will charge an hourly rate of 100 pounds and often substantially more. In my professional work, in the NHS, I occasionally met prostitutes. One, who claimed only to offer massage services, also claimed that, on average, her gross earnings were around 15,000 pounds a month. "Google research" and anecdotes prove nothing but I really cannot accept your unqualified statement that "Prostitution is exploitation". The reality, like most things in human life, is much more complex - and more interesting.

fb177 06 March 2013 2:39pm

@MikeOzanne - I can't see how making women a commodity is the solution to ANYTHING.

If anything, legitimizing the idea that women's sexuality is a convenience product for men only perpetuates the problems.

How about we tap into our innate human decency and not sell women? Can we do that? No, of course not. That would be too much work. And besides, what would men get out of that? It's not your sexuality on the

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 45 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

market, so you don't need to care, eh?

HauntedCabbage 7 05 March 2013 11:30am

Legalize it.As long as its between 2 consenting adults and done in private its nothing do with anyone.

And I'm a prudish old fashioned type of person .

I find high street titillation sex shops a hundred times more offensive.

Covenant 8 05 March 2013 11:26am

In general, this is a very good and necessary article - the hatred expressed against prostitutes by many people is vile. It is frequently the men who use prostitutes who express the most violent attitudes too.

However, I don't really buy this bit:

This is evident not only in Burchill's string 'em up stance, but the notion that, as "all prostitution is rape", sex workers cannot know their own minds, or be in control of their bodies, and thus consent.

Burchill is obviously a vile troll, but the idea that you can't object to people being economically coerced into sex without also wanting to inflict violence on them is bullshit.

The reason feminists are opposed to prostitution is because it so frequently is rape, and that the women involved have so few real choices. Conflating that with threats of murder, rape or anything other than standing in sisterhood is rubbish.

DrChris 6 05 March 2013 11:32am

@Covenant - how to you determine that is so frequently rape?

Covenant 8 05 March 2013 11:48am

@DrChris - The testimony of people who have managed to get out of the industry? The dozens of rigorous academic studies showing the incredibly high rates of assault and rape for street prostitutes? The number of murders of prostitutes committed by their clients?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 46 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Life as a prostitute is likely to be violent and dangerous.

SeanMcreen 6 05 March 2013 11:58am

@Covenant - In a highly unequal capitalist society, all work is coercive and exploitative, not just sex work. So why do some feminists reserve special condemnation for sex work, as opposed to minimum-wage supermarket shelf-stacking in towns blighted by industrial decline? I suspect their answer will be based on the misconception that all sex work is somehow submitting to patriarchal violence and domination (as opposed to the more routine capitalist form of domination).

In order to correct this misconception, you need to talk to a wide range of actual sex workers (which includes not just traditional prostitutes but also dominatrices, lap dancers, cam girls, porn producers etc), including those who have full autonomy over their bodies and what they do with them. They will tell you that they often get more abuse from other women in the guise of 'feminism' than they do from their clients.

At the other end of the spectrum there are genuinely vulnerable women who may be trafficked or pimped or dependent on drugs. No one is defending these practices, but this image of prostitution is a stereotype which only applies to a small proportion of sex workers.

DrChris 6 05 March 2013 12:56pm

@Covenant - I know hundreds of them and I can tell you it's not the case. They do not consider themselves rape victims.

jameslegrand 2 05 March 2013 1:09pm

@DrChris - let me answer that for you. Any intercourse where the woman feels no desire and no pleasure is rape.

DrChris 6 05 March 2013 1:19pm

@jameslegrand - that is completely false. Rape is sexual intercourse without consent. You are making it up as you go along. But trust me, the ladies who provide this service usually feel pleasure and desire. They have orgasms, real orgasms, not fake. They are not robots, they are human and this is a human experience for all involved. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 47 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

richmanchester 6 05 March 2013 1:31pm

@jameslegrand - No its not; intercourse without consent is rape; its possible (though far from ideal) for it to occur without desire, and without pleasure.

How would you describe intercourse where the male partner lacks desire and pleasure?

DrChris 5 05 March 2013 1:44pm

@richmanchester - moreover, it is dehumanizing sex workers to describe them as cold robots who view their clients as cash machines and bring no humanity, no human emotions to the service they offer.

richmanchester 3 05 March 2013 1:47pm

@SeanMcreen - "So why do some feminists reserve special condemnation for sex work, as opposed to minimum-wage supermarket shelf-stacking"

Same reason non feminists do, its icky.

snoozeofreason 3 05 March 2013 2:17pm

@Covenant -

The dozens of rigorous academic studies showing the incredibly high rates of assault and rape for street prostitutes?

Your comment would be a lot more convincing if you gave some references to these "rigorous academic studies". The topic is one where academic studies abound, but rigour is in short supply.

jameslegrand 1 05 March 2013 8:25pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 48 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@richmanchester - nonexistent

jameslegrand 1 05 March 2013 8:26pm

@DrChris - Sorry could you provide any links!

jameslegrand 2 05 March 2013 8:29pm

@DrChris - Actually the reports I've seen complain that men are so hard with them that they have thrown up after intercourse. There is frequently bruising as result of their clients actions and serious violence is not rare.

jameslegrand 2 05 March 2013 8:33pm

@richmanchester - If it occurs without desire and without pleasure it is rape, nothing more. Desire is the key. I'd never want to have sex with a woman who does not feel desire for me and I don't understand how anybody does. It is a sadistic urge that wants to subject the other person to your will. Perversely, it is also possible to rape with consent.

jameslegrand 1 05 March 2013 8:35pm

@DrChris - You want to buy a woman, yet you demand emotion from her?!

Covenant 06 March 2013 5:33pm

@SeanMcreen - Sorry missed this before, it's total rubbish though.

So why do some feminists reserve special condemnation for sex work, as opposed to minimum-wage supermarket shelf- stacking in towns blighted by industrial decline?

The average assault rates, exposure to STIs, exposure to rapes, and exposure to harmful drug use is monumentally higher for prostitutes than it is for shelf-stackers - but that misses the point.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 49 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Your analysis would seem to suggest that when people objected to slavery, they were criticising slaves - similarly when people say prostitution is too dangerous and exploitative, you claim people are criticising prostitutes. It's a very basic failure of understanding.

They will tell you that they often get more abuse from other women in the guise of 'feminism' than they do from their clients.

Some will - the vast majority won't.

EricJ 05 March 2013 11:09am

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

SeanMcreen 05 March 2013 12:01pm

@metalvendetta - They are not really regarded or acknowledged at all. They certainly don't get Julie Burchill - or anyone - calling for them to be strung up.

pimpmasterkdogg 8 05 March 2013 12:10pm

rofl a 'men can be prostitutes too' comment deleted by the mods, wtf Guardian, you really hate the 'what about the men' argument in any feminist pieces, jeez

Francostars1 6 05 March 2013 11:04am

Prohibition is the water of Mafia fish and it is better to avoid it where it is possible as the paying sex among adult and consentient people. Moreover, it is better to legalize and tax prostitution to cope with the World Wide Crisis.

Perse Phoney 8 05 March 2013 10:57am

Change the age for sex workers to 28 years old is a good start. The older the better.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 50 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Shame all the dead 'prostitutues' are not alive to tell their tales. Another stab at bashing feminists who are against the objectification of women. How utterly male of the Guardian.

DrChris 19 05 March 2013 11:02am

@Perse Phoney - plenty of alive prostitutes to tell their tale. Have you ever talked to one?

pimpmasterkdogg 19 05 March 2013 11:03am

@Perse Phoney - Yeah all the 'dead' prostitutes would be crying, "Why did you not let me conduct my trade in the open? Why did I have to get into strangers' cars when I could have worked in a licensed brothel? Why did nobody care for my safety?"

WTG Perse Phoney. WTFG.

deezer 20 05 March 2013 11:10am

@Perse Phoney -

Another stab at bashing feminists who are against the objectification of women. How utterly male of the Guardian.

No, just feminists who abuse and demean other women because they don't agree with their career choice. The dead prostitutes might not be dead if they weren't forced to work under a veil of shame and secrecy.

This was written by a woman.

Just no, to everything you said.

Perse Phoney 4 05 March 2013 11:41am

@deezer - your implying that all sex workers consent to being sex workers deezer. For mosts its not a 'career choice' its a means to paying bills, the pimp and any offspring produced anonymously.

I don't think dead sex workers would see the 'veil of secrecy and shame' the way you see it particularly when the families they were abducted

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 51 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

from are threatened with execution if the women don't 'work'.

And not all sex workers are female so if a male wrote this article it would not be as palatable for you?

As for the pimpmasterdogg no all the alive women will be crying, tortured, in fear , bashed, but still seen and heard as opposed to DEAD

deezer 5 05 March 2013 11:43am

@Perse Phoney -

Apologies if I implied that, I am obviously completely opposed to forced prostitution, and trafficking. But that is not the 'objectification of women', that is slavery.

deezer 4 05 March 2013 11:47am

@deezer -

Also, perhaps if there was a rise in rape in Sweden, this means that rapists were simply raping non-prostitutes as opposed to raping prostitutes, and therefore those rapes were treated with more gravity. The attitude of authorities towards prostitutes who have been raped is pretty abysmal.

Perse Phoney 3 05 March 2013 11:48am

@DrChris - Many who told me about their dead friends

Perse Phoney 1 05 March 2013 11:49am

@deezer - dear me deezer all women are slaves not just sex workers why stop there?

deezer 1 05 March 2013 11:54am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 52 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@Perse Phoney -

I'm sorry, you have lost me. What do you mean?

jameslegrand 3 05 March 2013 12:07pm

@Perse Phoney - Change the age for sex workers to 60 years is a good start.

jameslegrand 2 05 March 2013 12:09pm

@DrChris - I'm sure you have talked to many. And not only talked.

DrChris 9 05 March 2013 12:57pm

@jameslegrand - that is why I know what I am talking about

DrChris 5 05 March 2013 1:03pm

if you are referring to prostitutes, what did they tell you about themselves?

jameslegrand 4 05 March 2013 1:06pm

@DrChris - THAT is why you're unqualified to talk about this, because you're biased, because you're part of the problem. Because you benefit from it.

DrChris 10 05 March 2013 1:27pm

@jameslegrand - so anyone who actually has knowledge is unqualified, the prostitutes, the punters, and those who have no knowledge

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 53 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

whatsoever are qualified?

MikeOzanne 05 March 2013 2:23pm

@DrChris - Whatever he wanted to hear usually......

MikeOzanne 05 March 2013 3:53pm

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

jameslegrand 2 05 March 2013 8:24pm

@DrChris - Well, at least they are not perverts. At least, if you'd like me to rephrase it, they still know what is normal.

fb177 06 March 2013 3:28pm

@DrChris - let's just say... pro-prostitution arguments are VERY advantageous to those that benefit from prostitution. And therefore you can't blame people for suspecting them of bias and distortion. I wouldn't trust a shareholder or CEO of an oil company when s/he claims how clean and awesome the oil industry is.

Atavism 10 05 March 2013 10:57am

Same issue as the drugs problem really - the illegality of the trade is the problem rather than the trade itself.

Yes there is a health impact in the trade, but there is such an eternal and ubiquitous demand that illegality simply creates a lucrative criminal economy where the harm done outweighs the lesser health hazards of a legitimate and regulated market.

There is no ratiionality in the "anti" cause. As with drugs, we are being held hostage by hysterical religious puritans and brainwashed peasants responding to Murdoch and Dacre's hypocrisy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 54 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

jameslegrand 10 05 March 2013 10:53am

Hannah Betts , when you say

. you are equally guilty of the all women are whores fallacy.

RichJames 12 05 March 2013 10:58am

@jameslegrand - I think she was trying to make a point about the double standards of people who oppose sex work on the grounds that it makes sexuality materialistic. I don't believe Hannah was suggesting sex/love for reasons of financial self-interest are good, or bad. Just that the focus of more baleful views regarding female prostitutes is invariably on women who are poor.

Hol48 4 05 March 2013 11:55am

@jameslegrand - I don't see where she's suggested that all women fit into that category.

jameslegrand 6 05 March 2013 12:07pm

@RichJames - No, she was equating marriage with prostitution and that is very offensive. A feminist should know better. This kind of line of reasoning just makes it easier for misogynists to despise women. All women cause all women are just whores and after money. It then becomes the paranoid argument of "There is a creature living under the kitchen sink. I cannot see it . I cannot smell it but it's there..." Get what I mean? No evidence is necessary, you can just state things about women even if there is evidence to the contrary. In marriage for example there is evidence that people love each other but hey, no matter, it's all just for money I'll just believe what I choose to believe. ( Funny that when it's gays who marry it's all about love,though, the whole

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 55 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

defence of gay marriage has been run on love agenda. The same people who argued that gays should have a "right to love" are here arguing that women just marry for money. )

ratherannoyed 5 05 March 2013 1:48pm

@RichJames - oh really? I don't think the term 'career courtesan' is exactly non judgemental myself.

RichJames 1 05 March 2013 4:05pm

@ratherannoyed -

What she says here:

Marriage continues to be considered to veil sex with respectability, whatever its financial motivations. Nobody campaigns against the career courtesans who are Belgravia bankers' wives, or the footballers' consorts of Cheshire. The message: sex for money is fine – just put a ring on it before you put out. Prostitutes, in contrast, are "asking for it", and by "it" we appear to mean everything

So, the author draws an equivalence between women who marry purely for money, and women who engage in sex-work. Now, obviously, this does not apply purely to women in real life - but the whole article is opposing the condemnation women who work as prostitutes are subject to. I read this part as a point about the hypocrisy underlying social respectability. Sex for money is criticised when it's being undertaken by women who are public about it - but in private, it's ignored.

Also, the new format really is rubbish. It took me ages to find my own bloody comment.

Zdzislaw 27 05 March 2013 10:51am

I don’t posses one iota of disapproval of disrespect for prostitutes on account of their job. The priority should be to end all persecution against them and to ensure that they have safe working environments.

Anger should not be directed not at prostitutes, but at poverty and other social conditions, which force some to take up prostitution against their will.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 56 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

jameslegrand 6 05 March 2013 10:55am

@Zdzislaw - There are still men who argue that women do it because they like sex.

MikeOzanne 3 05 March 2013 10:55am

@Zdzislaw - Well yes, if we're going to break out the tumbrils and gather the stakes and firewood, I'd rather it was the pimps and ponces that we chucked on the bonfire...

DrChris 16 05 March 2013 10:57am

@jameslegrand - some actually do. If a man said that you would believe him. How are women so different?

jameslegrand 7 05 March 2013 1:01pm

@DrChris - No, they don't. And I would not believe a male prostitute saying that, either. For the obvious reason. Because they stand to gain money with it and therefore are likely to say what is likely to make them make more money, rather than what is going to drive clients away. Flattering the male ego is part of their job, it's part of the climate they create to be able to operate. It's part of the lie they sell.

DrChris 9 05 March 2013 1:05pm

@jameslegrand - over time you get to know some of them very well on a personal level. Some have proposed marriage. This milieu is not what you think it is. I have very extensive. personal knowledge of it. You have no knowledge at all and yet continue to comment.

jameslegrand 1 05 March 2013 8:19pm

@DrChris - So only punters should be allowed to comment on http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 57 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

prostitution? How arrogant should one get and how far out of ordinary can one be?

cymraeg147 5 05 March 2013 10:51am

The basic problem with prostitution is that as a term it covers too many different types of circumstances.

Prostitutes can be trafficked women used and abused and even killed for the sexual gratification of men. They can be drug addicts pimped and abused by unscrupulous drug dealers. They can be providing a service to the likes of pathetic old men like Berlusconi but of their own free will and just for cash.

It would be very difficult to support or even accept all these circumstances as ok. The women however should not ever be condemned nor should their situation as a prostitute be approved of, it is not of their own making but often the result of enforced slavery by men.

richmanchester 8 05 March 2013 11:18am

@cymraeg147 - In which case it would seem wise, to me at least, to try and separate the sheep from the goats as it were;

Bring the whole area of prostitution out of the shadows and into the open, so those actually wanting to work as prostitutes can, as safely and openly as possible, those doing so out of desperation helped, and those using violence or coersive methods to force prostitution onto people, and profit from it, prosecuted.

Shizzlemanizzle 9 05 March 2013 10:42am

I can see where the support for the right for individuals to make an active decision to take up prostitution as a profession. However I think its a bit fairy land thinking. Look at the mental health stats behind those involved.

I am also not sure how legalising it can do anything but make it harder for those trafficked? Surely making the act of making prostitution acceptable within society would make it harder to identify those forced into it. (Genuine question).

Plus to be entirely honest, as a women if I knew a bloke I was seeing felt it was acceptable to pay a women for sex, I certainly would not feel that comfortable.

RichJames 13

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 58 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 10:55am

@Shizzlemanizzle - I am also not sure how legalising it can do anything but make it harder for those trafficked?

Well, to use an analogy - marriage is legal. Forced marriage is illegal - it's long been unlawful in practice, just not officially outlawed until recently in the UK. The fact that consensual marriage exists doesn't weaken the case aganist forced marriage. The same dynamic applies to labour versus trafficked labour.

There is no real reason why this should differ with prostitution.

jameslegrand 10 05 March 2013 11:03am

@Shizzlemanizzle - We should punish the client. The client is the most guilty one. He doesn't have to do it. He chooses to do it, when he has other options and he is the one who benefits. He is also doing it for the wrong reasons. Not for sex, as is often claimed, but for power games. He's saying: Look, I have the money, I can make you have sex with me even if you don't want to. Or else you don't eat / have a house / feed your kids. How disgusting is that? Prostitution is all about humiliating women.

jameslegrand 2 05 March 2013 11:05am

@RichJames - Yet force marriage still occurs and is often dressed up as consensual marriage.

omniwanderer 14 05 March 2013 11:11am

@jameslegrand - Yours is the socially-constructed misandrist trope. Unfortunately, it doesn't touch on reality (and it was never designed to, of course). For a nuanced analysis of sex-work written by a feminist who actually talks to sex-workers and reports on the lives they actually live, have a look at: http://www.lauraagustin.com/

richmanchester 05 March 2013 11:21am

@RichJames - Forced marriage was actually outlawed in Victorian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 59 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

times, but the staute removed in the 1940's.

dfic1999 11 05 March 2013 11:22am

@jameslegrand -

He's saying: Look, I have the money, I can make you have sex with me even if you don't want to.

...and like that - ta-dah! - the person being paid magically loses the capacity to say 'No' in the same way they can refuse any other person who offered them money to do a job or provide a service (unless its the DWP insisting on unpaid 'work experience'), or in the same way they could say 'No' when asked for sex in any other context.

Phazer 5 05 March 2013 11:32am

@Shizzlemanizzle -

Look at the mental health stats behind those involved.

Got any reputable ones?

DrChris 13 05 March 2013 11:35am

@jameslegrand - not a single word you wrote here is correct. Clients do it for the sex, women do it for the money and sometimes for the sex, no client can tell a woman she won't have a house or anything to eat if they don't do it. You obviously don't know any prostitutes, so I would stop commenting on something you have no knowledge of.

Perse Phoney 3 05 March 2013 12:15pm

@DrChris - i hope your not a doctor of 'gynecology'

jameslegrand 6 05 March 2013 12:37pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 60 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@omniwanderer - I must be a self-hating male, then? Answer : No I'm not, as I don't go to prostitutes, so I don't have to hate myself, ( I would hate myself if I did that) but I do hate men who do this to women.

I don't think there is much point to talking with the prostitutes, they will only say what profits their livelihood -- sales talk -- and the powerful groups that profit from it aka pimps. Now there's a definite group of people who should be strung up. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna listen to their excuses. And it disgusts me that the Guardian has given more and more time and credence to them. They're international crime syndicates, mostly, and deserve no such positive media coverage.

Shizzlemanizzle 3 05 March 2013 12:42pm

@Phazer - I'll try and find some links for you shortly. The link with prostitution and post traumatic stress disorder is can be found in just about all studies I've seen.

jameslegrand 2 05 March 2013 12:54pm

@dfic1999 - Can you say for sure that you would be willing to go hungry/ homeless/ leave your kids to to hungry? Have you been in that situation? I haven't and I can't.

But I have not claimed the person loses the ability to say no, rather the opposite, see my post above.

DrChris 10 05 March 2013 1:10pm

@jameslegrand - you are dehumanizing the prostitutes with this comment. The fact that you are in a commercial relationship with someone does not exclude that you are also both human and in a human relationship. Prostitutes are not looking for a cash machine, but a client who is seeking a special experience. They are providing a service,a very good and special service, and they have a common experience with their client that can be enjoyable for them as well.

jameslegrand 4 05 March 2013 8:17pm

@DrChris - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 61 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Prostitutes are not looking for a cash machine, but a client who is seeking a special experience.

Oh, is that what they told you? This would be the sales talk. Yes, they are looking for the cash cow. That would be you. And that is what makes your contrubution to his conversation unreliable--because they got you.

They are providing a service,a very good and special service, and they have a common experience with their client that can be enjoyable for them as well.

Are you really this naive? And listen to yourself: you're defiling what is most sacred in human experience and you talk about it as a "service" ! Service, what does that say? It is not something you enjoy. And yet you kid yourself that she is enjoying it, when you demean her. You know? It makes me feel dirty just to read these lines and yet I feel sorry for you despite myself because you're so far form anything that is normal. No, this kind of behaviour should not be encouraged!

TalkingBiscuit 1 05 March 2013 10:53pm

@DrChris - You are on a wind up. Yeah, cos prostitutes that serviced the 22 stone guy with mental health problems that my husband used to work with really enjoyed that experience. Oh let me add a cousin of mine who was a West Hollywood rent boy and a few of the crack addicts I'm related to that sold themselves for rock.

omniwanderer 06 March 2013 8:40am

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PGWodehouse 05 March 2013 10:41am

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RichJames 13 05 March 2013 10:38am

I'm not sure it's right to put the focus on feminists, really. I definitely agree that http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 62 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM I'm not sure it's right to put the focus on feminists, really. I definitely agree that some have made statements about women who work as prostitutes, which are overtly misogynistic - but it is still males who attack and hurt the women in question - and still male-dominated professions, such as the police, and politics, which contrive to avoid protecting women. I would imagine it's exactly the same with men who work in prostitution.

It's right that adults who choose to undertake sex work are protected by law - which is woefully inadequate; but I think there are more pressing concerns for women who work as prostitutes than the unpleasant and hypocritical things some of the more extreme feminists say about them.

richmanchester 5 05 March 2013 11:23am

@RichJames - Maybe the author has higher expectations of feminists, who should surely be looking out for all women, rather than violent thugs who want to attack women and see prostitutes as easy targets?

RichJames 2 05 March 2013 3:59pm

@richmanchester - Maybe the author has higher expectations of feminists

Possibly. But then, who in their right mind would have any high expectations of Burchill?

It is more hypocritical, certainly, when it comes from feminists - but it's a tiny minority of individuals; and I think this article would have got a much more hostile response from readers if it was focused on the misogyny coming from male commentators/politicians/twitter-ers (?).

Natisha030 05 March 2013 10:32am

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metalvendetta 13 05 March 2013 10:26am

Until feminism stops being the acceptable, Guardian-friendly face of puritanism, the contempt shown for sex workers in the BTL comments will continue. It's frightening how quickly people will demonise those whose lifestyles they disagree with.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 63 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Perse Phoney 4 05 March 2013 11:01am

@metalvendetta - shame all those dead sex workers are not here to tell us their tales instead

metalvendetta 11 05 March 2013 11:34am

@Perse Phoney - Granted, but a lot of my friends, both male and female, who thankfully are still alive, have worked and do work in the sex industry in one way or another. It's the puritans who push the sex industry underground and out of sight that make it a dangerous business.

Perse Phoney 4 05 March 2013 12:08pm

@metalvendetta - wouldnthis be the same feminist 'puritans' that belive in a womans right to an abortion?

Sophiestry 4 05 March 2013 12:52pm

@metalvendetta 05 March 2013 10:26am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

You yourself have complained about people doing the passive- aggressive schtick of generically slurring unnamed individuals on a thread ('contempt', 'demonising'). I find it immensely disappointing that you're now doing exactly the same thing.

ratherannoyed 4 05 March 2013 1:45pm

@metalvendetta - No what actually is a bit frightening is the way that you seem to see demonising contempt spewing feminists just about everywhere. Maybe you'd like to explain where you're seeing them 'cos they are invisible to me.

metalvendetta 4 05 March 2013 3:01pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 64 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@ratherannoyed - Just wait until the Guardian publishes another article by Gail Dines or another of her ilk. For such people, "male sexuality" (as if it evolved in a vacuum separate from "female sexuality") is just about the worst thing in the world.

@Sophiestry - Coming from someone who has spent much of this thread complaining that prostitutes break up marriages, let's assume that instead of "unnamed individuals" I'm addressing you. Is that better?

Sophiestry 2 05 March 2013 3:14pm

@metalvendetta 05 March 2013 3:01pm. Get cifFix for Chrome.

It's better in that you're not being passive-aggressive and are just being aggressive, meaning that at least you're being honest now. I genuinely do thank you for that, because at least I know that you respect me enough as a person to know I'm not going to wilt under the withering glare of your hostility.

It's not better in the sense that you're being wildly unfair. How am I 'demonising' or showing 'contempt' for prostitutes? I have not made any claims at all about their wider characteristics (unlike virtually everyone else, I might add). This would be a prerequisite of demonising people, because demonising is, in essence, a matter of assuming bad intent of people based on some imagined characteristic of that group. I haven't even made claims about the gender of prostitutes, so far am I from saying anything about their wider characteristics. Again, note that virtually everyone else has assumed that prostitutes are female. All my points pertain specifically to my view that they are accomplices in cheating behaviour that undermine (note: I said nothing about 'breaking up') marriages and relationships.

So I would simply ask you, politely, to justify that claim. If you do not wish to do so, or you find you cannot, I'd ask you, again politely, to withdraw the claim and apologise.

ratherannoyed 2 05 March 2013 3:16pm

@metalvendetta - so demonising feminists aren't dominating today's thread, as you claimed: I'll have to wait a bit to see some.

hmm.

metalvendetta 1 05 March 2013 3:24pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 65 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@ratherannoyed - Hmm, you'll have to show me where I mentioned "today's thread". Seems like something you must have read into what I wrote, not what I wrote. Hmm.

metalvendetta 1 05 March 2013 3:35pm

@Sophiestry -

these are not good people. I don't condone death threats or abuse, but let's not pretend that prostitutes are merely providing a service, and that they can wash their hands of responsibility for their actions

I'm glad that you've decided that death threats and abuse are beyond the pale, but this is pretty obnoxious nonetheless and places the blame squarely on the sex worker. Maybe you don't see that, maybe you do.

ratherannoyed 3 05 March 2013 3:39pm

@metalvendetta -

Oh I see, you really meant that the contempt is going on below some other line......

metalvendetta 1 05 March 2013 3:58pm

@ratherannoyed - Yeah, it's not as if every article on CIF has a comments section or anything.

Sophiestry 2 05 March 2013 4:08pm

@metalvendetta 05 March 2013 3:35pm. Get cifFix for Chrome.

You're quoting out of context. In the previous paragraph I'd written:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 66 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

If they don't [make checks as to whether their punters are single] isn't it fair to say that they are complicit in the undermining of many marriages and relationships and that they bear some responsibility (but obviously not primary responsibility)?

I then make it clear that it is only within the context of "Multiplied over the tens or even hundreds of marriages/relationships they've played a (lesser) role in undermining" that these are not good people. (In general, if you're starting a quote mid-way through someone's sentence and leaving out the accompanying clause, it's a pretty good indicator that you're quoting out of context).

Note that I did NOT attribute to them any malicious intent. The worst I've said about prostitutes is that I think they may well be willfully ignorant about the relationship status of their clients, and thus willfully ignorant of the consequences of their actions. Even here I've been careful not to simply state this as fact.

Even if I did state it as fact, however, it is still not to attribute malicious intent (as is required to 'demonise' someone). It is to attribute, at worst, a general characteristic of recklessness. And to say someone is reckless isn't to demonise them or to treat them contemptuously .

Once again, I ask you to withdraw your claim and apologise, or justify it.

metalvendetta 1 05 March 2013 4:46pm

@Sophiestry - From the Collins English dictionary:

demonize, demonise [ˈdiːmәˌnaɪz] vb (tr) 1. to make into or like a demon 2. to subject to demonic influence 3. to mark out or describe as evil or culpable

Definition 3 - to mark out or describe as culpable - fits what you said. Next.

Sophiestry 2 05 March 2013 5:24pm

@metalvendetta 05 March 2013 4:46pm. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Kudos for finding that definition. You have to admit, though, it's a bloody stupid definition. Think about the following sentences:

"The press demonised Nick Clegg today by suggesting that he was aware of the allegations and didn't do enough about it."

"Recent events have led the Chelsea fans to demonise Benitez by http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 67 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

saying that he's culpable to some degree for a poor run of results."

But since you're enamoured of dictionaries, here's another dictionary definition proving absolutely nothing:

to describe someone or something as very bad or dangerous although they are not

Do you want to try again?

jameslegrand 05 March 2013 7:50pm

@Sophiestry - I think you just subjected metal vendetta to the demonic influence of feminism!

dfic1999 16 05 March 2013 10:25am

Betts:

Notably, said bashing includes a cohort of feminist critics who, in abhoring the activity, choose to hate the perpetrator. This is evident not only in Burchill's string 'em up stance, but the notion that, as "all prostitution is rape", sex workers cannot know their own minds, or be in control of their bodies, and thus consent. The upshot is a curious coalition with streetwalker-hounding religious extremists who are unhappy not merely with the low-hanging fruit of selling sex, but with women having sex at all.

That's because, at root, this is an argument about sex (or sexual behaviour), first and foremost. The western/Christian tradition privileges 'sex' in the form of marriage/monogamy/babies, so anything that deviates from that 'norm' meets with hostility (e.g. sex outside of marriage, anal sex, BDSM). If 'real sex' is what people do for free (e.g. within marriage) or just to have babies, then paying for sex because it's (a) a fun activity and/or (b) it's a way to earn a living and/or (c) you don't want kids is bound to upset people.

Hence it is perfectly possible to be a committed feminist and sexually conservative - as the repeated outbreaks of social purity campaigns within feminism have demonstrated. All that's happened is that the cultural/religious hostility to other women's sexual choices ('nice girls don't') has been replaced with a feminist variation of the same ('real women don't').

Unfortunately for the 'antis', female sex workers can defend themselves often using the very same feminist strategies and rhetoric as they use to denounce sex work - which explains why the antis switched their attack to the (male) clients as a means of building support for prohibitionist legislation, even if it means preventing sex workers from earning a living legally and safely.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 68 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

YarrowUnited 10 05 March 2013 10:34am

@dfic1999 - Brilliantly put. Sex has become a leisure activity so why shouldn't it be commercialised like other leisure activities? What is the difference between paying for a haircut or paying for a blow job? If a woman is prepared to provide such services of her own free will, why should that be anyone else's business?

ratherannoyed 6 05 March 2013 11:45am

@dfic1999 - Actually, gross exaggeration isn't a very brilliant tactic. Who are all these feminists who 'hate' sex workers? Maybe just people who disagree with the Betts/Magnani line?.I am against prohibition generally but this sort of dishonest polemic does the arguments no favours.

icerat 21 05 March 2013 10:24am

Burchill occupies the extreme right of British politics.

Not even. Burchill occupies a shitty space all of her own, and is living proof that there are far more unethical ways to pay the rent than through prostitution.

noonenoone 05 March 2013 1:53pm

@icerat -

However people are using her views to vilify the whole feminist movement.

icerat 2 05 March 2013 2:07pm

Not me.

I doesn't take a genius to see what a poisonous waste of space Burchill is, representing no one and nothing but herself.

rationalistx 8 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 69 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 10:19am

The case of Peter Sutcliffe "the Yorkshire Ripper", who murdered thirteen women, most of whom were prostitutes, highlights the attitude of society to these women.

The term "fish and chip murder" was used in some circles to describe the slaying of these women, with many members of the public having the opinion that the women " asked for it".

When Sutcliffe started killing "decent" women, the public's fury was much greater.

CordwainerBird 3 05 March 2013 10:39am

@rationalistx 05 March 2013 10:19am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

The term "fish and chip murder" was used in some circles ....

What does that term mean? I've never come across it before.

pimpmasterkdogg 7 05 March 2013 10:56am

@CordwainerBird - Appears to mean 'a murder that will be forgotten tomorrow', referencing the fact that fish and chips used to be wrapped up in yesterday's newspaper.

CordwainerBird 2 05 March 2013 11:04am

@pimpmasterkdogg 05 March 2013 10:56am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

That makes sense, thanks.

commentatorcif 8 05 March 2013 11:37am

@rationalistx -

I was in York while all that was unfolding and I don't recall it being anything like that. It's easy for you to make such assertions, but if you'd like to state what "circles" you're referring to, or where you heard "members of the public" having such an opinion, you should say so and might have more credibility.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 70 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

The number of people who think a murdered sex worker "deserved it" or was "asking for it" is probably only slightly higher than the number as those who would actually do it, and mostly they are the same people.

How many people do you know who are that sick? Seriously.

glamorganist 1 05 March 2013 4:57pm

@CordwainerBird - If you Google for the exact phrase using quotation marks: "fish and chip murder" you'll find that it seems to have been used by the author of a book on Sutcliffe and the murders he committed and then reused by one or two crime writers. My search produced very few hits. I'd be interested to know whether the expression was ever used in real life or whether it was just invented for a specific purpose.

CordwainerBird 1 05 March 2013 5:34pm

@glamorganist 05 March 2013 4:57pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.

I thought I'd Googled it but on reflection perhaps I tried "fish and chips murder" instead because trying now I get the very results you're talking about when originally I got nothing of relevance.

In fact the first result is someone asking the very same question I did!

No wonder I'd not heard of the phrase. Very few people have from the look it. I certainly don't remember it being used in public by anyone at the time of the Yorkshire Ripper murders.

DeccaQuinne 7 05 March 2013 10:18am

I don't like prostitution as a profession - but I don't hate or blame prostitutes (or even their clients - though I wish they'd come up with a less commercial way of fulfilling their desires).

I had thought the hatred of sex workers in general was dying out. It's sad that in many ways it appears to be getting worse (and affecting all young women - with things like slut shaming on the internet).

StevenMD 17 05 March 2013 10:18am

Surely feminists should be working to bring greater freedom and choice to all

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 71 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

women? Not just the ones who make decisions they approve of?

They have forced more women into brothels or worse onto the streets, from the relative safety of working together in a shared homes with security. In Sweden they have forced prostitutes further underground away from any help and into more danger.

Almost every "anti-prostitution" or anti-"trafficking" law has made life worse for the most vulnerable and worse off women, many trapped in situations they can see no way out of.

These so-called "feminists" have done more to directly harm women, vulnerable women in bad situations, than all the pimps and abusive Johns out there.

Hypocrites of the worst kind.

deezer 13 05 March 2013 10:37am

@StevenMD -

They have forced more women into brothels or worse onto the streets, from the relative safety of working together in a shared homes with security

How? I am genuinely asking, I didn't think street prostitution was a post- feminist phenomenon.

What laws have feminists made that harm vulnerable women?

Citation for feminism causing more harm than pimps and abusive men please, thanks!

omniwanderer 3 05 March 2013 10:45am

@deezer - You might want to have a look as this Swedish woman's wesite: http://www.lauraagustin.com/

deezer 3 05 March 2013 10:51am

@omniwanderer -

Interesting. Unfortunately I haven't found any answers to the questions I asked.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 72 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Phazer 4 05 March 2013 11:29am

@deezer -

What laws have feminists made that harm vulnerable women?

The UK's extreme porn laws have resulted in women losing their jobs.

Sweeden's anti-prostitution laws have resulted in a huge upswing in rape and sexual assaults.

jameslegrand 1 05 March 2013 11:33am

@StevenMD - You honestly mean prostitution means more freedom and choice?

deezer 2 05 March 2013 11:44am

@Phazer - Citations?

Sophiestry 12 05 March 2013 10:17am

How do we feel about infidelity? How do we feel about people who cheat on their partners? It's bad, right?

OK, so answer this question - how many prostitutes out there make checks as to whether their punters are single?

If they don't, isn't it fair to say that they are complicit in the undermining of many marriages and relationships and that they bear some responsibility (but obviously not primary responsibility)? We would hold a betting shop responsible if they carried on taking bets from someone with a gambling addiction, and we would hold a pub responsible for selling drinks to someone who was already paralytic. So why is it any different for prostitutes?

Multiplied over the tens or even hundreds of marriages/relationships they've played a (lesser) role in undermining, these are not good people. I don't condone death threats or abuse, but let's not pretend that prostitutes are merely providing a service, and that they can wash their hands of responsibility for their actions.

Feminism means equal rights and equal responsibility. I take it as very much part of

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 73 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

feminism that we'd seek to hold prostitutes to account for their actions.

Soarer 28 05 March 2013 10:29am

@Sophiestry 05 March 2013 10:17am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

So do you think we should make adultery illegal too (but only for men, I guess)?

Are you really blaming prostitutes for divorce?

MikeOzanne 05 March 2013 10:30am

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DrChris 8 05 March 2013 10:31am

@Sophiestry - many of them are good people. Sexual fidelity as a perverse and unnatural concept, resulting in immense suffering,

deezer 13 05 March 2013 10:32am

@Sophiestry -

You are equating alcoholism and gambling addiction to a man's choice to pay a woman who isn't his wife to have sex with him. It is not the same.

It is not a prostitute's responsibility to ensure a marriage is strong and a husband faithful. The husband is the only one with control over his fidelity.

If a man is out looking to buy someone's body, the marriage is already undermined.

mintaka 23 05 March 2013 10:34am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 74 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@Sophiestry -

OK, so answer this question - how many prostitutes out there make checks as to whether their punters are single?

How many people who have sex before having dated for months checks whether the people they are having sex with are single?

If they don't, isn't it fair to say that they are complicit in the undermining of many marriages and relationships

No. The sole responsibility for that lies with those who are cheating.

Sophiestry 7 05 March 2013 10:35am

@Soarer 05 March 2013 10:29am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Non-sequitur. I wasn't making any point about legality. If you read the article, it was about #whenantisattack. I was addressing my point primarily to the moral question and saying that, whilst the abuse and death threats are inexcusable, I think the moral distaste is rational.

As such, it's much more on topic than most of the comments that have appeared.

DrChris 14 05 March 2013 10:39am

@Sophiestry - only if you think there is something immoral about sex

dfic1999 13 05 March 2013 10:45am

@deezer -

If a man is out looking to buy someone's body, the marriage is already undermined.

Frankly if 'a man is out looking to buy someone's body' he'd be breaking the law. What he (or she) would be doing when paying for sex is the other person's time and expertise for a sexual act (e.g. intercourse) or service (e.g. something specialised like BDSM). Plus, of course, the fact that all marriages are different, including attitudes to monogamy.

Soarer 24 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 75 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 10:46am

@Sophiestry 05 March 2013 10:35am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

I think the moral distaste is rational.

Of course you think that. My mother thinks her moral distaste of gay people making love is rational.

My point is - I don't care what you like or don't like. I am concerned that the law should protect people who are prostitutes, since they are people first and prostitutes second.

Criminalisation will prevent this protection. Hence, I oppose it. In the same way, I do not use or want to use illegal drugs, but it is obvious that criminalisation has not stopped the supply or harm, but has instead empowered criminals. The same is true with prostitution.

Make it legal, controlled, above all safe. You can still find it distasteful, but fewer people will be hurt or killed to salve your 'conscience'.

deezer 15 05 March 2013 10:47am

@Sophiestry -

And yet you are still focusing your distaste on the person who HASN'T taken vows of fidelity...

Sophiestry 4 05 March 2013 10:47am

@deezer 05 March 2013 10:32am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

The husband is the only one with control over his fidelity.

This is so obviously false it's incredible you can claim it. A couple on a desert island will remain faithful by default. Add an extra person. Provided that person refuses to assist cheating, they will still remain faithful by default. Add an extra person. Provided that person refuses to assist cheating, they will still remain faithful by default. Add an extra person. Provided that person refuses to assist cheating, they will still remain faithful by default. Add an extra person. Provided that person refuses to assist cheating, they will still remain faithful by default.

....

Several million people later

....

This is a rather more convoluted logical proof than is needed. The http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 76 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

everyday phrase is simply "It takes two to tango".

Without prostitutes willing to make someone's infidelity extremely easy (and allow them to, as it were, punch well above their weight in exchange for cash), there would undoubtedly be people at the margins who might cheat, but either can't be bothered or can't find anyone attractive enough.

Prostitutes bear responsibility. Denying that is counter-intuitive. Perhaps I should stress that I'm not at all advocating a kind of 'shoot the messenger' approach in which the cheating spouse is let off the hook and the prostitute takes the blame. Clearly the cheating spouse bears the lion's share of responsibility. But it is not sole responsibility, and they are not 'the only one with control' in this scenario.

CordwainerBird 15 05 March 2013 10:48am

@Sophiestry 05 March 2013 10:17am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

Multiplied over the tens or even hundreds of marriages/relationships they've played a (lesser) role in undermining, these are not good people.

Do you have any evidence that prostitution don't undermines marriages? You may have a fundamental objection to adultery but no man ever left his wife for a sex worker.

Not good people? That's remarkably judgemental of you. If someone steals bread to avoid starving does that make them a bad person?

Sophiestry 2 05 March 2013 10:50am

@Soarer 05 March 2013 10:46am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Well, that's very nice, but you are not making a point relevant to what I'm saying, so I don't know why you're addressing me.

deezer 5 05 March 2013 10:54am

@dfic1999 -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 77 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

specialised like BDSM).

I take your point to an extent, but let's not pretend that it's not fundamentally the use of someone's body that is being paid for.

Plus, of course, the fact that all marriages are different, including attitudes to monogamy

Well yes, but this actual conversation is about men who cheat with prostitutes.

CordwainerBird 8 05 March 2013 10:55am

@Sophiestry 05 March 2013 10:17am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

I'm not sure where that stray "don't" came from. I'll try again.

Do you have any evidence that prostitution undermines marriages? You may have a fundamental objection to adultery but no man ever left his wife for a sex worker.

deezer 13 05 March 2013 10:59am

@Sophiestry -

The husband is the only one with control over his fidelity.

This is so obviously false it's incredible you can claim it.

No, it's not. It is actually completely true. Unless someone has a gun to his head. Why do you take agency away from men like that?

richmanchester 10 05 March 2013 11:03am

@Sophiestry - "If they don't, isn't it fair to say that they are complicit in the undermining of many marriages and relationships and that they bear some responsibil"

We could equally make the opposite argument; how many marriages where the sexual desires of both parties were mismatched have been supported by prostitutes providing an outlet for this, in a way which does not threaten the position of the wife? (As a mistress or affair might).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 78 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

MikeOzanne 10 05 March 2013 11:14am

@Sophiestry - "Without prostitutes willing to make someone's infidelity extremely easy (and allow them to, as it were, punch well above their weight in exchange for cash), there would undoubtedly be people at the margins who might cheat, but either can't be bothered or can't find anyone attractive enough."

You really believe that there aren't enthusiastic amateurs willing to participate, really.... "People at the margins" what bollocks most people who are unfaithful don't do it with pro's they find an alternative relationship.

"Prostitutes bear responsibility. Denying that is counter-intuitive"

The person committing the damage to their partnership bears full responsibility see Aristotle's "Ethics" , this is so basic I'm surprised you've made a cock of it.

Brownly 14 05 March 2013 11:24am

@richmanchester -

I think that view is a very valid one.

I've known of a number of men who's wives, having got the kids she wants, decide they've done with 'that silly sex nonsense' or sex is rare and begrudged or they ration it out as 'reward' for 'good behaviour' and so on.

By going to a working girl the men can stand to continue the relationship - without it, they couldn't.

dfic1999 5 05 March 2013 11:25am

@deezer -

I take your point to an extent, but let's not pretend that it's not fundamentally the use of someone's body that is being paid for.

That said, let's also not pretend that using phrases like 'the use of someone's body' isn't about describing sex work in the most unflattering and repellent light.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 79 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

wotever 10 05 March 2013 11:27am

@Sophiestry 05 March 2013 10:17am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

Feminism means equal rights and equal responsibility. I take it as very much part of feminism that we'd seek to hold prostitutes to account for their actions.

So you refuse to allow these women to have freedom over their own bodies?

Sophiestry 2 05 March 2013 11:27am

@richmanchester 05 March 2013 11:03am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

This is an excellent point. I'm actually not sure how to respond, or indeed if I can. I'm going to have to think about it.

ratherannoyed 1 05 March 2013 11:33am

@dfic1999 - appears a completely factual statement to me. Just how would you like the sugar coating applied to it?

commentatorcif 7 05 March 2013 11:34am

@DrChris -

Sexual fidelity as a perverse and unnatural concept, resulting in immense suffering,

Alternatively, Dr, sexual infidelity is a result of emotional immaturity and insecurity arising from poor attachment (ref: Bowlby) and undiagnosed personality disorders. Further, it is unethical and hurtful behaviour justified by those lacking empathy as a result of schizoid tendencies who prefer to detach emotional intimacy from the sex act from fear of being overwhelmed by it.

I think you'll find a little more evidence backing my assertions than yours, Dr.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 80 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

ilusha 4 05 March 2013 11:34am

@Sophiestry - to be honest I don't really see the need to bring in the (somewhat far fetched) correlation with broken marriages. You main point stands with out this, IMHO: it is perfectly reasonable to disaprove of a prostitutes choice of "profession" on moral grounds without wishing for them to be hanged/gang-raped or whatever else...

I'm not really sure liberalism should mean total abdication of any moral values. I think it is wrong to pay/receive money for sex.

So I reserve the right to think badly of prostitutes. Obviously everyone's situation is different, but in this country it is generally possible to survive without selling sex. So it is always a choice. And not a very good one.

it doesn't really follow that I hate all women. I mean, may be I do, may be I don't, but disaproving of prostitution as a personal choice does is not an indication either way

jameslegrand 2 05 March 2013 11:35am

@wotever - Just how does a prostitute "have her own body" when she's selling it to the highest bidder?

jameslegrand 1 05 March 2013 11:36am

@richmanchester - But she's is entitled to know and how many did that?

Hol48 5 05 March 2013 11:41am

@Sophiestry - Monogamy by default because you're denied the opportunity to cheat like you want to would isn't really fidelity in my personal book.

Either way I certainly wouldn't put responsibility for somebody else's fidelity onto the head of the person they would cheat with, paid or otherwise. If I refuse to sleep with somebody who wants to cheat on his wife (as I would, because that guy's an arse) it doesn't make him any more faithful. Just means he got denied a particular opportunity to exercise his lack of fidelity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 81 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

jameslegrand 7 05 March 2013 11:43am

@deezer - I hold the prostitute entirely blameless in such situations as I do the second woman or indeed a man. The responsibility for a relationship is with those who are members of the relationship. The cheating husband/ wife is to blame, not the third party. The cheating husband /wife is the one who is reneging on his commitment, it's irrelevant who's he doing it with, the fault is his/ her lack of loyalty. The outsider has no commitment to anyone.

jameslegrand 3 05 March 2013 11:44am

@DrChris - Of course there is a lot immoral about sex. If you hurt other people with it's immoral.

dfic1999 4 05 March 2013 11:47am

@ratherannoyed -

@dfic1999 - appears a completely factual statement to me. Just how would you like the sugar coating applied to it?

My use of the term 'sex work' isn't about sugar-coating anything (it's a terms sex workers themselves use), but to each their own.

Fooster 3 05 March 2013 11:49am

@Brownly - Good grief how old are you and do you live in the 1950s?

jameslegrand 4 05 March 2013 11:51am

@DrChris - And some would say sexual infidelity is perverse and unnatural concept resulting in suffering. It's not what you believe. You can believe one way or another. It's whether you have made it clear to everyone involved what you want and expect and whether you have told them this is what I'm in for. And omission is not good enough. You have the right to play around if you have told your woman from the beginning i expect to play around and never be faithful and she's said ok that's fine with me.And to me you

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 82 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

should also expect to give her the same right. If you have let her assume that you will be faithful and yet you're not then you have been dishonest and she has every right to be mad at you.

deezer 2 05 March 2013 11:56am

@Brownly - I agree, as long as both parties are aware of the arrangement.

deezer 05 March 2013 12:00pm

@dfic1999 -

I can think of worse ways to describe it!

It is what it is. I don't see the need to sugar coat it.

Brownly 3 05 March 2013 12:11pm

@Fooster -

I'm 26, though I don't know what that has to do with anything - I merely related some experiences told me by men I've worked with.

richmanchester 2 05 March 2013 12:21pm

@deezer - Its entirely possible, in that situation, that one party would prefer to remain ignorant of the situation.

deezer 3 05 March 2013 12:25pm

@richmanchester -

And yet there is no way to know if that is true, until truth emerges, at which point the secrecy and deception is probably as big an issue as the use of prostitutes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 83 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Fooster 2 05 March 2013 12:25pm

@Brownly

I merely related some experiences told me by men I've worked with.

To what end?

devonguy 1 05 March 2013 12:42pm

@ratherannoyed 05 March 2013 11:33am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

@dfic1999 - appears a completely factual statement to me. Just how would you like the sugar coating applied to it?

Doesn't need any more or less. However, the same is also factually true of anyone who does anything physical for money. Which sort of reduces the impact of the use of someone's body description don't you think?

ratherannoyed 2 05 March 2013 12:54pm

@dfic1999 - Well, yes 'sex work' is a term that sex workers like to use, but what it means in practice is letting someone else pay to use your body for sex. When someone points this simple fact out to you, you accuse them of using 'repellent' language. Funny that.

I'm in favour of increased openess and therefore legalisation of the sex business. I hope this will provide some protection to prostitutes. But, step one to doing this successfully is looking clearly at what sex work involves, and not using euphemisms.

callaspodeaspode 3 05 March 2013 12:57pm

@Sophiestry - Unless the person told the betting shop that they have a gambling addiction and requests that they do not let them place bets there (I believe that certain shops will do this), they do not ask.

If they did so, they might find that their customers may regard this a somewhat rude.

As you can't tell whether somebody has a gambling problem just by http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 84 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

looking at them, how would they, the bookie, be expected to know? How could they be blamed? A pub who sold somebody booze who was already intoxicated is breaking the law (although there are damn few prosecutions), but isn't a better example (in terms of damage to family life) an alcoholic? And if so, once again, how does a barman or barmaid tell? They're not all red- nosed and reeking of drink.

Thus, the point is, why should prostitutes be required to do a check to see whether their clients are single? If you go down this line, you might want to ask why hotels do not ask for proof of marriage or co-habitation when a couple book a room. The responsibility surely lies with the client.

Sophiestry 05 March 2013 1:14pm

@callaspodeaspode 05 March 2013 12:57pm. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Pointing to the practical difficulties of enforcing certain legal requirements is irrelevant to the question of whether there are moral responsibilities there in the first place. Gambling shops have a moral responsibility (and a legal one too, though it's unenforceable) to look out for gambling addiction. Landlords have a moral responsibility to not sell alcohol to people who are already off their faces (and a legal one too, though it's unenforceable). We all have have a moral responsibility not to participate in people undermining their own marriages.

If you knew someone was having a lot of problems and was extremely angry in their relationship, would you lend them your chainsaw? Would you say to yourself, 'Oh well, it's their choice whether or not to kill their spouse. Nowt to do with me. I wash my hands of it.' Only sociopaths think like this. One is never to blame for the actions of someone else, but one can easily be culpable, and thus bear responsibility.

In reality, I'm only extending to prostitutes exactly the same standards I'd employ for anyone else. Notice I'm explicitly NOT assuming they're all women, and then denying them agency, as nearly everyone else is doing (whilst, with delicious irony, regarding themselves as feminists!). My position is far more consistent than for which I'm being given credit.

wotever 10 05 March 2013 1:14pm

@jameslegrand 05 March 2013 11:35am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

Just like anyone who sells their labour or skills, whether it's as a freelance computer programmer or prostitute. They own what they sell and they can only sell if it they own it. Chill out it's only sex.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 85 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

dfic1999 5 05 March 2013 1:15pm

@ratherannoyed -

I'm in favour of increased openess and therefore legalisation of the sex business. I hope this will provide some protection to prostitutes.

I agree with you there.

But, step one to doing this successfully is looking clearly at what sex work involves, and not using euphemisms.

And equally, I'm aware that people prefer to use dysphemisms when writing about sex work:

A dysphemism is an expression with connotations that are offensive either about the denotatum (the object referred to by the linguistic expression) or to the audience, or both, and it is substituted for a neutral or euphemistic expression for just that reason. Like euphemism, dysphemism is sometimes motivated by feelings such as fear and distaste. However, it may also be motivated by hatred and contempt.

Oddly enough, when someone agrees to have sex, we don't usually talk about their body being 'used' - except when money changes hands during sex work, which some prefer to describe as 'selling your body' for reasons neatly summarised by the term 'dysphemism'.

Brownly 2 05 March 2013 1:16pm

@Fooster -

To what end?

Well, you responded to my first post on this thread...... I'd assumed therefore that you'd actually read it.

MikeOzanne 7 05 March 2013 1:37pm

@Sophiestry - "Pointing to the practical difficulties of enforcing certain legal requirements is irrelevant to the question of whether there are moral responsibilities there in the first place. Gambling shops have a moral responsibility...to look out for gambling addiction." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 86 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

No they don't, they have a moral obligation not to fiddle the odds, to pay out winnings and to pay their taxes.

"Landlords have a moral responsibility to not sell alcohol to people who are already off their faces (and a legal one too, though it's unenforceable)"

Which stems from the fact that an alcohol overdose can result in becoming suddenly acutely dead... Despite some heroic experiments, I've found that you pretty much can't fornicate yourself to death, so there is no moral equivalence here.

"We all have have a moral responsibility not to participate in people undermining their own marriages"

No we don't, we have a moral obligation to mind our own shagging business unless the parties concerned ask us for help. Their marriage might in fact have been ordained by god to ensure that only 2 people were miserable instead of 4.

"If you knew someone was having a lot of problems and was extremely angry in their relationship, would you lend them your chainsaw?"

Do they have any branches that need lopping...? How about if they seem perfectly placid happy and content, and have dangling branches, then murder their wife and children with the chainsaw you lent them?

"In reality, I'm only extending to prostitutes exactly the same standards I'd employ for anyone else"

No your not, you are singling them out as being responsible for someone else's wrongs when their is no moral or logical case for doing so.

MikeOzanne 2 05 March 2013 1:38pm

@Brownly - Haven't read the manual have you...:-)

ratherannoyed 3 05 March 2013 1:40pm

@dfic1999 - That's because the fact that money changes hands turns the sex act into a transaction like any other. The prostitute agrees that for the terms agreed her body is a commodity for the use of the punter and not for her own gratification. There is a difference between 'business' and consensual sex, a difference which many prostitutes seem perfectly clear about in their own lives. I'm not sure why you are making such heavy weather of it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 87 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

callaspodeaspode 3 05 March 2013 1:47pm

@Sophiestry - My position is far more consistent than for which I'm being given credit.

Modest but not entirely satisfactory. There are, if we look hard enough, what we could call moral responsibilities in a hell of a lot of seemingly mundane social interactions. But I'm not sure that refusing to lend a chainsaw to somebody you think is on the cusp of murdering their partner (and has no garden and has certainly shown no previous interest in becoming a lumberjack) can be classified in the same sense as a prostitute taking a client who may or may not be in a relationship. As you say: 'if you knew'.

The point is, for most of these transactions, be it in a bar, bookies, B&Q gardening tool hire outlet or brothel, we do not know. And I'm uncertain of whether it is practicable to make all customers fill in forms that probe their deeper psychological issues.

Now, granted, a partner who finds that their significant other has been brothel-creeping will likely be very angry and may indeed call off the relationship (as this is infidelity), but I just don't see where the prostitute is to blame, any more than the B&Q attendant who sold them the tree surgery kit, the barman or the bookie, or even those bastards at MacDonald's who are turning your beloved into a tub of lard and maybe making them run off into the arms of paid shags in the first place. If there is blame, it is insignificant and so dilute I'm not sure it is meaningful.

We all have have a moral responsibility not to participate in people undermining their own marriages.

Fine words. Not always easy in practice. Friends and family have a nasty habit of getting you slowly entangled in things you would rather avoid.

Fooster 05 March 2013 2:04pm

@Brownly - Not the first post, however, I've re-read the post I did respond to and it's still a rib-tickler.

DementedOldBag 05 March 2013 2:08pm

@DrChris -

Sexual fidelity as a perverse and unnatural concept, resulting in immense suffering, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 88 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Adultery often results in immense suffering too. Still, someone has to suffer, I suppose. If one party is not to suffer heartbreak, the other party may have to suffer boredom.

Sophiestry 05 March 2013 2:16pm

@callaspodeaspode 05 March 2013 1:47pm. Get cifFix for Chrome.

I'll talk about 'cheating accomplices' first of all, because the fact that we're talking about prostitutes is inessential to this particular strand of the argument, and perhaps obscures the issue. The point about cheating accomplices is that they are not at all remote from the act in the way that someone selling tools in B&Q is remote from the act. They are participants. So in that respect, my analogy was actually a lot weaker than one I could have used.

I could (and perhaps should) have talked about helping someone murder their spouse, or helping them commit fraud, perhaps with the rationalisation that "If I didn't help them, they'd simply have found someone else to help them". The response is: 'that may be true, but it was still you that actually did participate, so it's still you that's responsible.'

Now, you say that the key point, to paraphrase, is that someone may be a cheating accomplice without realising it. That is a fair point. To which, my response is two-fold:

1. With regards to prostitutes specifically, we have it straight from the horse's mouth on here that at least one does know when people are cheating on their spouses - "some have wives who refuse sex daily so prefer to visit us" (and what a beautiful example of their clients' entitled attitudes it is too - poor dears, not getting sex on a daily basis!). I would question, therefore, whether, as a general rule, prostitutes really are ignorant of the fact they're participating in cheating.

2. In any case, there is such a thing as willful ignorance, not asking too many questions, and that still does imply culpability. I have little sympathy for a cheating accomplice who didn't ask any questions about the obvious tan-line ring on someone's wedding finger, for instance. Is it that they don't know, or is that they don't want to know?

baboon2006 2 05 March 2013 2:35pm

@Sophiestry - yep, blame the women, totally right.

You might want to check your idea of feminism, btw...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 89 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

baboon2006 4 05 March 2013 2:43pm

@Sophiestry - @Sophiestry - er, if someone cheats, it's their decision and they bear the consequences. Choosing to blame the person who has sex with them is wilful obfuscation of this fact, at best.

Not saying that the situation isn't complex, but your 'argument' here is ridiculous in its resistance to acknowledging where the primary responsibility lies, and sounds like an excuse to justify reasserting your primary point, tbh.

Sophiestry 05 March 2013 2:51pm

@baboon2006 05 March 2013 2:43pm. Get cifFix for Chrome.

From my first post:

If they don't, isn't it fair to say that they are complicit in the undermining of many marriages and relationships and that they bear some responsibility (but obviously not primary responsibility)?

You:

your 'argument' here is ridiculous in its resistance to acknowledging where the primary responsibility lies,

FAIL.

baboon2006 05 March 2013 2:52pm

You also need to acknowledge the wider circumstances of prostitution. I don't know what your job is, but chances are that you or people you know are prostituting themselves to companies that routinely engage in oppressive practices, in exchange for a salary (and then go and buy products from many other companies engaging in mass exploitation). Prostitution may be an imperfect way to earn a living, but then the majority of other lines of work/leisure rely upon wilful ignorance of the harm they indirectly cause.

So why are you picking on sex workers?

baboon2006 1 05 March 2013 2:54pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 90 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@Sophiestry - "on page 332, I argued that..." Why are you still criticising prostitutes and not philanderers then?

callaspodeaspode 2 05 March 2013 3:18pm

@Sophiestry - I never made the claim that prostitutes never know whether a client is in a relationship. I merely maintain that they can't always know this.

And as for this:

Sorry, I haven't got a clue as to how you got from what I was saying to there. I agree that the act of prostitution is inessential to the point up to a degree, in that we could be talking about many things, but not if we are then going to utilise a comparison to finding accomplices to murder. A prostitute who has sex with a person in a relationship is simply not commensurable as an example with somebody who helped to murder another. And in the case of assisting in a murder, I have difficulty imagining anybody (outside of the totally insane) who would claim:

"If I didn't help them, they'd simply have found someone else to help them".

jameslegrand 05 March 2013 7:44pm

@wotever -And just like you can be moral or immoral in your work you can be moral or immoral in sex. Selling sex is in my books stoutly inthe camp of immoral. ( Unless it is coerced which removes the responsibility from the coerced.) And I'm sorry you have such a low opinion of sex as is implied in your words "only sex".

wotever 1 05 March 2013 10:28pm

@jameslegrand 05 March 2013 7:44pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.

Well, maybe you haven't had much sex. ...and that's why it's such a big deal for you.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 91 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

commentatorcif 06 March 2013 11:47am

@wotever -

I think there's a lot of nonsense talked about sex, primarily because people grab a viewpoint based on their own need to maintain a worldview borne of their psychology and will defend it vigorously to preserve their sense of safety about how the world "is".

Take sex. What do we mean by it? The act of penetration? That clearly is sex. But does that mean is rape sex? I'd say it's not. I'd say it's an act of violence perpetrated by someone acting out repressed fear, suffering and rage. And one of the reasons it is held by most to be a particularly horrible crime is precisely that it is a perversion of the intimacy human beings hold so dear. We share part of ourselves when we make love, we open ourselves to someone else, lowering psychological and emotional boundaries that we otherwise maintain. When those are invaded against our will we are violated in a most profound psychological, emotional and perhaps yes, spiritual way, if by spiritual we mean that sense of self and the sacred mystery it is to be me, or you.

So, "it's just sex"?

I don't think sex is "just" anything; I think sex is a profoundly important aspect of what it is to be human not in a merely animal sense, but in the sense that we are more than animals, we are conscious beings aware of our life and ultimate demise; what I share of myself is precious and unique. If I open myself, my soul to you I am open to the universe in ways impossible to describe. Choose wisely, is my advice to anyone.

And I understand that some of us, for reasons to do with childhood development, are less aware of the inner emotional life and mystery of what it is to be human, some of us have hides the thickness of bank vaults. But that's s symptom, not a virtue, and it's a symptom that also results in our throwing away of that which we were taught not to value, to despise in ourselves; the vulnerability, softness and sensitivity that requires real strength to hold onto and nurture in this sometimes harsh world.

campasyoulike 9 05 March 2013 10:08am

"It's been going on for centuries" doesn't hold up; so had the persecution of the Jews. However I don't understand why people would want to eradicate prostitutiion. Legalise it and regulate it to protect the workers.

Natisha030 1 05 March 2013 10:13am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 92 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@campasyoulike -

. Legalise it and regulate it to protect the workers.

are you a trade union official ? shop steward ? why not put your idea forward at the TUC confrance ?

deezer 7 05 March 2013 10:17am

@Natisha030 - ???

You don't think that sex workers should be protected or the industry regulated?

Natisha030 05 March 2013 10:21am

@deezer - did he mean sex workers ? oh yes i see what you mean .sorry i thought he meant Bob Crows lot

jameslegrand 1 05 March 2013 7:35pm

@deezer - I don't think sex is work and I don't think it should ever become a trade. While preventing people from getting hurt is always advisable, I think institutionalizing this further would be a big mistake--- look what's next: taxes for women for selling their own bodies-- monstrous! it would further negate women's right to her own body and make it state property. Regulating has the double face of appropriating. In Germany they're already sending young girls job offers from the employment office for jobs in brothels -- it's true, it happened last week. The girl was a school-leaver on her first job! In Germany the brothels are of course legal and state controlled.

fb177 07 March 2013 2:53pm

@campasyoulike - no, let's not legalize the sale of people. Your connection to persecution based on race ethnicity or religion is not the same as criticizing people who exploit women, (prostitutes and johns) sorry . And stoning has been going on for centuries, I guess if something's http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 93 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

really old and "traditional" that's OK with you?

logicalthought 7 05 March 2013 10:07am

I challenge all the anti-prostitution posters to name one service personal or otherwise that it is illegal to do for pay but legal to do for free?

The fact that none of you can name such a service indicates that your position has no basis in LOGIC and is solely because of your own irrational feelings towards sex!

Sophiestry 10 05 March 2013 10:20am

@logicalthought 05 March 2013 10:07am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Surrogacy.

Sophiestry 10 05 March 2013 10:22am

@logicalthought 05 March 2013 10:07am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Donating a kidney.

Sophiestry 10 05 March 2013 10:23am

@logicalthought 05 March 2013 10:07am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Giving blood.

Lokischild 1 05 March 2013 10:24am

@logicalthought - 'Voting.'

mintaka 6 05 March 2013 10:26am http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 94 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@logicalthought -

Sophiestry beat me to it - donating a kidney.

I still agree with your general point though. The only sensible way of dealing with prostitution is to legalise and regulate it, and the refusal to do so owes a great deal to ideological blindness triumphing over common humanity.

DrChris 6 05 March 2013 10:41am

@Sophiestry - in the US it is legal to be paid for giving blood. It just shows that this is all relative.

MikeOzanne 8 05 March 2013 10:52am

@Sophiestry -

"Surrogacy."

"Giving blood."

"Donating a kidney"

It's nice to know that in your twisted little world personal sacrifice and kindness equate to "Service"

MikeOzanne 6 05 March 2013 10:52am

@Lokischild - Voting isn't a service it is a civic duty, suffrage and all that.

logicalthought 3 05 March 2013 10:55am

@Sophiestry -

Duh - Paying surrogrates is legal!

logicalthought 3 05 March 2013 10:56am http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 95 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@Sophiestry -

Duh - Donating a kidney is not a service personal or otherwise!

logicalthought 2 05 March 2013 10:57am

@Sophiestry -

Duh - People get paid for donating blood!

http://bloodbanker.com/banks/? gclid=CJmfmbC15bUCFQP0nAodszYA5w

Sophiestry 11 05 March 2013 10:59am

@logicalthought 05 March 2013 10:55am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Dude. You've had your argument destroyed. Have a little grace.

For the record, you may pay a surrogate 'reasonable expenses' (link). But you absolutely may not pay them for the surrogacy service itself.

logicalthought 1 05 March 2013 11:00am

@logicalthought -

As Sophiestry posts clearly illustrates to those of us who know what a PERSONAL SERVICE is, there is no other service other than sex that it is legal to do for free but illegal to do for pay!

JimNolan 6 05 March 2013 11:04am

@logicalthought - Giving a job reference.

JimNolan 6 05 March 2013 11:04am

@logicalthought - Finding the defendant guilty, or not guilty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 96 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

logicalthought 1 05 March 2013 11:07am

@Sophiestry -

If you want to IMAGINE that people don't get paid for donating blood when it something that poor college students do all the time, then feel free to maintain your delusion.

Likewise, if you have not the brains to know that voting and donating a kidney are not PERSONAL SERVICES, then feel free to maintain your delusion that dictionaries do not exist.

Likewise if you believe that surrogates are only beeing paid for the expenses that they occur and are not ending up with any additional money after the preganancy is done, feel free to to maintain that delusion!

Lokischild 05 March 2013 11:08am

@MikeOzanne - It should be but as the duty concept is not enforced it can be seen, in my opinion, as a service to the community.

ilusha 9 05 March 2013 11:08am

@logicalthought - As you posts clearly illustrate you choose to define your terms as it suits your argument.

You don't see surrogasy or organ donation as "personal service"? Well I don't see sex as personal service...

Not sure where that leaves your argument.

logicalthought 2 05 March 2013 11:09am

@JimNolan -

Sheesh do you people have a dictionary?

What part of the word SERVICE can you not understand?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 97 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

logicalthought 1 05 March 2013 11:12am

@logicalthought -

It took a simple google search to show Sophiestry is LYING about surrogates not getting paid!

http://www.sharedconception.com/surrogate-compensation

Unless in that posters mine $18,000 to $23,000 is not compensation!

ilusha 5 05 March 2013 11:12am

@logicalthought - if what you are saying is that "even though it is illigal to pay for surrogacy - people allways find a way to make it financially attractive for the surrogate" - well that's (a) just your opinion - unless you would care to point us to a comprehensive study on the matter... (b) doesn't make it any less illegal, even if people do it

JimNolan 6 05 March 2013 11:12am

@logicalthought - When people have asked me for a reference, I've been glad to have been of service.

I've also served on a jury.

ilusha 3 05 March 2013 11:13am

@logicalthought - giving financial advice if you are not qualified/registered/etc to do so.

JimNolan 17 05 March 2013 11:19am

@logicalthought -

It took a simple google search to show Sophiestry is LYING about surrogates not getting paid!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 98 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Sophiestry is not LYING but is, I reckon, BRITISH. This is the Manchester Guardian and it ought to go without saying that references to things being legal or illegal are based on UK law. So the accusation of LYING was a bit STUPID.

logicalthought 05 March 2013 11:20am

@JimNolan -

SERVICE = The action of doing work for someone.

If you believe that that giving a job reference is "work", then in your mind everything can be considered "work" including stuff like saying thank you.

Likewise it is called JURY DUTY and not jury "work", besides I got $5 a day for serving on jury duty in my state of NJ!

Lokischild 11 05 March 2013 11:21am

@logicalthought - Just clicked your recommend by mistake in attempting to reply, please remember to mentally deduct one.

Your argument seems to originate from a non UK base. In the UK blood donation is voluntary done on the basis that what you need today I might need tomorrow and not for gain. We also have ethical laws governing organ donation and surrogacy that rule out personal gain and make such activities services to others rather than income streams. Moves are no doubt afoot for people out of work, but in possession of more than one functioning kidney, to forego half their benefit. Similarly a complete lack of functioning brain cells in Parliament may well see a trade in same reviving the London Stock Market as bankers trade the futures of the urban poor for disability benefits. But it is not here just yet.

JimNolan 8 05 March 2013 11:21am

@logicalthought -

If you want to IMAGINE that people don't get paid for donating blood when it something that poor college students do all the time, then feel free to maintain your delusion.

No, poor college (do you mean "university") students never do that. It's against the law. You're LYING...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 99 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

logicalthought 05 March 2013 11:23am

@JimNolan -

If Sophiestry is not LYING then why did I find this article?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/8190131/Childless- couples-win-the-right-to-pay-surrogate-mothers.html

JimNolan 7 05 March 2013 11:23am

@logicalthought -

Likewise it is called JURY DUTY and not jury "work",

It's called jury service. Who on earth says "JURY DUTY"? It sounds like an Americanism to me.

JimNolan 2 05 March 2013 11:25am

@logicalthought -

SERVICE = The action of doing work for someone.

Not according to Webster.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/service

commentatorcif 6 05 March 2013 11:28am

@logicalthought -

I think you ought to change your name.

The reason why it is legal to be a prostitute is because there is an implicit awareness that these women are often victims who grew up thinking they have few life chances and deserve no better, and the reason why it is illegal to pay a prostitute is because there is an implicit awareness that the men who use (and that's the word) prostitutes are exploiting their vulnerability and perceived lack of choices.

You show me a CEO who chooses to be a prostitute in her spare time

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 100 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

and I'll pay your fine.

JimNolan 5 05 March 2013 11:29am

@logicalthought - From your link:

A senior family court judge allowed a British couple to keep a newborn child even though they had technically broken the law by giving more than “reasonable expenses” to the American natural mother.

Mr Justice Hedley said the existing rules on payments were unclear, and that the baby’s welfare must be the main consideration. Only in the “clearest case” of surrogacy for profit would a couple be refused the necessary court order to keep the baby.

In a clear case of surrogacy for profit - which is what you are dishonestly claiming is legal - the child is removed from the parents.

Hol48 14 05 March 2013 11:29am

@logicalthought - Maybe before you start ranting about people being delusional, you should consider that you are on a UK newspaper's website and people may be referring to the situation in the UK. Where poor college students do not get paid for donating blood.

logicalthought 05 March 2013 11:30am

@JimNolan -

Duh - Giving blood is not a SERVICE!

I repeat - Name one SERVICE (The action of doing work for someone) in either the US or the UK that it is illegal to do for pay yet legal to do for pay.

logicalthought 05 March 2013 11:31am

@Hol48 -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 101 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Maybe you should learn how to use a dictionary and learn that giving blood is not "doing work for someone" and therefore is not a SERVICE?

richmanchester 4 05 March 2013 11:33am

@Sophiestry - I am not sure what this tells us, but in giving blood, donating kidneys and surogacy it is illegal for the person doing so to profit, but everyone else involved, be it nurse, Harley St Medical practice etc are perfectly at liberty to, while the prostitute can be paid, but pimps, brothel keepers etc can not.

logicalthought 05 March 2013 11:38am

@JimNolan -

Thank for illustrating using your own definition that giving blood or is NOT a service!

the occupation or function of serving

employment as a servant

the work performed by one that serves

I find this "nit picking" about what a service is given that any normal person considers service having to do with "work", amusing because it shows the lengths you illogical people go thru trying to defend that which is plainly ILLOGICAL, namely making it illegal to do something for pay that it is legal to do for free!

JimNolan 6 05 March 2013 11:58am

@logicalthought - a : the work performed by one that serves b : help, use, benefit c : contribution to the welfare of others d : disposal for use

You were so keen to edit "contribution to the welfare of others" out of Webster's dictionary that you cut out one of the ">" parentheses. Pathetic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 102 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

JimNolan 05 March 2013 12:00pm

@logicalthought - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Blood_Service

JimNolan 8 05 March 2013 12:47pm

@logicalthought -

I challenge all the anti-prostitution posters to name one service personal or otherwise that it is illegal to do for pay but legal to do for free?

According to a poster called "logicalthought" the term "service" can only be applied to paid employment, and therefore this question is utterly meaningless and illogical. So service off.

richmanchester 05 March 2013 1:14pm

@logicalthought - US yes, UK no?

Hol48 1 05 March 2013 3:30pm

@logicalthought -

Thank you for your thoughtful recommendation of the dictionary; I do indeed find my trusty copy of the Oxford English a useful friend. :o)

To return the kind favour, I suggest that if you're going to bitch out somebody over the definition of a service you first take note of whether they actually said sweet FA about the definition of a service. Frothing at the mouth about imagined comments just makes you look a bit illogical.

jameslegrand 1 05 March 2013 7:29pm

@logicalthought - No it doesn't. All phenomena are not judgeable by the same criteria. Sex isa very intimate facet of life and should not be treated on the same line with trade laws. Besides there are things that are legal if you do them for free like making copies of books in universities and

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 103 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

illegal if you do them for pay. Likewise with downloading music from internet.

pandg 1 07 March 2013 3:47am

@logicalthought - Providing legal advice or representing someone in court if you are not a qualified lawyer.

wenders14 11 05 March 2013 10:03am

I think that the hypocrisy concerning this issue is absolutely appaling and the root of much of the anger and violence against the women who are performing this role.

JGrossman 23 05 March 2013 9:55am

I have a lot of respect for prostitutes.

No I've never used one.

But I respect their honesty. They don't pretend to love you. They don't pretend to care.You're paying for sex. Everyone knows where they stand.

Contrast this with, say, Ed Miliband or David Cameron. They also f**k you but they pretend they care.

Now seriously, who would you rather have f**king you; Brooke Magnanti or Ed Miliband?

Jake G

Natisha030 8 05 March 2013 10:04am

I have a lot of respect for prostitutes. No I've never used one. But I respect their honesty. They don't pretend to love you. They don't pretend to care.You're paying for sex. Everyone knows where they stand.

And you say you never used one, hahahahahhahahah Gord i've been around the blocks a few times but thats a first

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 104 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

deezer 11 05 March 2013 10:05am

@JGrossman -

I know who I'd rather give my money too as well

Stannis 12 05 March 2013 10:10am

@JGrossman - "I have a lot of respect for prostitutes.No I've never used one."

No-one has it seems! This is right up there with people who say they watch porn because of the bad acting.

Natisha030 5 05 March 2013 10:23am

@Stannis - yes hahaha that one has got to be the funniest of the day , im still laughing

DrChris 3 05 March 2013 10:41am

@Stannis - exactly, it's people commenting on something they do not know anything about.

JGrossman 6 05 March 2013 10:43am

@Stannis -

No-one has it seems! This is right up there with people who say they watch porn because of the bad acting.

Sorry to disappoint you but I don't watch porn either.

C'est la vie

Jake G

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 105 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

DrChris 2 05 March 2013 10:50am

@JGrossman - and yet you comment about something you have absolutely no experience of.

Stannis 9 05 March 2013 10:51am

@JGrossman - "Sorry to disappoint you but I don't watch porn either."

Give me smug factor 10 scotty, we are heading through a CIF discussion board and we need to look as self righteous as possible!

All joking aside porn is like Simply Red, they make huge amounts of money but no-one ever admits to actually enjoying either of them.

callaspodeaspode 2 05 March 2013 2:14pm

@Stannis - Mention of Mick Hucknall is likely to have the same effect as a gallon of bromide pumped into the water cooler.

Sneezy2013 2 05 March 2013 4:14pm

@Stannis - No, No.You misunderstand.

This is all about adopting an attitude of calm indifference, looking louche and cool - about striking an attitude - "Hey nothing fazes me! Why if my daughter wanted to have sex with her own grandfather and the dog on the living room rug, I'd be totally hep with it - its all about personal choices dontcha know".

The more you raise the bar the more they affect surprise that anyone might object.

Geeky_Disco 05 March 2013 4:46pm

@Stannis -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 106 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I've used prostitutes Stannis and said so many times in this thread already. I've also offered female acquaintances money for sex. Some accepted and some didn't.

Geeky_Disco 05 March 2013 4:48pm

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jameslegrand 05 March 2013 7:25pm

@DrChris - Ridicoulous point-- you don't have to have used a prostitute or be a prostitute to be able to comment on this. Prostitution is a social phenomenon and affects us all regardless of whether we are in immediate touch with it or not. Therefore we all have a right to comment on it.

And sorry, JGrossman, even though you seem to have lot respect for prostitutes they certainly don't seem to have any for you.

How about this: I respect people who have made respectable moral choices in their lives. Someone who has placed MONEY above all other values in their lives ( and I exclude the ones who have been coerced in one way or the other) doesn't seem to be worthy of too much respect to me.

richmanchester 17 05 March 2013 9:52am

"Nobody campaigns against the career courtesans who are Belgravia bankers' wives, or the footballers' consorts of Cheshire."

I don't know about Belgravia, but the women associated with footballers certainly recieve more than their fair share of approbrium.

scottishviking 17 05 March 2013 9:51am

In Sweden the punter is the criminal, not the prossie. Which is kind of absurd as you can`t have one without the other. Moral standpoint is that all prossies are victims of some kind, so its OK to sell but not to buy. Ten years on after this law was implemented there are still street hookers in Gothenburg & Stockholm, escort prostitution is flourishing ( if you Google "Stockholm Escorts") & women are trafficked here from Romania. Hardly any men have been arrested & convicted of paying for sex, so what was the point ? A few lefty feminists feel good about http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 107 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

themselves & we had a bit of male subculture bashing but thats it. One commentator in the press argued that the only effect was to shift the sex trade solely for the middle classes as they are the only ones who can afford it. No mention has ever been made of the legions of Nordic women who travel to west africa each year...

jameslegrand 1 05 March 2013 7:15pm

@scottishviking - Hardly any men have been arrested? Yet last week the main prosecutor in Stockholm got busted for soliciting a prostitute. The police were waiting for him in the corridor as he came out. There remained some unclarity about who they should turn to as he was the one who was supposed to bring on the charges---another prosecutor was later nominated to do the task ... way to go ! Bring the pigs to justice!

And that just goes to show the system is patriarchal -- even in Sweden!

LilywhiteGirl 19 05 March 2013 9:51am

I wonder how many of the people demonising prostitutes call themselves Christians. I'm not one myself but find that I'm quite frequently in the position of having to remind bigots about a certain Lady of the Night called Mary Magdalene whenever they start spewing forth about the evils, not of prostitution, but of prostitutes themselves.

Us humans tend to be incredibly good at judging, sneering and belittling; why is it so much harder to show compassion and try to understand the situations of others? After millennia on this planet, have we really learned so little?

Hol48 5 05 March 2013 11:24am

@LilywhiteGirl - Mary Magdalene wasn't a prostitute - at least not according to the gospels, which make no mention of it and offer no reason to believe she was. The depiction of her as a prostitute was a detail invented by the Church (whether by mistake or by design I'm not sure) and the error just became so widely propagated it was accepted as fact.

JimNolan 4 05 March 2013 11:43am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 108 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@Hol48 - Many would argue that a story doesn't have to be in the Bible to be counted as a Christian story.

More to the point, Mary Magdalene was a prostitute in the same sense that Matthew the apostle was a tax collector.

Sneezy2013 6 05 March 2013 12:20pm

@LilywhiteGirl - MM was not a hooker. She is often conflated with the woman who was going to be stoned for adultery.

She was in fact a woman healed by Christ and may have been his cousin or other fairly close relative, though not his wife a la Da Vinci Code.

Its not a case of Christians judging hookers; just resisting pretending this exploitation is OK. Showing one compassion does not equate with letting them carry on with it.

Hol48 1 05 March 2013 3:12pm

@JimNolan - So they could and in principle I wouldn't be inclined to disagree. Still, personally I think it'd be a stretch to count an inaccurate detail projected by a Pope onto a Bible tale as a story in its own right.

KeithMC 9 05 March 2013 9:48am

Excellent article - and appalling that it needs to be written in a society that claims to be enlightened. Under a pretence of "liberalism" and "individuality" we have gone a long way backwards as a society. I blame Thatcher and Blair!

jameslegrand 05 March 2013 7:00pm

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pimpmasterkdogg 17 05 March 2013 9:47am

There are many good arguments for making prostitution legal, but the illegality of it http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 109 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM There are many good arguments for making prostitution legal, but the illegality of it doesn't even make any sense anyway. Who is the victim in the transaction? The prostitute, surely, people who think it is inherently exploitative would say. Then why would we put them in jail? What other crimes do we jail the victims for?

Oh I know, drug possession. Allegedly the drug user is the 'victim' in the drug deal, so they should go to jail. Makes no sense.

I don't even want to moralise other people's sexual choices. If I was unable to acquire sex in the traditional way, whose to say I wouldn't do what my ancestors have done for time immemorial and pay for it? If I was broke and I knew people would give me money because they wanted to have sex with me, whose to say I wouldn't take the opportunity? Even if I knew 100% that I wouldn't, I could never say, "I am 100% sure that I have the right opinions about everything else and can tell other people how they should live their lives." Throughout history, people have been paying for sex. All the towns and cities everywhere on Earth have a long history of prostitution.

Also the global restrictions on prostitution (like drugs) are surely a major contributory factor in sex trafficking, drug addiction among prostitutes and a total lack of safety for everyone involved? I hear the brothels in Nevada are cleanly-run and the workers are treated with dignity and are not at any real risk of being beaten or killed by a client. The black market is not a good market. Forcing risky behaviours into the black market surely amplifies the risk massively?

But really, it's not about risk or sex trafficking, it's about puritan morality. That's the only excuse for a blanket ban on exchanging sex for money. Sex trafficking is already illegal.

Good article btw.

richmanchester 4 05 March 2013 10:11am

@pimpmasterkdogg - Prostitution is, technically legal. Although there are so many restrictions and other laws surrounding it its probably impossible to carry it out without breaking one of them.

jameslegrand 05 March 2013 6:58pm

@pimpmasterkdogg - Straw man . Nobodys' been suggesting prostitutes should be put in jail.

By the way, are you working for the international crime syndicates? I notice you complain about global restrictions on drug and sex trade. Crime syndicates are global. Your moniker pimpmasterdogg is also ominous.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 110 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

pimpmasterkdogg 1 05 March 2013 7:32pm

@jameslegrand - If sitting at home in my pants and tinkering with business websites is working for global crime syndicates, then yes, I am the Godfather.

My argument is that prohibition of the drugs and prostitution trades provide massive financial gains for organised crime syndicates, and my opposition to this prohibition is in part because I want to damage the power and wealth of organised crime syndicates.

The moniker 'pimpmasterkdogg' was stolen from someone else on the internet because I thought it sounded cool.

What are you suggesting should be done with prostitutes? At the moment, all crimes relating to prostitution can result in a jail sentence: http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/prostitution_and_exploitation_of_pros titution/ I take it you advocate other legal sanctions? Why not just legalise and regulate?

MikeOzanne 16 05 March 2013 9:46am

""MSP Rhoda Grant, who is sponsoring an "end demand for sex trafficking" bill in the Scottish parliament, declaring violence against sex workers a price worth paying to secure her proposals."

I took the trouble to read the link you provide to back up that statement, which actually claims

"whilst Rhoda Grant pledged to fight poverty she was not prepared to recognise that her proposals would plunge sex workers into even deeper financial straits. Indeed, when asked about her justification for the collateral damage her legislative changes would cause, she suggested that damage to individual sex workers was a price worth paying for the settlement to be established."

No mention of violence. I think you're being deliberately misleading, to put it politely."

Well lets look at a real life example :

"At a cost to the Swedish tax payer of over US$ 7 million a year, Sweden has, over the last four years, convicted an annual average of three people for trafficking and 18 for pimping, and has fined an average of 75 men a year for buying sex. Street- based sex work did nose-dive soon after the law was passed, then stabilised and remains constant. There’s no information about what’s happened to women selling sex in other venues, including apartments, clients’ homes, neighbouring Denmark… What we do know is that convictions for rape have increased by 28% since it became illegal to buy sex, and convictions for sexual crimes overall have increased by 68%."

See http://www.wisdomofwhores.com/2010/04/20/do-chicago-sex-workers-need- swedish-laws/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 111 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

So as a matter of fact, not politicians drivel, these kind of laws result in increased violence not only to prostitutes but to all women.I don't care what she said, this would be the result. Now these are things that are readily and easily discoverable, There is no excuse for not knowing them before you open your legislative gob. Now morals and sin are often debated, usually concerning sex, and agreement often is not arrived at.But in my opinion deliberate ignorance that results in harm to others would be both immoral and sinful, and I'm willing to make a pitch for actively evil.

ratherannoyed 4 05 March 2013 11:24am

@MikeOzanne - Is there any evidence for this claim about the increase in rape, and in particular is there any evidence of causality rather than correlation?

MikeOzanne 6 05 March 2013 11:35am

@ratherannoyed -

http://www.wisdomofwhores.com/2010/04/20/do-chicago-sex-workers- need-swedish-laws/

This site is run by a professional epidemiologist with years of experience in monitoring HIV in the sex trade, I trust her opinion

MikeOzanne 1 05 March 2013 11:42am

@ratherannoyed -

Follow the link to Dr Pisani's website.

ratherannoyed 7 05 March 2013 12:24pm

@MikeOzanne - Yep followed the link. Just as I thought. Pisani's opinions and rather disgusting prejudice masquerading as proven fact. For the sake of argument I'll accept her little graph showing that rape and sex offence convictions have gone up by 28%. By itself pretty meaningless unless you know how this compares to rape allegations before and after criminalisation,and whether there are any other factors are at work.

Which of course there are. Sweden has gone down the line of http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 112 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

criminalising not just use of prostitutes but other sorts of sexual relations which would not be criminal in the UK - what Pisani rather nastily calls the 'Ice Queen agenda'. The same sort of (alleged) offence which got Jules Assange into trouble. If you look closely the Pisani does actually admit that this may be contributing to the upturn, which makes her thesis virtually meaningless.

You seem quite smart. How can you fall for this pseudo scientific claptrap?

MikeOzanne 5 05 March 2013 12:38pm

@ratherannoyed - How can you make such a cock at interpreting simple evidence, I'll take the opinion on the stats from the professional epidemiologist ta much.

MikeOzanne 7 05 March 2013 12:40pm

@ratherannoyed -

" Pisani's opinions and rather disgusting prejudice"

She is good at annoying the hard of thinking.

ratherannoyed 5 05 March 2013 1:21pm

@MikeOzanne - There is no evidence of correlation whatsoever in Pisani's article. She simply draws the inference she prefers. No point in blustering Mike, she's feeding you snake oil.

ratherannoyed 4 05 March 2013 1:24pm

@MikeOzanne - erm, so what's with the 'Ice Queen' sneers? What is Pisani saying? Anyone woman who disagrees with me about sex is just frigid? Yay, the return of the oldest misogynist insult in the world!

MikeOzanne 3 05 March 2013 1:48pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 113 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@ratherannoyed -

No bluster, I've seen her opinion and evidence, seen yours, prefer hers.

MikeOzanne 4 05 March 2013 1:59pm

@ratherannoyed -

Well you could ask her directly, rather than asking me to guess, but I imagine its around the social issues discussed here:

http://www.thelocal.se/19376/20090511/#.UTX4OhyePh4

and the existence of pythonesque stupidity like this:

http://www.thelocal.se/34518/20110622/#.UTX5QRyePh4

But hey she's a succesful medical professional, a fine author, so she must just be a misogynistic bitch, yes?

jameslegrand 2 05 March 2013 6:54pm

@ratherannoyed - No, because it is lies. It is all about the statistics different methods to write them down. Tis an old sexist lie that prostitution stops rape, intended to intimidate women into accepting prostitution as a sort of offering of young women to the dragon that keeps others safe.

Bandarlog 06 March 2013 12:09am

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

pandg 4 07 March 2013 3:41am

@MikeOzanne - As I read the link, the number of convictions for sex offences has increased since the criminalisation of punters and pimps. That doesn't mean there has been an increase in the number of offences being committed. Given the ongoing complaints about the rates of conviction for sexual offences in the UK, any increase in convictions would actually be a good thing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 114 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I, for one, do not understand how the Swedish model can lead to more violence against women. As I understand it, under the Swedish model, the prostitutes are not subject to criminal prosecution at all. It is only the punters and the pimps who are at risk of prosecution. Under the Swedish model, therefore, prostitutes can freely report sexual offences against them without fear of prosecution. Shouldn't we be encouraging women to come forward, and removing barriers to them coming forward?

simonscanlan 20 05 March 2013 9:44am

A lot if people commenting btl seem to think prostitution is illegal in the UK. It isn't.

Brothels are illegal but prostitutes often get round this by having a non working girl friend on the premises ready to call for help in case a punter gets violent. If the friend receives payment for this service then it again becomes illegal.

Waging a war against prostitutes is even more pointless than "The War On Drugs".

Trafficking and coercing people into the sex trade is undoubtably evil yet the law criminalises those who unwittingly engage the services of these poor unfortunate people meaning that there is next to no chance that they will ever report any suspicions they might have to the police.

Feminism was supposed to be about women empowering themselves and nothing to do with prurience.

Margarito 12 05 March 2013 9:36am

It's crazy that this discussion is still going on. Legalise, regulate, and move the practice away from schools and residential areas.

Sneezy2013 7 05 March 2013 4:08pm

@Margarito -

move the practice away from schools and residential areas

But why?

If its no different to, say, packing shelves in a supermarket or whatever and its a perfectly valid occupation why segregate it?

Are you implying that its something that people should be kept away from? Possibly making a (whisper it) moral judgement?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 115 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Why not include it as part of the careers advice service for school leavers ; you know - go into further/higher education; get an entry level job; take a gap year trip; or turn tricks for punters in your bedroom - under the Justin Bieber poster - or a suitable place of work.

Many young women (and men) would probably find a ready source of custom among some of their parents acquantances and neighbours to get them started.

The possibilities are limitless!

and its no different from any other job.

Is it?

Natisha030 16 05 March 2013 9:35am

i would like to say i am proud of being a feminist !! i am also a mother of five kids in a lesbian relationship and yes i have also done part time sex work , and i am still proud to call my self a feminist !!

ilusha 3 05 March 2013 9:46am

@Natisha030 - We definitely need to hear a lot more from you!!!

DementedOldBag 8 05 March 2013 11:37am

@ilusha -

@Natisha030 - We definitely need to hear a lot more from you!!!

I agree. I think Natasha030 is amusing herself. She is amusing me, anyway.

Sneezy2013 05 March 2013 12:15pm

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 116 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Geeky_Disco 2 05 March 2013 1:18pm

@Sneezy2013 -

Are you in fact real or just a voice from the best forgotten past?

Stannis 30 05 March 2013 9:32am

I agree with the article about prostitution, in many ways we seem to be living through the new puritanism, and as always women are the targets.

Sadly however the article for some reason is guilty of women bashing itself, I am no great fan of the rich but to make out that every woman who marries a rich man does so because she is a money grabbing gold digger is a statement worthy of Littlejohn rather than a Guardian journalist.

I notice this venom is usually directed against working class girls who marry footballers as well, even worse when the footballer in question is a member of the great unwashed himself!

deezer 59 05 March 2013 9:31am

Here's what I don't understand. WHY DO PEOPLE CARE SO MUCH? If two consenting adults want to go bats on each others bodies, I really could not care less, whether there is money changing hands or not.

Why the hell should these women not be protected? The industry needs regulation and protection more than most.

I personally don't like the idea a person of paying to use someone's body to have an orgasm in/on, but prostitution isn't going anywhere, and again, as long as both parties are consenting adults.

And think of all those shiny tax pennies rolling in...

PennieB 13 05 March 2013 9:48am

@deezer -

Wish I could recommend your comment many times.

Geeky_Disco 7 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 117 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 1:16pm

@deezer -

Bravo. I've not agreed with everything you've said but this absolutely cannot be faulted.

campasyoulike 2 05 March 2013 9:30am

Are you sure "kneejerk" was the mot juste?

shiv 32 05 March 2013 9:29am

I don't hate prostitutes, I dislike the men who use them, the casual commidification of people, and the excuses proffered by people below the line for treating people as a receptacle for sperm in a way that they would reject if it involved workers doing a 'proper job'.

Seems to me that those who argue that it's just a job, and should be treated as such, aren't prepared to then afford sex workers proper pay, working conditions, and respect.

All the evidence from around the world from different projects to help prositutes seems to show that nothing works, because the business is based on contempt for another person, and until you solve that problem....

omniwanderer 23 05 March 2013 10:23am

@shiv - "... because the business is based on contempt for another person... "

No it is not. The clients' attitudes to sex-workers vary from hate to love, and encompass all the shades in between, but mostly the transaction is handled with politeness and courtesy from both sides.

DrChris 24 05 March 2013 10:35am

@shiv - none of this is necessarily true. What makes you think that punters hold their service providers in contempt?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 118 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Stannis 25 05 March 2013 11:12am

@shiv - "I dislike the men who use them,"

Why? There are some people who for whatever reason, shyness, physical appearance, whatever who are unable to or have been unable to find a partner to have a loving sexual relationship with.

Our Society probably pays too much attention to sex, but lets be honest, it is important, most people, especially men (but women also), would say that if they never had sex then they would have missed out. Most of us greatly enjoy sex and would hate to think we could never do it again.

Now for some men going to a prostitute is the only way in which they can experience sex, in fact any kind of intimacy with another person. If the woman is safe, is willing and receives adaquate compensation, then who are you to say that what they are doing is sordid and wrong?

Phazer 12 05 March 2013 11:18am

@shiv -

Seems to me that those who argue that it's just a job, and should be treated as such, aren't prepared to then afford sex workers proper pay, working conditions, and respect.

I haven't seen a bigger strawman than this since the last time I watched the Wicker Man.

noonenoone 05 March 2013 4:56pm

@Stannis -

Because of the culture of prostitution here and that it is rarely some high class escort but a vulnerable, coerced person we see men who use sex workers as taking part in an unequal transaction, exploitation where there is a monetry value to intimacy.

robi 1 05 March 2013 6:12pm

@shiv -

All the evidence from around the world from different projects to help prositutes seems to show that nothing works, because http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 119 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

the business is based on contempt for another person, and until you solve that problem....

The evidence is that nothing works, because ultimately the sex industry is based on the innate human desire for sex and most men naturally have high sex drives, and some of those men for one reason or another will not have a relationship that fufills this drive, and there is nothing short of castration that can be done about that.

robi 05 March 2013 6:15pm

@shiv -

Seems to me that those who argue that it's just a job, and should be treated as such, aren't prepared to then afford sex workers proper pay, working conditions, and respec

Sex workers don't have these things because their work is illegal. And actually the pay for those who are in sex work of their own free will is apparently quite good- better than they would get working in an unskilled job or on the dole.

Oldfeminist 44 05 March 2013 9:27am

But would you want your daughter or other female family member to take up prostitution as a worthwhile career? Why is Brooke no longer doing it if it is that great? As a foster carer I met children and young people who had been and were being abused and yes forced into prostitution. Women and children are enslaved and trafficked from poorer countries. How dare you say this is feminists fault. The threats to feminists who speak out are on the net daily..are you saying these are justified? I am sick of hearing men who use women justify their need for sex in whatever form it takes. So exactly when do these girls and young women make this decision to become prostitutes? Perhaps when they are desperate for money. Perhaps when they have been suitably groomed and prepared by the vile guys they meet along the way... No feminists don't hate prostitutes, but we do hate what happens to girls who fall foul of the users...in all social groups.

deezer 24 05 March 2013 9:34am

@Oldfeminist -

Why is Brooke no longer doing it if it is that great?

Well, she is now a writer so has give up the day (night?) job. So what? If I could make a living writing I'd be outta my 9-5 straight away, and I http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 120 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

really like my job.

MrVholes 17 05 March 2013 9:46am

@Oldfeminist - Well said.

pimpmasterkdogg 18 05 March 2013 9:53am

@Oldfeminist -

But would you want your daughter or other female family member to take up prostitution as a worthwhile career

Interesting question. Would you be happier if your daughter was a prostitute in a safe legal setting, or would you prefer them to be a bailiff or hedge fund manager, for instance?

As for your other concerns, they are worthy issues. I reckon legalising it wold alleviate many of these problems.

dfic1999 45 05 March 2013 10:07am

@Oldfeminist -

But would you want your daughter or other female family member to take up prostitution as a worthwhile career?

What is it with the 'Lady Chatterley' argument ('would you want your wife and servants to read this book?') that makes people think it's a valid point? If 'your daughter' is under the age of eighteen they cannot legally engage in sex work, and anyone who paid them would be breaking the law. If they are over the age of eighteen, then they are a legally responsible adult, and their fathers don't get some 'veto' over their choices that in any other instance would be denounced as 'patriarchal'.

How dare you say this is feminists fault.

If the hashtag '#whenantisattack' is anything to go by, a lot of them certainly aren't helping - which is the point the article makes very clear.

DrChris 21 05 March 2013 10:36am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 121 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@Oldfeminist - some women think it beats slaving in an office or restaurant all day long for almost no pay

JimNolan 14 05 March 2013 10:55am

@DrChris - Most usually because slaving in an office or restaurant is difficult to combine with a serious drug or alcohol dependency and/or a mental illness.

JimNolan 22 05 March 2013 11:01am

The 'Lady Chatterley argument' is quite valid. Would you want your wife or daughter to read this book? - yes, because it's literature and, anyway, the right to read even crappy books should not be infringed.

Do you want your wife or daughter to work as a prostitute? Well, do you? Never mind their right to do so, would you really be jake with that, or is it something you'd be inclined to discourage?

What we would discourage in our own families, we can consider discouraging in general as a society.

Leopold1904 12 05 March 2013 11:07am

@Oldfeminist - Thanks, well said.

Phazer 9 05 March 2013 11:17am

@JimNolan -

Do you want your wife or daughter to work as a prostitute? Well, do you? Never mind their right to do so, would you really be jake with that, or is it something you'd be inclined to discourage?

What we would discourage in our own families, we can consider discouraging in general as a society.

I wouldn't like my wife or daughter to work as a policewoman, given the rate of murder of people in that profession.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 122 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

ratherannoyed 6 05 March 2013 11:21am

@dfic1999 - Huh? I followed up the hashtag to Magnani and her chums snarking about other women/people. Seems that not to agree totally with the Magnani line opens you up to all sorts of insinuations about your motives.

A completely fact free zone proving nothing very much imho.

JimNolan 13 05 March 2013 11:37am

@Phazer - Okay. And when you launch your campaign to reduce the rate of homicides amongst policewomen nobody will call you a prude or an "authoritarian puritan" and you will face no libertarian argument in favour of policewomen being murdered.

dfic1999 14 05 March 2013 11:38am

@JimNolan -

The prosecution wanted the book classified as obscene and therefore not fit for 'wives and servants' to read (one implication being that the 'man of the house' would decide for them).

What we would discourage in our own families, we can consider discouraging in general as a society.

That the problem: you might discourage it in your own family; in another family, they might be 'jake' with sex work because it's what puts food on the table and clothes on the children's backs, despite the condemnation and hostility of others.

JimNolan 18 05 March 2013 11:51am

@dfic1999 -

That the problem: you might discourage it in your own family; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 123 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

in another family, they might be 'jake' with sex work because it's what puts food on the table and clothes on the children's backs, despite the condemnation and hostility of others.

But we both know that there's no such family, don't we? I'm being "judgemental" about a life that nobody on the planet would wish for their daughter. Even in the picture you've painted, your hypothetical family accepts prostitution as the only alternative to hungry and unclad children. Am I a prude to suggest that it would be a disgrace for anyone in our society to be facing such a situation?

pimpmasterkdogg 21 05 March 2013 12:02pm

@JimNolan - If my daughter wanted to be an 'escort' and was doing it in a safe legal setting, I'd be happy for her. She can fuck whoever she likes, so long as she does it safely and is happy with herself. She can give lapdances and do stripteases and appear in pornography, so long as she is happy.

If she was whoring herself on the street because she was addicted to heroin, then I wouldn't be too happy. But that's not what anyone is advocating, is it? If prostitution was a symptom of her fucked-up life, I'd be upset about her fucked-up life.

Also I wouldn't be too happy if she was working for a debt collection agency or a payday loan company either. I'd be happier if she was having sex for money, at least she's making people happy.

Sneezy2013 12 05 March 2013 12:08pm

@pimpmasterkdogg -

Would you be happier if your daughter was a prostitute in a safe legal setting, or would you prefer them to be a bailiff or hedge fund manager, for instance

I know.

I mean its so similar isn't it?

pimpmasterkdogg 11 05 March 2013 12:13pm

@Sneezy2013 - Expand. Obviously flipping burgers in McDonalds is

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 124 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

different to being a coach driver too, but they're both ways to make money. Bailiffs, however, intimidate poor people and then take their stuff, so I wouldn't be too happy if a loved one started doing that.

Sneezy2013 16 05 March 2013 12:14pm

@JimNolan - I fear you have misunderstood the rules here.

The point is to make the most outrageous assertions possible while affecting to believe they are perfectly reasonable and that anyone with a normal outlook is some sort of weirdo with oppressive tendencies.

Hence all the bollocks about people "not minding" their daughter being a whore "as long as it makes her happy" and of course assery7ing their rigt on credentials by saying they would rather she did that than work as a hedge fund manager or whatever.

No sane person would have such a view of their child. If they did they would not be fit to take care of a terrapin, let alone a young girl.

pimpmasterkdogg 17 05 March 2013 12:18pm

@Sneezy2013 - Maybe I don't care what people do with their genitals as much as you do.

pimpmasterkdogg 19 05 March 2013 12:20pm

@Sneezy2013 - Ok I'll bite. My daughter gets a job in one of the Nevada brothels. She uses condoms all the time (as they do in the Nevada brothels) and she does not face any risks from punters (as is the case in the Nevada brothels). She is happy to work in this environment - in fact, she chose to.

Why should I care? Please articulate one reason why I should have a problem with this.

Sneezy2013 13 05 March 2013 12:28pm

@pimpmasterkdogg - No parent would be OK with this.

You are either someone who has no kids or you are simply striking an

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 125 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

attitude.

pimpmasterkdogg 14 05 March 2013 12:30pm

@Sneezy2013 - to repeat:

Please articulate one reason why I should have a problem with this.

Obviously you're just a bailiff I unintentionally upset.

JimNolan 7 05 March 2013 12:33pm

@pimpmasterkdogg -

Why should I care? Please articulate one reason why I should have a problem with this.

What are you? Some kind of p

HughAkston 8 05 March 2013 12:35pm

@pimpmasterkdogg - Well said.

Geeky_Disco 17 05 March 2013 12:36pm

@Oldfeminist -

If I had a daughter, and I don't, and she could make good, safe, honest money in her own home or a legalised brothel without coercion then I would beg her to do it. She would be set for life and would have a more secure job then many of the rest of us are firtunate to have. This is because I have personal experience of such women (do you?) in Europe were the attitude to prostitution is rather more realistic and adult.

Would you condemn my daughter to a life of drudgery in Poundland or Tescos, never knowing when she will next get the boot, because of isolated cases of trafficking, drugs and coercion? Surely if feminism is anything it is the right of a woman to make her own free choice? Yet you seem to deny a woman, if free, would ever make that choice. But that is just what you'd really like to believe, not fact.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 126 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

HughAkston 18 05 March 2013 12:36pm

@Sneezy2013 -

No parent would be OK with this.

You are either someone who has no kids or you are simply striking an attitude.

You were asked to give one reason why he should have a problem with this and this is your response.

But...but...but....it's wrong!!

Geeky_Disco 16 05 March 2013 12:38pm

@Sneezy2013 -

Are adult women constrained to do what their parents think these days? I had thought that adulthood was about making your own choices for your own good?

JimNolan 14 05 March 2013 12:44pm

@Geeky_Disco -

If I had a daughter, and I don't, and she could make good, safe, honest money in her own home or a legalised brothel without coercion then I would beg her to do it.

You'd procure your own daughter?

Sometimes there just isn't enough vomit in the world.

insertfunnyusername 23 05 March 2013 12:51pm

@Oldfeminist -

"But would you want your daughter or other female family member to take up prostitution as a worthwhile career?"

1. Hint, not all sex workers are women.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 127 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

2. No, because of people like you, Burchill, Rhoda Grant. Because of people who drive sex workers to the margins of society. 3. Nonetheless, any child of mine working in a career, would be a grown adult, just like I am, and in the end, has a right to make their own choices about their life, just I am a grown adult, and have a right to make my own choices about my life.

"Why is Brooke no longer doing it if it is that great?"

This is a very specious argument. I have worked as a janitor before, cleaning up people's vomit, piss, and shit. I have worked in food service. I have worked as a computer programmer. I know longer work in any of these jobs. Does this mean that all these jobs should be made illegal, and people who do them be driven to the margins of society?

" As a foster carer I met children and young people who had been and were being abused and yes forced into prostitution."

So, the problem is abuse. Why don't you deal with the abuse?

"Women and children are enslaved and trafficked from poorer countries."

While it is of course difficult to get valid data, sex traficking constitues a MINORITY of trafficking that occurs. Poor people are trafficked for a variety of jobs, especially fishing, farming. Should fishing and farming be made illegal too?

Trafficiking is a problem. Deal with trafficking, deal with the source of the problems.

Oh, and driving sex work to the margins of society just makes the trafficking worse.

"How dare you say this is feminists fault."

No, not all feminists. Just some feminists.

"The threats to feminists who speak out are on the net daily..are you saying these are justified?"

No threats are justified. Threats to feminists are not justified. Threats to sex workers are also not justified, espeically coming from hypocritical feminists.

"I am sick of hearing men who use women justify their need for sex in whatever form it takes. "

What about sex workers themselves? Do they not get to speak and act for themselves? Did they elect you to speak for them?

"So exactly when do these girls and young women make this decision to become prostitutes?"

When don't you ask them?

"Perhaps when they are desperate for money."

Well yes. Many people work, because they are desperate for money.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 128 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

"Perhaps when they have been suitably groomed and prepared by the vile guys they meet along the way..."

Ah yes. So, women who choose to work as sex workers cannot think for themselves, and need you to think for them, amirite?

"No feminists don't hate prostitutes, but we do hate what happens to girls who fall foul of the users...in all social groups."

You seek to infantilise women sex workers. You seek to strip them of self-determination. You seek to treat them as nothing more than pets.

Geeky_Disco 12 05 March 2013 1:12pm

@Sneezy2013 -

Earlier you criticised me for calling people like you a "Victorian moralist". And now you write this?

Check out the mirror pal. The moralising is overpowering.

Geeky_Disco 8 05 March 2013 1:13pm

@JimNolan -

No. Ten "deliberate misunderstanding" points to you sir.

But since you mention it, incest too can be a rational choice between adults.

ratherannoyed 9 05 March 2013 1:18pm

@pimpmasterkdogg - um have you seen the tv progs about those brothels. Taken a look at the clients?... if your daughter had no better choice than fucking those repulsive saddos for money then something will have gone badly wrong in her life.

pimpmasterkdogg 12 05 March 2013 1:22pm

@ratherannoyed - I used to clean hotel rooms and see immigrant workers being talked down to like they were pieces of shit. It was literally

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 129 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

one of the most depressing environments in the world, like getting repeatedly sodomised by fat sweaty men. But the pay was worse and it was even harder on my back.

JimNolan 10 05 March 2013 1:31pm

@Geeky_Disco - Deliberate misunderstanding?

So how am I supposed to understand your contention - that you would beg your daughter to service paying customers sexually?

Actually, looking at the icky incest remark, I reckon you don't understand what "procurement" is. The misunderstanding is probably not deliberate.

Geeky_Disco 14 05 March 2013 1:50pm

@JimNolan -

Check your personal morality at the door Jim. What your sexual do's and dont's are is literally irrelevant to anyone you will never have sex with.

ratherannoyed 3 05 March 2013 3:08pm

@pimpmasterkdogg - Really just like? I mean have you actually tried out any controlled experiment.

pimpmasterkdogg 1 05 March 2013 3:19pm

@ratherannoyed - :) Well I suppose it was a right pain in the arse and I had to wear uniforms. But I also spent time in some of the swankiest hotel rooms in the city.

robi 8 05 March 2013 4:09pm

@JimNolan -

The 'Lady Chatterley argument' is quite valid. Would you want http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 130 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

your wife or daughter to read this book? - yes, because it's literature and, anyway, the right to read even crappy books should not be infringed.

Do you want your wife or daughter to work as a prostitute? Well, do you? Never mind their right to do so, would you really be jake with that, or is it something you'd be inclined to discourage?

What we would discourage in our own families, we can consider discouraging in general as a society.

Firstly. the lady Chatterly argumeny is irrelevant whatever you may say. It's perfectly fine to not want your daughter to go into an occupation such a prostitution- but that is no reason at all why prostitution should be made illegal. That is no justification. It's the same as saying 'I don't want my daughter to be a road sweeper, therefore road sweeping should be made illegal'.

And, if I am honest, no, I would not be happy with my hypothetical daughter going into prostitution- but that is because I wouldn't be happy with my daughter going permanently/semi-permanently into any low status or potentially dangerous/illegal occupation especially if I felt she could do better. If prostitution was made legal and prostitutes were protected, I would feel better about that. If prostitution acquired a higher status, I would be happier about that too.

Phazer 4 05 March 2013 4:27pm

@JimNolan -

Okay. And when you launch your campaign to reduce the rate of homicides amongst policewomen nobody will call you a prude or an "authoritarian puritan" and you will face no libertarian argument in favour of policewomen being murdered.

Helloooo false comparison!

My analogy was that I wouldn't want my wife or daughter to be a prostitute particularly because the criminalisation of it makes it riskier than other professions.

But the same is true of a lot of different professions, many of which are not only legal but 100% neccessary for society to function, and to a certain extent would be seen as noble. That people feel their wives and daughters could be better employed as brain surgeons is unsurprising, but much the same as that people would generally consider brain surgery to be a better career than shelf stacking in Tesco.

You're trying to argue (falsely) that "nd when you launch your campaign to reduce the rate of homicides amongst policewomen nobody will call you a prude or an "authoritarian puritan" and you will face no libertarian argument in favour of policewomen being murdered." But you're not http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 131 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

calling for a reduction in homocides in police women. You're calling for the equivalent of banning policewomen.

JimNolan 5 05 March 2013 4:46pm

@Phazer - My analogy was that I wouldn't want my wife or daughter to be a prostitute particularly because the criminalisation of it makes it riskier than other professions.

You'd have to ask hundreds of people why they don't want their daughters to be prostitutes before someone gave that reason - if you weren't on the internet, I mean.

JimNolan 4 05 March 2013 5:01pm

@robi -

It's perfectly fine to not want your daughter to go into an occupation such a prostitution- but that is no reason at all why prostitution should be made illegal. That is no justification. It's the same as saying 'I don't want my daughter to be a road sweeper, therefore road sweeping should be made illegal'.

I don't remember saying that prostitution should be illegal? You may have deduced that I see it as a social evil to be eradicated from the way I've taken issue with the misogynist trolls who are planning to introduce their imaginary daughters to the game, but I'm not sure about criminalisation as a tactic - perhaps criminalisation of the customers will work.

I'm in favour of road-sweeping. Sex workers are victims, their customers are exploitative perves, and people who disrespect road-sweepers, however hypothetically, are despicable snobs.

robi 7 05 March 2013 6:00pm

@JimNolan -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 132 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

How do you intend to 'eradicate' it without it being illegal? Granted, even its illegality doesn't prevent it from happening. Ultimately, how you feel personally about prostitution is irrelevant. As such, what is the point of even discussing whether we would want our daughters to go into it? Our opinions are irrelevant unless we feel that they should be enforced somehow, as many feminists do.

I'm not sure about criminalisation as a tactic - perhaps criminalisation of the customers will work.

As long as men have unfufilled sex drives, and some women are willing to have sex for money, prostitution will survive as an institution- criminalisation be damned. Why criminalise the punters anyway? You are speaking on behalf of the prostitutes, rather than letting them speak for themselves.

their customers are exploitative perves

How do you know, do you have personal experience of this world or are you just speaking on behalf of prostitutes again? Some of their customers may be 'perves' (whatever that means exactly... define 'pervert'). Some may simply be desperately shy or lonely men, men in sexless marriages, men who are ugly or have some form of disability. Are they 'perves' simply for not wanting to live a life totally without sex? Even if you are right and prostitution is exploitative, the kind of men I have described are no more 'perves' than any other man with a sex drive, and are unlucky in life/love more than anything else.

and people who disrespect road-sweepers, however hypothetically, are despicable snobs.

I don't disrespect roadsweepers, just as I don't disrespect prostitutes, but I would still be disappointed if I had an intelligent daughter who became a roadsweeper if she had the potential to do enjoyable intellectually challenging and secure work, which was better paid, than I would be if she was a roadsweeper on a permanent basis.

Let's turn this one around on you. Would you be as equally happy if your daughter was a roadsweeper as you would be if she was a leading scientist or an astronaught if she had the potentially to be those things? You may claim you would be, most decent parents would not.

robi 4 05 March 2013 6:08pm

@JimNolan -

and people who disrespect road-sweepers, however hypothetically, are despicable snobs.

The point I was trying to make is that our personal view of the status of an occupation is not important. Road sweepers do a job that there is a demand for, that needs doing. Prostitutes do a job which there is a demand for, and (depending on your viewpoint) arguably needs doing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 133 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I am not advocating disrespecting road sweepers, just as I am not advocating disrespecting prostitutes, but the fact is many people would object to their daughters doing many things- being road sweepers, becoming muslims, becoming christians, becoming atheists, drinking alcohol, spending too much time out late. Ultimately unless we are going to make every activity that a substantial number of parents object their children engaging in illegal, asking how we would feel if our daughter did this or that is irrelevant.

jameslegrand 4 05 March 2013 6:33pm

@pimpmasterkdogg - I'd definitively like my daughter to be almost anything else rather than a prostitute, including life dangerous professions like professional soldier or policewoman, which I'm not otherwise keen on. At least in those professions you have a private sphere of your own and some dignity. Even if you die you have lived a life worth living.

I don't know why the Guardian is so keen on normalizing prostitution when we should be fighting it and the criminals that make it fester.

pimpmasterkdogg 05 March 2013 6:51pm

@jameslegrand - I'm not sure legalising it is necessarily normalising it. I doubt I would ever visit a prostitute, regardless of how legal it was, and neither would most men. Strip clubs are legal but I don't go to them, it's sleazy (in my opinion). Conversely, if I was desperate for sex and couldn't get it elsewhere, I don't think the fact that paying for sex is illegal would dissuade me from booking an escort.

Same for women becoming prostitutes - I'm not sure the legality is a big factor in whether to become one or not. Generally, people don't seem to like the idea of paying for sex.

JimNolan 3 05 March 2013 7:36pm

@robi -

How do you intend to 'eradicate' it without it being illegal?

I'd like to see begging and sleeping in doorways eradicated. I can remember when I first saw beggars, and people sleeping rough, in London in the 'eighties. It hadn't been illegal before then - it's just that people had more choice and more help.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 134 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

How do you know, do you have personal experience of this world or are you just speaking on behalf of prostitutes again?

They buy sex QED

I am quite reconciled to the fact that neither daughter will be a leading scientist nor an astronaut (although I haven't ruled out cowboy or train- driver). Listen, selling your body isn't just a job, a very low-status job at the end of the spectrum of "occupations one tries to avoid" - that's a category mistake. It's a terrible condition to be in, far removed from having any sort of a job. It's like asking if I want my daughter to grow up to get her wine from her own vineyard, or from a Chelsea wine merchant, or from Oddbins, or from Waitrose or Tesco or Lidl or if I want her to be a junkie. Spot the odd one out.

pimpmasterkdogg 4 05 March 2013 7:45pm

@JimNolan - How come some prostitutes / escorts / porn stars seem completely fine with it, if it is

a terrible condition to be in, far removed from having any sort of a job

Being a heroin-addicted street prostitute being beaten by her pimp is not the be-all and end-all of selling sex.

But it's good to hear that you are pro-legalisation anyway, because I reckon all the things that lead to *some* prostitutes being in a 'terrible condition' could be alleviated with a bit of regulation. I take it you think there is something else about prostitution that makes it de-facto a 'terrible condition' to be in, however - like, Sasha Grey and Belle de Jour are in this 'terrible condition' too? Can you pinpoint what this is? - Something integral to having sex with lots of people without emotional connections, maybe?

JimNolan 4 05 March 2013 7:46pm

@robi -

The point I was trying to make is that our personal view of the status of an occupation is not important.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 135 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I'll come back to this idea of "an occupation".

If your daughter says, I'm off, Dad, to my job with "Environ" (the privatised road-sweeping contractor) and I'll see you later you just sigh at the messed-up exams and poor decisions which prevented her from becoming a leading scientist. If she says I'm off to suck strangers' dicks in the industrial estate don't you ask her how much money she needs, and why, and move heaven and earth to find it for her and prevent the situation from ever recurring? Don't you?

Why are we talking as if prostitutes have involved fathers with respectable lives and average, steady incomes somewhere in the background? Roadsweepers do, prostitutes don't.

(There are plenty of jobs which pay worse than sweeping the roads. I've just checked, I should have been so lucky at various times in my life. Never dreamt of sucking a dick, though.)

JimNolan 3 05 March 2013 8:06pm

@pimpmasterkdogg -

Being a heroin-addicted street prostitute being beaten by her pimp is not the be-all and end-all of selling sex.

Yes it is. There aren't any porn stars. Okay, so the phenomenon is real, but the word "star" is there to signify a person so exceptional, so removed from normal experience, that it's safe to just count them out of any discussion of prostitution. Drug addicted and vulnerable young women being abused is the default, and all discussion should proceed from that basis.

But it's good to hear that you are pro-legalisation anyway

I never said that, either. Prostitution is legal, and I don't think soliciting or pandering or pimping should be legalised.

pimpmasterkdogg 1 06 March 2013 3:33pm

@JimNolan - Well 'escort agencies' are not necessarily drug-addicted vulnerable women, Rooney's escort was not a vulnerable woman. The women in legal brothels aren't drug addicted and if they become drug addicted, they could receive help and treatment from their HR-competent managers. And like I said, if my daughter wanted to be Rooney's escort, I wouldn't care. I have no issues with people selling themselves for sex.

JimNolan http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 136 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

06 March 2013 3:57pm

@pimpmasterkdogg -

'escort agencies' are not necessarily drug-addicted vulnerable women

Not necessarily? That's damning with faint praise.

The women in legal brothels aren't drug addicted

Brothels aren't legal.

if my daughter wanted to be Rooney's escort, I wouldn't care

1. I don’t believe anyone who claims that. Who has ever spoken with the proud father of a prostitute? 2. You’re picking a statistical outlier again – a woman providing sexual services to an international footballer is hugely atypical 3. If Rooney is interested in your daughter, how bloody old are you?

pimpmasterkdogg 06 March 2013 4:26pm

@JimNolan - I meant 'legal brothels' like in Nevada and Holland. I would reckon the overwhelming majority of legal prostitutes in Nevada and Holland are happy and are not drug addicts.

pandg 1 07 March 2013 3:27am

@ratherannoyed - I did the same. I thought maybe I was missing something.

Speakingforme 25 05 March 2013 9:26am

Prostitutes are people, not freaks, not necessarily coerced & not necessarily addicts. They fulfil a need, Their clients are people too - men (mostly) who have a need which they are prepared to pay to have fulfilled.

All this other crap is boring. Criticise the state which make sexual transactions illegal, criticise the society which ensures levels of guilt around sexual needs, transactions & hypocrisy - but don't demonize everybody concerned.

Pinkpearl 17 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 137 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 9:26am

Presumably there needs to be a distinction between those women who actively choose to be sex workers and those who feel they have no other option because they are addicted to drugs or being abused. The former situation should be legalised and the latter rendered obsolete by better social services and access to well-funded drug and alcohol/housing etc programs.

Natisha030 4 05 March 2013 9:53am

@Pinkpearl - no many sex workers like to do freelance work as i did myself , i suppose being like a model you can earn enough to pay a cut to a madam but women like me over 15 stone do not earn that much

Pinkpearl 1 05 March 2013 11:16am

@Natisha030 -

Agreed

Geeky_Disco 10 05 March 2013 12:27pm

@Natisha030 -

You just haven't found your customer base Natisha. I know a Swiss prostitute who runs a massage parlour and prostitution service from her own alpine home. She is a big girl, certainly over 15 stone, and she charges hundreds of pounds for her services (basic all holes sex is 150 quid for one hour) and is very nicely well off thank you very much. She drives a BMW M3 from the proceeds. All you need is to find your customer base. Sadly the law stops you doing that openly.

funwithwhips 2 05 March 2013 3:34pm

@Natisha030 - you sell yourself short, I reckon MOST guys like the bigger girl. I know in my group of male friends I'm the wierdo for liking skinny girls.

Adult work dot com, check out the other girls there. There are plenty of plus size ladies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 138 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

david119 31 05 March 2013 9:23am

I think that Julie Burchill's remarks are only surprising if you assume that all feminists are politically progressive. Burchill occupies the extreme right of British politics. If she said the same thing about Jews as she says about prostitutes, she would rightly end up in Court and the Guardian wouldn't give her space to air her reactionary viewpoints. I find Burchill's support for Israel very revealing, she supports the rights of women unless they are pregnant Palestinian women prevented from getting to hospital or a British prostitute just trying to earn a living.

Stannis 16 05 March 2013 9:39am

@david119 - Burchill says controversial things because that is her job, the more controversial things she says the more she gets noticed, same as Clarkson.

I really don't think that she cares whether anything she says actually makes sense, just that it gets attention and increases her profile so she can sell books, articles etc. I don't blame her for this, she is entertaining at times and a shrewd operator as well as one of the few high profile working class journalists, but lets not pretend she is a great intellectual and wet ourselves every time she says something.

pastis 05 March 2013 12:26pm

one of the few high profile working class journalists

Nonsense. There are plenty of other journalists who come from working class backgrounds.

Stannis 6 05 March 2013 1:10pm

@pastis - "There are plenty of other journalists who come from working class backgrounds."

At the Guardian?!

baboon2006 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 139 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 2:14pm

@david119 - then this pretty much makes her not a feminist, but someone claiming to be a feminist, doesn't it? only being interested in opposing certain kinds of oppression against women means that your interests lie not in opposing the oppression of women.

Lokischild 05 March 2013 4:12pm

@Stannis - Good point!

Francesca1970 19 05 March 2013 9:19am

'Marriage continues to be considered to veil sex with respectability, whatever its financial motivations. Nobody campaigns against the career courtesans who are Belgravia bankers' wives, or the footballers' consorts of Cheshire. The message: sex for money is fine – just put a ring on it before you put out. Prostitutes, in contrast, are "asking for it", and by "it" we appear to mean everything: rape, aggression, murder. It is as if their work renders them inhuman. They are "fallen women", and what they have fallen from is humanity itself.'

Bravo! I couldn't agree more with this statement - marrying a rich guy because you are too clueless, talentless and lazy to have proper integrity in a relationship is hilarious.

It is these women that are the lowest of the low.

... and yes, as the lady below states - 'Decriminalise prostitution' - women should have way more control over what they are doing and who they are doing it with. Prostitution should be a choice not a shackle.

classof79 17 05 March 2013 9:16am

If I were a feminist I'd be more exercised by Cosmo and the rest, screaming from their covers that "We are modern woman and we are all gagging for it". As a red- blooded male I would cry in my beer when I sneaked a peep at their articles in a waiting room thinking "Bugger! Why can't I meet women like that?"

Natisha030 05 March 2013 9:21am

@classof79 - Sorry but red blooded male's do not say things like if i were

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 140 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

a feminist ,, come out this is 2013 not 1913 there is nothing for you to be afraid of , be brave and do it

classof79 4 05 March 2013 9:32am

@Natisha030 - If I were female and a feminist then. If feminism means that women make themselves more sexually available then don't complain if men think "What's not to like?"

Natisha030 23 05 March 2013 9:41am

@classof79 - Being a feminist dose not mean making youself sexually available to men , it means dressing how you want and not being judged by men ,its our right as women to dress how we want and i say that as a veteran of many slut marches

deezer 21 05 March 2013 9:49am

@classof79 -

If feminism means that women make themselves more sexually available

That's not what feminism means.

You're thinking about a woman's sexuality in terms of how available she is to a man's boner.

Lokischild 4 05 March 2013 9:59am

@classof79 - It is because your first thought was bugger, best to leave that until later in the relationship.

robc1947 05 March 2013 10:34am

@Natisha030 - can't anyone do that ? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 141 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

classof79 12 05 March 2013 10:41am

@deezer - I'm straight and like shagging, shock, horror! Got a problem with that?

classof79 4 05 March 2013 10:43am

@Natisha030 - How many men have been converted to your cause by slut marches?

deezer 14 05 March 2013 11:02am

@classof79 -

I'm straight and like shagging, shock, horror! Got a problem with that?

That's cool, good for you pet.

No, I had an issue with your ridiculous assertion that feminism is about women making themselves more sexually available to men.

Phazer 7 05 March 2013 11:15am

@deezer -

No, I had an issue with your ridiculous assertion that feminism is about women making themselves more sexually available to men.

It's no more ridiculous that the concept it isn't about that.

Feminism should be about saying a woman has a choice to do what she wants with her own sexuality, but as a term it has been co-opted by too many people who want to use it to attack women they don't like that it's become meaningless.

Sneezy2013 7 05 March 2013 12:05pm http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 142 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@classof79 - Cosmo is a fantasy comic and if its feminist then I am Brad Pitt.

It sells the ridiculous fantasy of "having it all"; the "all" in question being to look like a teenage model; achieve like a middle-aged intellectual; have the standard of living of a movie star; be a fantastic parent; have a hugely successful marriage and a passionate affair at the same time and be able to expect and have people effectively acting as if their whole aim in life is to serve you.

All thought up buy a woman who acted like a groveling slave towards her own husband.

OK as a bit of fun, but about as real as the lifestyle portrayed in Sex and the City.

Mind you, plenty of dafties have tried to live the SITC lifestyle as well.

As Barnum said "there's one born every minute".

classof79 1 05 March 2013 12:55pm

@deezer -

No, I had an issue with your ridiculous assertion that feminism is about women making themselves more sexually available to men.

No, that was not my point, there's more to feminism than that. However, even you must admit that it is a by-product of feminism

classof79 05 March 2013 12:59pm

@Sneezy2013 - That's your opinion but perception is everything. It is a mainstream magazine written by women for woman. What's your average bloke to think?

deezer 7 05 March 2013 1:01pm

@classof79 -

I think that the acceptance of female sexuality is not about women making themselves 'available' to men, but more about doing what they want, and enjoying their sexuality without fear of judgement, shame or stigma. Many women are very sexual but in no way 'available to men'. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 143 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I think perhaps you worded things in a way that you didn't quite mean, and I took issue with! I guess the better acceptance of female pleasure and sexuality is certainly a by product.

Not that I think we have fully reached that stage. Especially not prostitutes.

robi 2 05 March 2013 4:12pm

@Natisha030 -

Being a feminist dose not mean making youself sexually available to men , it means dressing how you want and not being judged by men ,its our right as women to dress how we want and i say that as a veteran of many slut marches

There is no such right. There may, arguably, be a right to dress how you want, and I am not opposed to, or necessarily judgemental, of women dressing scantily personally. That said, you have a right to say what you want and dress how you want, and everybody else has the right to judge you for it.

jameslegrand 1 05 March 2013 6:24pm

@deezer -

Right deezer. But admit sometimes there might be some cookie crumbs to us men as well... But prostitutes do not enjoy sex with their clients, instead they are sex slaves, so how can you say they are in command?

deezer 3 05 March 2013 7:39pm

@jameslegrand -

Well, I can't say I know what is true for all prostitutes - I only know three personally, and well enough to have spoken about their work, and not one of them enjoys it one bit - but they speak about it like a cleaner might speak about scrubbing a toilet, or a customer services person

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 144 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

handling a complaint.

What I do think is that whether they enjoy it or not, and whether they do it willingly or otherwise, no prostitute should not be subjected to hate or ridicule because they are seen as 'dirty' or 'bad' women (or men).

Lokischild 19 05 March 2013 9:15am

It's a murky world particularly for the prostitute. I would not want to think that any of my relatives worked as such yet I find it difficult to either condemn or support people who do. There is always the question as to how a woman or girl came to be so employed; did she choose it and was that choice motivated by idleness or greed or has she been forced or trafficked into it? Because of the chance that a woman might be forced into prostitution and other aspects that generally might link prostitution to organised crime I think such activity should be discouraged.

Two parts of the article that leapt out at me:

"Ladies wearing shiny things, high heels, and makeup also Very Suspect". That's me guilty as charged, then, and my eight-year-old niece.

I disapprove of 8 year old girls wearing high heels. It is part of the sexualisation of children that should be discouraged.

Nobody campaigns against the career courtesans who are Belgravia bankers' wives, or the footballers' consorts of Cheshire. The message: sex for money is fine – just put a ring on it before you put out.

They might not campaign but they certainly don't like. WAGS is a pejorative description for the Cheshire set and Heather Mills was despised by many for getting the ring on. As for the bankers perhaps prostitution is seeing as offering better value for money than banking and having a better ethical standard.

Oldfeminist 25 05 March 2013 9:32am

@Lokischild - You are absolutely right about the sexualisation of children...this is exactly how grooming begins and girls are trained to perform for men. Prostitution is not about what women choose...they are doing it because they see no other options.

PennieB 20 05 March 2013 9:45am

@Lokischild -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 145 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I disapprove of 8 year old girls wearing high heels. It is part of the sexualisation of children that should be discouraged.

I agree but I also disapprove of 8 year old girls wearing high heels because of the long-term damage done to their growing bodies. If the parents of some of these kids could see the damage, they would keep their daughters in flat shoes until they'd stopped growing.

Sorry - off-thread and a personal rant! It'll probably be mod-ed (but I've put it in for "educational" reasons.)

Lokischild 1 05 March 2013 9:54am

@PennieB - That was another reason that I thought to mention but left out in my continually unsuccessful quest of less is more.

Lokischild 05 March 2013 9:56am

@Lokischild - 'seen as offering'.

JimNolan 8 05 March 2013 10:50am

@Lokischild - We all hate bankers, of course, but the notion that they are married to beauty queens and underwear models who they meet in the VIP section of the nightclub won't fly.

They typically marry people they meet at work - some bankers are married to men they met at work.

Geeky_Disco 11 05 March 2013 12:10pm

@Oldfeminist -

Ive met women who very much did choose prostitution - in a safe environment. They regarded it as their best option to make the kind of money they did. Who are you or I to say that judgment is wrong? I think they very much have a point. Of course, I appreciate that for you it is maybe better to paint it as a coercion. Perhaps you believe it impossible that a woman might actually choose to be fucked over and over again for cash?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 146 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

If someone would pay me that kind of money do you think I'd be drudging down to the 9-5?

allenc 8 05 March 2013 12:58pm

@Lokischild - I disapprove of 8 year old girls wearing high heels. It is part of the sexualisation of children that should be discouraged.

It's a child copying the adults, it's what kids do, it's how they learn to be adults.

What is to be discouraged is the "oh my god, it's sexualisation!" response. It's idiotic.

JimNolan 3 05 March 2013 12:59pm

@Geeky_Disco -

If someone would pay me that kind of money do you think I'd be drudging down to the 9-5?

What's the most you've been offered, and how much are you looking to get?

Geeky_Disco 7 05 March 2013 1:08pm

@JimNolan -

I've never been offered (unsurprising, they cry) but if you have the wherewithal to furnish a reasonable and secure lifestyle in exchange for the use of a slightly overweight, middle-aged male body (lightly used) then I'm all ears.

JimNolan 2 05 March 2013 1:26pm

@Geeky_Disco - I don't think you've ever even tried to sell your bottom. You're middle-aged, you say, but you must have been eighteen once and if nobody has ever named a price then I doubt whether you've ever put an ad in a newspaper or in a shop window.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 147 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

noonenoone 4 05 March 2013 1:46pm

@Lokischild - I disapprove of 8 year old girls wearing high heels. It is part of the sexualisation of children that should be discouraged.

Oh behave yourself. As a child I used to try on and hobble about on my older relatives heels. It has nothing to do with sexualisation as I question the mentality of those that associate such a thing with a child trying on some over size shoes because they think it's funny and are imitating adults.

funwithwhips 8 05 March 2013 3:31pm

@Oldfeminist - that is TOTAL bollocks. Some are , I won't argue, but MANY MANY aren't. They go for the easy money and many ENJOY it.

I personally Hate the fact that I have ot get up every morning, deal with the assholes on the tube, drag myself into an office. I have had a boss before who gave me an OFFICIAL verbal warning for eating breakfast at my desk. I have had to deal with bankers at work who seem to think it's OK to give my number to their kids for IT support all hours of the day and THEN complain when I anser the phone pissed and tell them to piss off.

These girls have the choice of the office environment, working 40 hours a week for £7/hour and the daily rat race OR they can get the money that most people earn in a month for a couple of days work and spend the rest of the time chilling out.

Not about choice?!FFS!

Lokischild 2 05 March 2013 3:35pm

@allenc - I'm so glad to read that the children in your environment are 'just copying adults' and I assume that the 'copying' of adult behaviour is monitored to ensure that adult behaviour or behaviour with adults does not ensue. Unfortunately the norms of our respective worlds occupy but a small space and elsewhere my response is not quite so idiotic as it is in yours.

Lokischild 2 05 March 2013 3:46pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 148 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@noonenoone - of course at one end of the scale kids try on adults shoes but there is another end to that scale one where the shoes are not oversized but intended to fit and totter gets mistaken for totty.

noonenoone 05 March 2013 4:44pm

@Lokischild -

I'm sure the type of people that would view a child as being "totty" will do so regardless if they are wearing heels or not.

Little mini heels for dress up have been around for decades.

jameslegrand 05 March 2013 6:08pm

@Oldfeminist - I think she was referring to shiny things in relation to the eight year-old...

Lokischild 2 05 March 2013 6:20pm

@noonenoone -

Little mini heels for dress up have been around for decades.

Is foot binding still popular?

noonenoone 1 05 March 2013 7:01pm

@Lokischild -

In China it's banned. Not that it has anything to do with the topic.

Why are you not attacking those that view minors in a sexual way rather than moan about kids dressing up in heels? Do you not allow your children (regardless of gender) to dress up and play with makeup, or do you not want them to have fun?

Lokischild 2

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 149 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

06 March 2013 12:00am

@noonenoone - You surprise me in thinking that foot binding is off topic. Surely the wearing of high heels to display female limbs to the best advantage of male desire is directly linked to foot binding. I know that the high heel is western and that the foot binding is eastern but it is still the female being prepared for the male.

I am attacking those who view minors in a sexual way by suggesting that we should not help them to come to such a view. Dressing up and playing with makeup is, as I have already suggested, one end of a continuum the other end of which may well rest in child abuse.

MrJoe 30 05 March 2013 9:13am

Those people aren't feminists. They're authoritarian puritans that call themselves feminists solely so that they can cry misogyny whenever they're criticised.

The result being that across societies, our own "liberal" state included, whore-bashing – literal and metaphorical – is somehow deemed acceptable.

That would be because our society isn't in the least bit liberal, we just pretend it is.

For example, most media organisations are holding up the gay marriage campaign as an example of progressive liberalism - but it's no such thing.

Which of the following phrases is liberal? "The government shouldn't dictate what kind of relationship is legitimate" or "the government should add my preferred kind of relationship to the special list of legitimate relationship types". See also "social taboos shouldn't be given legal backing" vs "social taboos have changed, let's change the law so that the new taboos are legally enforced".

Geeky_Disco 14 05 March 2013 12:05pm

@MrJoe -

Have you noticed how everything is misogyny these days? Is it the new "paedophile" - the thing you don't want to be accused of?

Frankly, I subscribe to the view that the more the word is bandied about willy nilly the less force it holds and the less power it has.

Some would have you believe that if you even disagree with a woman on a newspaper comments section these days then it's clear evidence of misogyny and that you hate all women.

Illiberal is what these people are pure and simple.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 150 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

funwithwhips 3 05 March 2013 3:18pm

@Geeky_Disco - I openly describe myself as a misogenist so when these fools have a go and call me one I just reply "yes?and?"

whether they get the irony or not, I don't really care, I just like to live in the smug knowledge that I make them angry

jameslegrand 3 05 March 2013 6:05pm

@MrJoe - What kind of a pathetic feminist would like more women to become prostitutes? If acceptance of prostitution is all this latter-day feminism has to offer today's women , no wonder ever fewer women choose to identify as feminists.

I know your'e not one of the sharpest tools, Mr Joe, but this really is not about "relationships". The prostitute doesn't have a relationship with her client. It is about institutionalized violence against women. It's about ripping women off via crime syndicates for selling their bodies , the most dehumanizing activity there is. I fail to see how someone can with a straight face suggest this oughta be legal. I repeat prostitution is institutionalized violence towards women.

MrJoe 1 06 March 2013 12:52am

@jameslegrand -

If acceptance of prostitution is all this latter-day feminism has to offer today's women , no wonder ever fewer women choose to identify as feminists.

As you point out, fewer women than ever choose to identify as feminists - that is a message to those puritans that have hijacked the feminist movement that women want little to do with them.

yvgeny 13 05 March 2013 9:12am

Decriminalise, I agree. It's the only way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 151 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

jameslegrand 4 05 March 2013 5:54pm

@yvgeny - When you decriminalize the amount of prostitution will shoot up. It has happened in every country where it has been done. And then you can no longer punish international crime syndicates of pimps that make money on women's bodies. So if you want more prostitution and more power to criminal gangs and to hand them free risk free money decriminalize prostitution. But you yevgney, Jevgeni that is, would like that now, would you not? Russian?

Natisha030 19 05 March 2013 9:11am

I was recently released from prison after being incarcerated for stealing food & a play station for my kids .while inside i met many women who are being forced into prostitution to feed their kids by this draconian government, women that have nowhere else to turn , desperate wemen being forced to do desperate things . women on the edge .

Sex work can be an honrable occupation but it should never be takon up as an instant fix for financial needs

Sneezy2013 19 05 March 2013 11:56am

@Natisha030 - Having to steal a playstation for ones children!

Oh, the humanity!!

Geeky_Disco 14 05 March 2013 12:01pm

@Sneezy2013 -

You've misquoted Natisha Sneezy old bean. She didn't say "having to steal a Playstation". She just said "stealing a Playstation".

Nice way to make her seems morally worse. But she doesn't say why she did it. Just that she did.

Sneer, sneer.

deezer 3 05 March 2013 12:43pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 152 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@Geeky_Disco - Was just about to reply but you have said what I was thinking.

JimNolan 4 05 March 2013 1:01pm

@Natisha030 - Choosing to steal a playstation for ones children!

Oh, the humanity!!

[Everyone happy now?]

baboon2006 7 05 March 2013 2:08pm

@Sneezy2013 - You noticeably avoided acknowledging the bit about food. Didn't fit in easily enough with your imperative to express as much contempt for others as possible, I suppose.

baboon2006 2 05 March 2013 2:10pm

@Sneezy2013 - @Sneezy2013 - You noticeably avoided acknowledging the bit about food. Not easy enough to express contempt about that, eh?

Geeky_Disco 05 March 2013 3:27pm

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

maxdevere 38 05 March 2013 9:05am

You won't hear me say too many good things about Australia, but brothels are legal here and regulated, it's not an issue for most people here. If your daughter or mine became a sex worker, wouldn't you want her to be afforded some protection, some rights instead of being at high risk of violence and intimidation from punters, police, politicians and these so called feminists. Really it's shameful and disgusting to treat sex workers as inhuman. How could these women dare call themselves feminists, fascists more like.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 153 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

MrVholes 63 05 March 2013 9:04am

A lot of stick about feminists in the above comments, but I will bet it wasn't a woman who told Maganti she should be gang-raped. There's loads of sicko men who post vile abuse online.

deezer 8 05 March 2013 9:45am

@MrVholes -

MrV, you have made some really fair, good points on CiF lately.

dfic1999 14 05 March 2013 10:37am

@MrVholes -

A lot of stick about feminists in the above comments, but I will bet it wasn't a woman who told Maganti she should be gang- raped.

Even if you want to be reassured that women never, ever behave in such a fashion, there's still a 50% chance you might be wrong.

insertfunnyusername 9 05 March 2013 1:15pm

@MrVholes -

"A lot of stick about feminists in the above comments, but I will bet it wasn't a woman who told Maganti she should be gang-raped. There's loads of sicko men who post vile abuse online."

Yes, I'm sure you know better than Magnanti about the abuse, the threats she has received.

There's loads of sicko HUMANS who pose vile abuse, and death threats. Some of them are, yes, feminists.

funwithwhips 7 05 March 2013 3:15pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 154 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@MrVholes - so all those teenage girls who posted "I hope you die" comments on twitter and you tube on the "Friday, Friday" video were actually men in disguise.

robi 05 March 2013 4:16pm

@insertfunnyusername -

There's loads of sicko HUMANS who pose vile abuse, and death threats. Some of them are, yes, feminists.

A disproportionate number, it seems.

robi 05 March 2013 4:18pm

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

pandg 07 March 2013 3:11am

@insertfunnyusername - Brooke Magnanti doesn't say that feminists or even women generally have said she should be gang-raped. she was non-specific about the sources. I am certain given Ms. Magnanti's views on feminists, if she thought a feminist had said that, she and Hannah Betts would have made the point explicitly. As you say, she would know.

whatithink 33 05 March 2013 8:57am

The problem is that angry prudes have decided that the word feminist should be used to mean angry prude. Angry prudes hate prostitutes. Angry prudes rant on about 'people trafficking' and other made up crimes in an attempt to justify laws to persecute and imprison prostitutes. Feminists don't hate prostitutes. We don't seem to have many live feminists left.

Cornishfieldmouse 11 05 March 2013 8:56am

Eight - year - old niece ? What's that all about ?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 155 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

robi 35 05 March 2013 8:54am

The argument and general level of debate in the UK about prostitution is absurd and extremely self-indulgent. Both the prostitute and the punter are viewed as criminals, or at best scum, and people do not want to criminalise the use of prostitutes in order to protect prostitutes, but just out of moral panic and prudery. Somehow the people actually involved in prostitution and the reasons for it have been completely excluded by the debate by women (and a few bible bashing men) supposedly acting on their behalf, despite having no experience of that world.

Geeky_Disco 18 05 March 2013 11:57am

@robi -

This is because the debate is selfish. It's all about "me and my morals and what I feel comfortable with". It's NOT about the actual people who might ever be involved in it as a legal pursuit - the women and their clients.

In short, it's twitching curtains prudery, something we Brits have always been world class at.

baboon2006 8 05 March 2013 2:03pm

@Geeky_Disco - true. Discussion about prostitution becomes another vehicle for the seemingly endless supply of contempt and hatred that some people find within themselves. It could almost be supposed that they have issues that they have not dealt with....

jameslegrand 3 05 March 2013 5:45pm

@Geeky_Disco - Has it ever occurred to you that the question of morals and the question of how you feel might be linked? As in if you follow morals of some sort maybe you feel better? It's not selfish to teach people that, it's not selfish to teach people morals if it makes them feel better. It's a gross underestimation of people that they could live entirely without morals - it will make them unhappy.

And I certainly see no moral panic around the question of prostitution . If anything everyone is trying to outmaneuver each other at how cool and indifferent they are to it. But I'm not sure that's the right approach. The

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 156 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

hate against prostitutes... hmmm... but the opposite of of love is not hate it's indifference.

Geeky_Disco 2 05 March 2013 7:59pm

@jameslegrand -

I see no virtue in having a certain morality to make oneself feel good. Don't they call that narcissism? Morals are unavoidable. But which ones you have are not fixed.

TVwriter 34 05 March 2013 8:47am

MSP Rhoda Grant, who is sponsoring an "end demand for sex trafficking" bill in the Scottish parliament, declaring violence against sex workers a price worth paying to secure her proposals.

I took the trouble to read the link you provide to back up that statement, which actually claims

whilst Rhoda Grant pledged to fight poverty she was not prepared to recognise that her proposals would plunge sex workers into even deeper financial straits. Indeed, when asked about her justification for the collateral damage her legislative changes would cause, she suggested that damage to individual sex workers was a price worth paying for the settlement to be established.

No mention of violence. I think you're being deliberately misleading, to put it politely.

CordwainerBird 19 05 March 2013 9:52am

@TVwriter 05 March 2013 8:47am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/my-response-to-rhoda- grants.html

It has been reported that at a meeting in London at the House of Commons in November, Rhoda Grant said that harm or attacks that might be suffered by sex workers as the result of this bill was a “price worth paying”.

The mention of violence (or attacks) is here. Of course it has only 'been reported' so it may be that Grant's words are being taken out of context, but I don't think there is any intention to mislead on Hannah Betts' part.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 157 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

TVwriter 6 05 March 2013 10:50am

@CordwainerBird - Then it would have been better had she linked to that rather than the Huffington Post piece which - taken at face value - means the 'collateral damage' was that of increased poverty. That of course in some circumstances could contribute to an increased risk of violence, but I'd like to see better support for Betts' bald assertion that Grant said 'violence against sex workers [is] a price worth paying'.

ratherannoyed 12 05 March 2013 11:03am

@TVwriter - yes I spotted that (after you of course). I'm not sure that I would give Betts the benefit of the doubt. Her whole piece seems to be posited on the completely unsupported assertion that people, and feminist women in particular, hate prostitutes. Her evidence apparently being something that Burchill wrote 25 years ago!

I can't say I have ever come across hostility to prostitutes as such except from orthodox religious people. Most people I've met seem to approve of the licensed brothel idea. Only of course, not on their street.

RodriguanFruitBat 3 05 March 2013 4:36pm

@CordwainerBird - Well, there may not be any intention to mislead but it's pretty poor quality journalism (and surely libellous to Rhoda Grant?), if all she's got is "it has been reported".

As TVwriter said, the piece she linked to to support the claim seems to make it pretty clear that on that occasion at least, Ms Grant was talking about financial damage.

I don't disagree with the OP - actually I support her view of this issue. But I prefer my newspapers fact-checked.

RodriguanFruitBat 2 05 March 2013 4:46pm

@CordwainerBird - Actually, I've just seen that the "sexonomics" blog you quote from actually seems to source "it has been reported" to that same Huffington Post article that Betts links to. Which said nothing of the kind. So, as far as I can see, there's no reason whatsoever to think she

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 158 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

said it.

Round and round we go, taking a rumour from one place, 'confirming' it in another, then repeating it and it's all just the same rumour - isn't the Internet wonderful?

Again, I'm not opposed to Ms Betts' arguments. But I think newspapers should be held to higher standards than blogs and tweets, or there's no point in having them. You can't just go around accusing people of being oblivious to murder and assault.

CordwainerBird 3 05 March 2013 5:24pm

@RodriguanFruitBat 05 March 2013 4:46pm. Get cifFix for Firefox

Actually, I've just seen that the "sexonomics" blog you quote from actually seems to source "it has been reported" to that same Huffington Post article that Betts links to.

You're quite right. If Hannah Betts can't account for the source the perhaps Brooke Magnanti, who occasionally blogs here can. I agree it needs some clarification.

So, as far as I can see, there's no reason whatsoever to think she said it.

As you say, isn't the internet wonderful! However, the 'Prostitution and Sexual Exploitation: Tackling Demand in the UK' meeting at the House Of Commons where this was supposedly said appears to have been well attended, and minuted presumably, so I would presume there is a definitive answer out there somewhere. One thing to bear in mind is that the title or Rhoda Grant's paper is "Paying The Price" so I'm wondering if "A price worth paying" is perhaps a play on the title of the report and not something she actually said after all.

jameslegrand 3 05 March 2013 5:33pm

@TVwriter - Outrageous! This article is perfectly vile in many respects.

RodriguanFruitBat 2 05 March 2013 5:48pm

@CordwainerBird - Yup, I agree. Magnanti's tweet especially seems outrageous.

If it was just a public meeting in the House of Commons, though, rather

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 159 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

than official business, there's unlikely to be a transcript or detailed minutes. You just get a room to hold a meeting in, I think, if an ordinary MP sponsors it.

Bandarlog 06 March 2013 12:37am

@TVwriter - Thank you. It beggars belief. Actually in Libby Brooks' earlier article on this subject she had the same contempt for the truth. It was a disgraceful piece of churnalism for the prostitution-lobby as is this piece evidently.

This absolute desperate slugging from British and American women to prevent any attempt to deal with prostitution via legislation is just so insane.

robi 39 05 March 2013 8:46am

To be honest it's prostitution is not a great job and is probably quite depressing/unpleasant for the prostitute. Unforunately, most menial jobs could fit that description- and for the average prostitute the choice is between a menial or low skilled job, the dole, or prostitution which at least earns them a reasonable amount of money. I, personally, don't think I would never use a prostitute, but I can understand why some people would, and I think that the 'harm' done to the prostitute is overplayed. In most cases, they do choose to go into this occupation of their own free will- and if femnism means anything it means that men can't be expected to make life choices for women.

There are of course exceptions at both ends. On the one hand there are call girls like Brook Magnati who might actually enjoy the work, and at the other there are underage drug addicts, often out of care, who have no other options. In the latter case I certainly think men should not be taking advantage of these girls, but the reality is that they go into prostitution because they have no other choices and there is little help or support from the government or the community. At least regulating the business would help to catch the girls who fall into this category and also help to provide prostitues with better working conditions

Last but not least, a lot of rot is spoken about the 'indignity' of prostitution. The indignity is not in the act itself- it comes from the way society views it. If you talk about the 'indignity' of prostitution, then all you are doing is contributing to the belief that prostitution is an undignified and low status activity. People who view prostitution as undignified (rather than just another job) are the ones who make it undignified.

robi 2 05 March 2013 8:48am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 160 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@robi - apologies for the spelling errors, I've been up all night.

SteppenHerring 34 05 March 2013 9:11am

@robi 05 March 2013 8:46am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

I take your point - which is, I think: for those who chose prostitution (e.g. Dr. Magnati), fine, go ahead, fill your boots.

For the teenagers just out of care, maybe with addiction problems who have no other choice it is not fine. This is clearly exploitation.

It would be nice if society gave these youngsters another choice. Something which we seem fairly piss-poor at currently.

Phazer 7 05 March 2013 11:03am

@SteppenHerring -

For the teenagers just out of care, maybe with addiction problems who have no other choice it is not fine.

Sure. But lots of sources for supposedly legitimate employment are also awful for teenagers just out of care for addiction problems. Nobody calls for those jobs to be criminalised as a whole as a result.

The answer to those problems are to look at a government that has decided that abandoning those out of the care system and with drug issues is worth saving trivial sums of money.

Malasangra 5 05 March 2013 4:34pm

@SteppenHerring -

For the teenagers just out of care, maybe with addiction problems who have no other choice it is not fine. This is clearly exploitation.

The best way of doing that is to control and regular the sex industry, not the feminist strategy of persecuting sex workers and their punters.

Malasangra 2 05 March 2013 4:35pm http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 161 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@Malasangra - That should read

"the best way of preventing that"

jameslegrand 3 05 March 2013 5:31pm

@robi - What a load of tosh! Every point of your writing is wrong. The comparison with menial jobs ignores that prostitution deals with far more personal area of life than any menial jobs and is thus likely to cause much more damage. It is an area that we traditionally count as part of our private life : sex life. It therefore destroys all possibility of right to normal private life. That renders a person deeply unhappy.

Prostitution, once entered into, is an irreversible decision. Even if you manage to get yourself out of it materially and in the economic sense you will never get rid of the emotional damage it has inflicted on your person. This alone should be a reason why such a "trade" should not be accepted in our society, if it calls itself civilized.

And the wrong in the act is indeed in the act itself, it has nothing to do with the society. It is just wrong in itself to sell your body for money. You give up your dignity as human being and independent sexual agent when you do that. That is wrong. It is also wrong, equally wrong, for the buyer to try to buy a human being. It is an attempt to enslave that person. As such it should be punishable. Sex is meant to be a voluntary social and emotional tie between two human beings, not a commercial transaction. And if it's not right for you, don't advocate it to be allright for anybody else, either. I find this not for me but let others do it a little hypocritical.

robi 6 05 March 2013 6:25pm

@jameslegrand -

It therefore destroys all possibility of right to normal private life. That renders a person deeply unhappy.

Who says, you? Why does it destroy all possibility of a right to a private life-? Why do you deign to speak on the behalf of prostitutes 'for their own good'?

There is not some metaphysical distinction which makes sex some kind of sacred private act. Seperated from love, it is a physical act like any other physical act, fufilling a want. Your views are quaint and cannot be justified through argument.

Prostitution, once entered into, is an irreversible decision.

will never get rid of the emotional damage it has inflicted on your person. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 162 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Who says, you?

t is just wrong in itself to sell your body for money. You give up your dignity as human being and independent sexual agent when you do that.

Who says you? The only thing making prostitution undignified is your view, and view of society, on prostitution. There is nothing innate to the work itself which makes it undignified- status is a societal construct.

hat is wrong. It is also wrong, equally wrong, for the buyer to try to buy a human being. It is an attempt to enslave that person.

Who says you? In what way is prostitution trying to 'buy another human being' or slavery? It is merely a service, the prostitute does not become the property of the punter in any meaningful sense.

Sex is meant to be a voluntary social and emotional tie between two human beings, not a commercial transaction.

Who says, you?

Basically, there is not a single argument in your post. It is merely a series of contentious statements dressed up as fact. You give no reason for believing that sex is some sacred act.

SteppenHerring 94 05 March 2013 8:46am

You could almost get the impression that Julie Burchill isn't a very nice person.

TruculentSheep 42 05 March 2013 9:30am

@SteppenHerring - Or a writer of any note. She's a rentagob and a troll, and nothing more.

timethatthetalewere 5 05 March 2013 10:36am

@TruculentSheep -

Buchll' ok. She's funny.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 163 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

TruculentSheep 3 05 March 2013 11:25am

@timethatthetalewere - So's Boris Johnson, and they both get issued a larger than usual get-out-of-jail-free cards as a result.

baboon2006 05 March 2013 2:01pm

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billforsyth 14 05 March 2013 8:43am

As well as the legalisation or decriminalising of prostitution, would it not also be appropriate to do the same with regards to drugs as many of the street prostitutes are also drug addicts and are therefore doubly vulnerable due to both activities being mired in criminality.It would appear that Rhoda Grant M S P is enamoured of the Swedish model of treating prostitution ,without it seems studying the reality on the ground where prostitution has been driven further underground thus depriving those who work as prostitutes even further of protection.

It is not enough to simply dislike or disapprove of any particular activity and those charged with enabling legislation in the public sphere should leave the ideology and the cant to one side and listen to the practical advice given to them by those who know the situation ,before rushing for legislation.

HarryTheHorse 27 05 March 2013 9:19am

@billforsyth 05 March 2013 8:43am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

As well as the legalisation or decriminalising of prostitution

Prostitution is legal in England and Wales and I assume also in Scotland. The problem is that nearly all the ways that a prostitute can carry out her business are illegal - soliciting, running an "immoral house" and so on. Surely all policies and laws related to prostitution should geared towards reduction of harm?

Therefore licensed brothels should be permitted as it is safer for a prostitute to work in one of those than on the streets. That would have the effect of clearing the streets of all but the most desperate people who could then be targetted for help. Better for the residents of those streets, better for the prostitutes, better for everyone, I should think.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 164 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Malasangra 59 05 March 2013 8:42am

Feminism does appear to have become a safe haven for old fashioned puritan bigots.

ratherannoyed 26 05 March 2013 10:54am

@Malasangra - Oh really? What evidence does Betts actually put forward that feminists or indeed anyone else hates prostitutes? A quote from a twenty five year old article by Julie Burchill? Ooh, I'm convinced.

Just who is in this cohort of feminists hating on sex workers? No names, no numbers given. Could they be made of straw, I wonder?

And what did the misguided Rhoda Grant really say about collateral damage? I see that the Betts links to another opinion piece about Grant, but somehow the actual words she said have got lost.

The whole piece strikes me as a spiteful rant directed at Betts' favourite (and largely imaginary) hate figures. Journalism at its most sordid.

RoryYeo 8 05 March 2013 1:04pm

@ratherannoyed - If you would like some examples of feminist hatred towards female sex workers, I would suggest browsing Laura Agustin's Naked Anthropologist website. She has masses of grisly examples - just follow the subject clouds. If that has just a little bit too much Scandinavian bias for your tastes, you might want to look at just about any Julie Bindel online "debate" with either sex workers or academics who disagree with her stance. http://www.lauraagustin.com/

baboon2006 05 March 2013 2:00pm

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Malasangra 9 05 March 2013 2:30pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 165 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@ratherannoyed -

Oh really? What evidence does Betts actually put forward that feminists or indeed anyone else hates prostitutes?

you mean apart from the hateful quote from Rhoda Grant.

The fact is that many high profile feminists are constantly looking to clamp down on prostitution. The only effect this has ever had is to drive it underground and remove the protection of the law that these (often very vulnerable) men and women need. It's not in anybody's interests it is a policy based on puritan thought.

Feminism at it's most sordid, and deadly.

jameslegrand 8 05 March 2013 5:03pm

@Malasangra - It could not be, I suppose, that the ones who really hate prostitutes are the pimps who beat them to crap and steal their money or the clients who are the most common abusers? Naahn I'm sure it is the feminists who are to blame for prostitution... It is incredible what you can make people to believe... People are really dumb if they believe this.

Malasangra 5 05 March 2013 6:30pm

@jameslegrand -

Naahn I'm sure it is the feminists who are to blame for prostitution

I guess you've got a small stock of feminist arguments guaranteed to get the sisters clapping at a meeting and that's one of them. But..

If you actually read my post you would see that I wasn't "blaming" anyone for prostitution. I was however blaming feminists (and other puritan bigots) for creating a situation that enables brutal pimps to thrive and unpleasant punters to abuse prostitutes by driving it underground.

pandg 3 07 March 2013 2:36am

@Malasangra - What hateful quote from Rhoda Grant?

In the article and the linked article from Alex Bryce, I have read three descriptions of what she said: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 166 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

1. Hannah Betts says that Rhoda Grant declared that violence against prostitutes is acceptable. Ms. Betts does not say she actually heard Rhoda Grant make that declaration. She relies for her source on the article by Alex Bryce. 2. Brooke Magnanti says that Rhoda Grant thinks it is okay for prostitutes to die. She too did not hear Rhoda Grant say that. She also relies on Alex Bryce's article. 3. Alex Bryce says, first, that that a proposition was put to Ms. Grant that her proposals would cause economic hardship to prostitutes. Ms. Grant rejected the proposition. Ms. Grant was asked to justify her proposals in the face of economic hardship caused to prostitutes because of the proposals (the proposition she rejected). Mr. Bryce did not report Ms. Grant’s actual response. Instead he reported that her answer suggested to him that Ms. Grant accepted that financial hardship was a price worth paying.

Nowhere in the article is there a factual recording of what Rhoda Grant actually said. Perhaps before crying her down as hateful and damagerous to prostitutes, it might be a good idea to verify what she actually said, no?

It is absolute rubbish, and ridiculous, to suggest that feminism is responsible for violence against prostitutes. The laws regulating prostitution were in place long before women had the vote and long before feminism existed, and yet violence exists. Feminist so far have not succeeded in changing the existing laws nor have they succeeded in preventing the legalisation of prostitution-related activities.

Prostitution is an inherently dangerous occupation because prostitutes are beaten, raped and killed by their punters and pimps, who are invariably men. Feminism has little influence over that reality.

pandg 07 March 2013 2:39am

@pandg - or even "dangerous"

robi 43 05 March 2013 8:35am

Feminism is a defunct ideology, not really relevant in the west. Feminism as a political movement fighting for equal rights has in the past been successful, what has been left over from those days are a lot of sociology and a few talking heads making some ill gotten money spewing their bigoted and dogmatic ideology in every available forum. Feminism has turned into an industry.

That's not to say that sexism against women had gone, or that battles no longer need to be fought, but feminist dogma- a mixture of victorian high minded purity mixed with typical female angst and insecurity (note- depilation) and the odd bit of supremicism and misandry- has long ceased being relevant, if it ever was.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 167 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

TruculentSheep 24 05 March 2013 9:29am

@robi - Depends on what you mean by 'Feminism'.

deezer 13 05 March 2013 10:01am

@robi -

high minded purity mixed with typical female angst and insecurity (note- depilation) and the odd bit of supremicism and misandry

lol

CordwainerBird 31 05 March 2013 8:34am

This would seem crazed were it not for MSP Rhoda Grant, who is sponsoring an "end demand for sex trafficking" bill in the Scottish parliament, declaring violence against sex workers a price worth paying to secure her proposals.

This policy is dangerous and stupidly impractical and further words on the views of Rhoda Grant and Lord Morrow fail me, or at least ones that would get past the moderators do.

This is a good article and the one from The Huffington Post linked to here is well worth reading as well

CJUnderwood 6 05 March 2013 8:25am

Are they? Thought it was just women that hated them.

deezer 43 05 March 2013 9:44am

@CJUnderwood -

And yet when prostitutes are beaten, raped and killed, it's rarely a woman who gets arrested... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 168 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I wonder if it's possible that you are wrong?

NTEightySix 77 05 March 2013 8:24am

Good article Hannah. The prejudices of a certain grouping of feminists need to be called out at some. On top of their vile hatred towards a few other groups (men, transgendered people, gay women who live 'straight lifestyles'), this one shouldn't come as a surprise either.

Zakelius 14 05 March 2013 12:12pm

@NTEightySix 05 March 2013 8:24am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

The prejudices of a certain grouping of feminists need to be called out at some. On top of their vile hatred towards a few other groups (men, transgendered people, gay women who live 'straight lifestyles'), this one shouldn't come as a surprise either.

If only there was one online place where they congregate in numbers so everyone could make a habit of confronting their prejudice and hatred BTL. If only... Wait! Could it be??

Ah, you know what I'm thinking, half of them work here at the G.

NTEightySix 12 05 March 2013 2:31pm

@Zakelius - Someone has to employ the radfems I suppose. Good for them, bad for the rest of us.

Some of the putrid stuff that the likes of Burchill, her pal Bindel as well as Bidisha have had published on here make me ashamed to be a woman sometimes.

Ken900 31 05 March 2013 8:20am

Prostitutes are 16 year old drug users, who should be given care, protection and rehabilitation not exploitation.

Prosecute the clients.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 169 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

BlackRoads 86 05 March 2013 8:30am

@Ken900 - Way to confine the conversation, Ken. Impressive.

HarryTheHorse 142 05 March 2013 8:34am

@Ken900 05 March 2013 8:20am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

Prostitutes are 16 year old drug users

Except all of those who aren't

TheManFromRotherham 83 05 March 2013 8:47am

@Ken900 -

Prostitutes are 16 year old drug users, who should be given care, protection and rehabilitation not exploitation.

The first prostitutes I ever met or women I knew were prostitutues was in a bar in Holland. I was 20 and desperately looking for somewhere to stay, they were in thier mid 40s (I think) having a drink before calling it a night and going home. One took pity on me and offered me her couchfor the night. After initially freaking me out (did she want my body, my money, would I live to see morning?) I accepted and she let me sleep on her couch for a couple of nights while helping me find somewhere to stay. No, there was no sex or money changing hands and no I have never in my life been with a prostitute. The youthful experience just turned freaky shadowy women into real human beings and it has stayed with me. People make their own choices for many reasons that will never be explained to us. Yes, there are many victims of the sex industry but many willing participants too. I don't see going to the factory for the daily drudge and sixpence an hour any less than prostitution. In many cases I suspect it can be worse. Prostitutues need protection and a regualted and safe environment like everyone else. We can't start to help victims if we make silly claims that all prostitutes are victims.

daisyboo 26 05 March 2013 9:10am

@Ken900 - I agree with you. Strange, and misogynistic that these girls get all the blame. Prostitution

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 170 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

is not a 'nice' job for most girls. How many are already the victims of sexual abuse, their personal boundaries broken down early? Mostly I can only see prostitution as a sad situation, an abusive situation. That's not to say some a (small) minority enjoy it maybe they have a high sex drive, or maybe they are at the high end of sex work. For most it is a miserable life, to be used in the most personal way possible. You are at risk from violence, disease and persecution. 'Maybe' there is a place for it, I think in a licensed brothel where the girls have a safe place to work. If anyone should be despised for me, it would be the men that use these girls.

jefferd 48 05 March 2013 9:33am

@Ken900 - maybe just the ones you use ?

FreedomFromHope 34 05 March 2013 11:04am

@daisyboo -

If anyone should be despised for me, it would be the men that use these girls

No-one need be despised. That's the point.

pimpmasterkdogg 8 05 March 2013 11:14am

@FreedomFromHope - So much hatred in the world today innit, it's like the politics of hate

Geeky_Disco 10 05 March 2013 11:47am

@pimpmasterkdogg -

"it's like the politics of hate" What, feminism is? Interesting point.

pimpmasterkdogg 14 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 171 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 11:58am

@Geeky_Disco - You might be right. Not feminism in its entirety, just when it becomes particularly disagreeable is when it seems to be motivated by hatred (towards men, or the wrong kind of women). But we've had UAF and EDL marches here in Manchester recently and people 'despising' hookers and prostitutes and immigrants and drug users and benefits claimants and hating the left and the right - it becomes pretty tiring. Especially when I have only limited reservoirs of hate to tap into - I'm usually all hated-out after watching a three-minute commercial break.

peterkayforpm 4 05 March 2013 12:50pm

@TheManFromRotherham -

so they would probably be best off,if like everyone else, they could join a trade union

omegamann 5 05 March 2013 12:52pm

@Ken900 -

Prostitutes are 16 year old drug users, who should be given care, protection and rehabilitation not exploitation. Prosecute the clients.

There is a certain observation - a difference between those who have little choice over prostitution, and those who choose to 'escort'. One deserves protection, the other, not so much.

insertfunnyusername 16 05 March 2013 1:13pm

@daisyboo -

"Prostitution is not a 'nice' job for most girls. How many are already the victims of sexual abuse, their personal boundaries broken down early? Mostly I can only see prostitution as a sad situation, an abusive situation."

So, your solution is what? Drive sex workers to the margins of society? If sexual abuse is such a problem, why don't you seek to deal with that? If drug addiction is the problem, deal with it. Why not target the cause, instead of the symptom?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 172 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

"That's not to say some a (small) minority enjoy it maybe they have a high sex drive, or maybe they are at the high end of sex work."

Ah yes, the "if you say you want to do sex work, you are not representative" argument.

"You are at risk from violence, disease and persecution. "

Yes, why? Because sex workers are driven to the margins of society.

"'Maybe' there is a place for it, I think in a licensed brothel where the girls have a safe place to work."

That is the point: better work conditions, better pay, instead of seeking to drive sex workers to the margins of society.

funwithwhips 21 05 March 2013 2:49pm

@TheManFromRotherham - I think Ken900 is a troll. The REAL danger are people like @daiseyboo who think that because they don't like something, it's not right. I don't like kids..lets ban the fuckers from all public transport. I think personally that kids are ewwwww!

There are SOME women who are drug addicted, in the same way that there are SOME women who work in offices who are drug addicted, SOME nurses are drug addicted, SOME investment bankers are drug addicted. On the flip side there are MANY women who are working 2 days a week,earning more than I do in a week (which is a reasonable amount) get to buy all the nice things they want, get to spend most of the time with kids if they have them rather than being stuck in and office 9-5.

It is the British attitude towards sex that is the problem, the complete inability to move away from the Daily Wail attitude to anything.

I personally have been to strip clubs maybe 5 times in the last 6 years, EVERY time I was asked to come along by a straight/bi FEMALE friend who wanted to go & loved the lap dances I bought for them.

It is the idea of a lot of middle class women that they don't like it therefor everyone who does like osmething is mentally challenged.

I like riding motorbikes, it's bloody dangerous, 5 times the death rate over the last 10 years as compared to cylists, I don't see people demanding it be banned?Why not? Because sex isn't involved.Although wierdly, if most bikers were women, I bet people like daisyboo WOULD be demanding it be banned. ;

necropolis 10 05 March 2013 4:30pm

@Ken900 - Ken is not far wrong about this. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 173 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Some 75% of women become involved in prostitution when they are under the age of 18-years-old. 70% of women involved in prostitution have spent time in local authority care and 50% of them reported being victims of childhood abuse. Care homes or women's hostels are notoriously places where predatory men will identify and attempt to groom girls or women for sex.

Also the British Journal of Psychiatry has reported that 68% of women in prostitution show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, although whether this is a consequence of prostitution or prior experiences such as childhood abuse or being removed from their family and being taken into care is maybe open to question. By way of comparison up to a quarter of war veterans would suffer from ptsd.

No matter which way you cut it, the chances are a woman prostitute will more than likely be a highly vulnerable individual who, as Ken remarks, should be given care, protection and rehabilitation. Similarly, those who buy sex from vulnerable women have to ask themselves how comfortable they are with paying for sex when there is a strong chance that very act will be simply reinforcing the damage done. Although given that half of men who use prostitutes either think the women they are having sex with has feelings for them or is sexually satisfied, it is hard wonder if those men could even care less.

daisyboo 7 05 March 2013 4:53pm

@necropolis - You right 100% right. This is my problem with prostitution it is just not a nice business. So many of these girls are hurt and vulnerable and yes most suffer with PTSD. I think men that used them kid themselves that the girls 'enjoy' it. They don't, you are a just another punter. How can any self respecting male pay a young girl (maybe they have a daughter that age) for sex? I work with vulnerable children and I know you are right.

jameslegrand 7 05 March 2013 4:55pm

@Ken900 - I completely agree. And even if they're older it does not mean they cannot be used. Sturdy punishments --not just fines! -- to abusers of women. This is wrong . It corrupts everything we hold valuable in human life.

daisyboo 3 05 March 2013 5:03pm

@insertfunnyusername - I do target the cause, and the causes need to http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 174 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

be addressed instead of ignored. Take the Rochdale sex abuse case, how long was that ignored for? Disgraceful. But not unusual. I don't want them driven to the margins, I want these vulnerable people cared for, looked after so they never take that desperate path. And that would include rescuing more children from abusive relatives as early as possible before the damage is done. Care is not what damages children, care saves them. They are damaged way before they go into care. Sadly their families are the abusers.

daisyboo 8 05 March 2013 5:12pm

@funwithwhips - No I would not demand it be banned. I would however demand that brothels be legalized so the girls are in a safe place. I don't like it and its not right & many prostitutes are drug addicted. It is NOT a glamorous profession. It is a sad one.

pimpmasterkdogg 3 05 March 2013 6:45pm

@daisyboo - It's weird all these people arguing and when it comes down to it, they all want the exact same thing. I'd hope legalising it would help to deal with the vulnerabilities and addictions of many current sex workers.

Funny as well that nobody seems to claim the number of prostitutes would increase in a legalised system, or that more people would become clients if it were legal, when such arguments are generally the basis of prohibition.

Kendall99 9 05 March 2013 7:26pm

@necropolis - Your statistics all seem to be from studies of street prostitution.

Most prostitutes today work indoors. Small scale studies of street prostitutes aren't representative of the whole sex industry.

The claim that "75% of women become involved in prostitution when they are under the age of 18" is particularly dubious. I can't find any link to the original research to look at it for myself. The only websites quoting it are also repeating the bogus statistic that the average age of entry into prostitution is 12-14 (a figure that turns out to be from studies of child prostitution), so don't have much credibility.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 175 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

It's ironic seeing comments like this when the tweets this article is about attacked the myths and misleading statistics spread about sex workers.

insertfunnyusername 7 06 March 2013 12:10am

@daisyboo -

"do target the cause, and the causes need to be addressed instead of ignored."

No you don't. Targetting sex workers is not targetting the cause.

"Take the Rochdale sex abuse case, how long was that ignored for? Disgraceful. But not unusual."

Yes disgraceful. How is that the fault of sex workers?

"I don't want them driven to the margins, I want these vulnerable people cared for, looked after so they never take that desperate path."

And if they choose to take that path? What if your desires, your actions, end up driving them to the margins? Do they get to decide what they want to do?

Yes or no?

"And that would include rescuing more children from abusive relatives as early as possible before the damage is done."

Right, let me guess, you are claiming that people go into sex work because abusive relatives, amirite? Evidence please.

"Care is not what damages children, care saves them. They are damaged way before they go into care. Sadly their families are the abusers."

Please. This is a very very naive view of care. Families can be abusers. The care system equally can be abusive.

keithunder 4 06 March 2013 9:57am

@Kendall99 - The 75% figures comes from a report of a survey conducted of women who became involved in prostitution when they were under the age of 18. So the correct figure from the survey is 100%, no-one would believe that so they massaged it down a bit. I find it unbelievable that this nonsense continues to be repeated, including in the blurb from a charity in children in need. If charities lie about basic facts, how can we trust that the money is being properly spent??

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 176 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

funwithwhips 3 06 March 2013 10:02am

@daisyboo - so are MOST professions! The only glamourous professions I can think of are rock star and movie star and model. EVERYTHING else is just daily grind.

The whole point is THIS, just becuase YOU don't like something doesn't mean it should be banned.

daisyboo 1 06 March 2013 2:24pm

@funwithwhips - The whole point is THIS, just becuase YOU don't like something doesn't mean it should be banned. But I've never said it should be banned. I said it should be legalized. Perhaps you are becoming confused.

callaspodeaspode 39 05 March 2013 8:20am

Marx famously claimed that bourgeois marriage had a distressing similarity to prostitution.

I wonder if the hatred directed towards prostitutes has something about it of a self- serving idealist veil being torn away to reveal the grim material world underneath?

As for the charming Rhoda Grant, MSP, it's not the first time I have noticed that a certain variety of feminist comes across more as a pious Victorian prude than anything to do with emancipationary virtues.

Of course, it must be remembered that many of the earliest campaigners for women's suffrage were also rather prurient, in areas such as alcohol prohibition, for example.

Judith Wellman's The Road To Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the first Women's Right's Convention has some interesting bits on the tension between the radical and conservative politics of the early feminists.

The impression that I got was that, in campaigning for a radical idea like votes for women, many in the movement felt obliged to adopt ideas that would emphasise that they were no socialist, libertine hooligans who posed a threat to the established order, but maternal, traditional, highly moral souls.

callaspodeaspode 8

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 177 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 8:40am

@callaspodeaspode - Apologies. Freudian slip. 'prurient' should read 'prudish'.

Or should it?

JimNolan 9 05 March 2013 10:43am

@callaspodeaspode -

Marx famously claimed that bourgeois marriage...

You'll find that the famous claimer (whose view was rather more nuanced than you represented it) was Engels.

Sneezy2013 12 05 March 2013 11:52am

@callaspodeaspode -

Marx famously claimed that bourgeois marriage had a distressing similarity to prostitution.

That would be the Marx who exploited his position as a wealthy man to force himself on his parlour maid and then dumped her out in the street to sink or swim when she got pregnant?

In between putting the world to rights for the downtrodden masses of course.

pastis 5 05 March 2013 12:20pm

@callaspodeaspode -

In fact it was Engels who critiqued the institution of marriage in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

callaspodeaspode 4 05 March 2013 12:31pm

@JimNolan - In fact, I was referring to a (rather famous) passage in the Communist Manifesto, although I am aware that:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 178 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

a) Marx and Engels are both credited as the authors of said document and... b) (in reply to pastis as well) Engels wrote about it in Origin of the Family..

The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.

He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.

For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce free love; it has existed almost from time immemorial.

Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other's wives. (Ah, those were the days!)

Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalized system of free love. For the rest, it is self- evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of free love springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.

callaspodeaspode 10 05 March 2013 12:40pm

@Sneezy2013 -

You're half-right. He got her (Helene Demuth) up the duff, but no, didn't throw her out onto the street. The baby (Frederick) was adopted by another London family). She stayed with the Marx family until his death and then she moved into the Engels household, where she helped Engels compile the unpublished writings of Marx's literary estate.

But even if he had, what's that got to do with it? There is plenty to criticise Karl Marx for from an intellectual perspective. This 'Karl Marx as the devil incarnate' thing is a bit boring. A bit, er, Paul Johnson.

Ad hom isn't always necessary.

If Ludwig von Mises turned out to have been a paedophile, it wouldn't matter a jot as to the rightness or wrongness of his economic theories.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 179 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

JimNolan 3 05 March 2013 1:04pm

@Sneezy2013 -

Marx who exploited his position as a wealthy man to force himself on his parlour maid and then dumped her out in the street to sink or swim when she got pregnant?

I've never heard that said - was it the unpleasant sixth brother, Twatto?

jameslegrand 05 March 2013 4:52pm

@JimNolan - Yes, and it's as outdated a claim as his theories.

AnotherAngel 87 05 March 2013 8:19am

I have to admit when I think about prostitution it upsets me. I dont think my reaction is really well thought out though. My instinct is that these women and men must be pressurised in some way by abuse or addiction simply because it is not something I could imagine for me - I think my reaction is probably wrong and can definately stand to be challenged.

IMO we have a tendency to judge people by our expectations for ourselves. The 'if I can do it so can you' and 'if I wouldnt do it then why would you' state of mind can result in some pretty judgemental responses trying to find some way to prove that the other person is wrong in some way in order to make ourselves feel more secure.

There are people who are pressurised into prostitution by a variety of means. That is unacceptable and needs to be addressed without question. There are also people who chose to take up prostitution. They are adults and make the choice willingly so why should we condemn them? I think that we should probably legalise it and create a proper stucture of support and policy to ensure the people involved are safe and healthy.

And I dont buy into the whole if youre deliberately being sexually enticing to men youre undermining feminism thing. Women have sex drives and needs too. Straight ones may want to be sexually enticing and have sex with men. Some even want to submit or be dominated by men. Doesnt mean they are wrong. Having women saying 'women should behave like this' is as unaaceptable to me as having men saying 'women should behave like this'. Either way it means that women are being held to a set gender role and being abused, insulted, and humiliated for daring to step outside of it. I'd rather live in a world where nobody is expected to behave in a certain way just because of their gender.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 180 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

daisyboo 38 05 March 2013 9:25am

@AnotherAngel - I have to admit when I think about prostitution it upsets me. I dont think my reaction is really well thought out though. My instinct is that these women and men must be pressurised in some way by abuse or addiction simply because it is not something I could imagine for me - I think my reaction is probably wrong and can definately stand to be challenged. Your reaction is not wrong, your reaction is understanding, empathetic and correct. It is highly unlikely that a girl becomes a prostitute unless there is tremendous pressure. Drug addiction is not unusual, a dysfunctional abusive family, being poor and homeless and previous history of sexual abuse are common causes. Most men do not and would not visit a prostitute. I think it works out to about 1 in 10? and most of the ones that do IMO see women as sex objects to be used. They dislike women, resent them and want to degrade them, but they only really degrade themselves. Sorry folks, men who use prostitutes YUK don't like it.

Soarer 66 05 March 2013 10:11am

@daisyboo 05 March 2013 9:25am. Get cifFix for Chrome.

Sorry folks, men who use prostitutes YUK don't like it.

And you are entitled to your opinion.

My mother thinks homosexual sexual activity is yukky too, but I don't think we should ban it because of that.

Your moral standpoint is not mine, and both are anyway irrelevant.

What is needed is for the law to protect people who choose to be sex- workers, and to help those who do not. At the moment it does neither, and making it even more illegal will make it worse for everyone involved.

Westmorlandia 15 05 March 2013 10:28am

@daisyboo -

Sorry folks, men who use prostitutes YUK don't like it.

I agree, but that shouldn't have much to do with legality and illegality.

Any debate about whether prostitution should be legal has to focus on exploitation and human trafficking. We know it goes on, but we know it isn't the case for all prostitutes. The question is how we navigate that http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 181 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

issue.

Whatever we are doing at the moment doesn't work well, because trafficking is apparently quite widespread. Whether the answer is more rigorous enforcement or legalisation/regulation isn't a moral or political question, but an evidential one.

Brownly 47 05 March 2013 10:30am

@daisyboo -

What a load of tosh!

Do you even know any working girls or men that put business their way?

I'm guessing not, as your post is full of tired old clichéd prejudices. Men go to prostitutes for agreed-on sex without commitment. It's a reciprocal arrangement - you just don't like it.

Geeky_Disco 28 05 March 2013 11:42am

@daisyboo -

Don't let your agenda get in the way will you?

In my experience (likely much greater and therefore more valuable than yours) prostitutes are kind, caring and compassionate women capable of as much love and creativity as anyone else. This, though, was a legal brothel I'm talking about with legal prostitutes who didn't have to duck and dive from both the law and those who would exploit it and regard them as property.

And the men? Well of course it's easy to see them as seedy and exploitative if you make them hide to do what they do. If they go in through the front door without shame and go about their business then they are just the regular members of society they actually are - husbands, brothers, sons and uncles.

Your points are all sneer and no substance.

Sneezy2013 24 05 March 2013 11:50am

@Geeky_Disco -

In my experience (likely much greater and therefore more valuable than yours) prostitutes are kind, caring and http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 182 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

compassionate women capable of as much love and creativity as anyone else.

Yes of course.

I am sure you found out a lot about them and discussed their lives and feelings at length while you were having your paid-for shag.

Obviously you would refrain from demanding oral in order to contuinue your fascinating inteaction with the womna you are paying to service you.

Geeky_Disco 15 05 March 2013 1:00pm

@Sneezy2013 -

I think you've been watching too much 70s porn or reading feminist pamphlets about the horrors of prostitution. I have talked to prostitutes and I have used some of them quite a few times and you do get to know them as people. They aren't your best friends of course but you do talk and you do get familiar with them. Break out of the stereotype. You don't know what you are talking about.

Likely you don't know any of that because your experience is what you heard. Hence why I see prostitutes as real people and you see them as something less than that.

insertfunnyusername 17 05 March 2013 1:04pm

@daisyboo -

"is highly unlikely that a girl becomes a prostitute unless there is tremendous pressure. Drug addiction is not unusual, a dysfunctional abusive family, being poor and homeless and previous history of sexual abuse are common causes."

All of which means, they can't make their own choices, amirite? And thus, what they say, what sex workers say, what they say they want is invalid, since they have abused, amirite? Thus, they need you to speak and act for them, amirite?

insertfunnyusername 17 05 March 2013 1:09pm

@Sneezy2013 -

"Yes of course. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 183 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I am sure you found out a lot about them and discussed their lives and feelings at length while you were having your paid-for shag.

Obviously you would refrain from demanding oral in order to contuinue your fascinating inteaction with the womna you are paying to service you. "

The world has changed. Nowadays, marginalised groups can speak up for themselves, and don't need, nor want, liberal middle class self- appointed champions to speak for them.

Some resources for solidarity with sex workers, sex workers speaking for themselves:

http://www.swaay.org/ http://redlightchicago.wordpress.com/ http://glasgowsexworker.wordpress.com/ http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/ http://www.feminisnt.com/ http://titsandsass.com/

AnotherAngel 16 05 March 2013 1:27pm

@Sneezy2013

Do you think prostitutes dont have any life outside of that? That they dont talk to people beyond the clichéd sex banter? Or perhaps that they could never have had friends with whom they shared their lives and talked about themselves? These are people. This is exactly what I meant when I was speaking about my own reaction - moving to stereotypes to justify my own discomfort does nobody any good. It clouds the issue and reinforces peoples belief that they can humiliate others on that basis.

and @daisyboo I said this in reference to the gay marriage issue and I think that it is appropriate here too - Ewwww is not a suitable basis to form law upon! We need to frame the debate about if there is any evidence of negative effect, what can be done to prevent people from being exploited, the sort of structures we can put in place to help people. 'Yuk' doesnt contribute to the debate in the slightest because regardless of if it is me or you or anyone else who thinks it might be ikky - its not about us. Its about the people who are and who are using the services of protitutes and what they think.

Geeky_Disco 14 05 March 2013 1:31pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 184 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@insertfunnyusername -

Or indeed, as in one of my cases, they are well educated and decently well off Swiss Misses who work from home and you book through their very professional online website choosing time and activites from a menu.

Sneezy still thinks of nasty old men in macs licking their filthy lips at 16 year old crack addicts as they unzip their trousers.

Geeky_Disco 19 05 March 2013 1:44pm

@AnotherAngel -

Sneezy lives in a world where prostitutes aren't people or women but victims. Lord forbid they might be regular people who can talk and chat, laugh and cry, have aspirations and desires like a "normal" person. They don't have friends or conversations because they are just sad and pathetic. Ain't that right Sneezy? Of course he can't see that this is the attitude of those men who might wish to hate and degrade them in the first place. But that's blindness for you.

NotMyDog 05 March 2013 2:34pm

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

jameslegrand 5 05 March 2013 4:50pm

@Brownly - It's exploitation, that's what it is. It demeans a human being both the user and the used. Civilized society should not allow it.

Captn Scorp'yo 6 05 March 2013 6:45pm

@jameslegrand - Well, everything is exploitation. Hiring a person to assemble your iPods, fold your laundry, or care for your two-year-old is exploitation; they need money, you are willing to give it to them for their service.

The question is of agency, and whether you are taking unwelcome advantage of someone else's needs. Hiring someone who needs a job is a fine thing; paying them a pittance for grueling work simply because http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 185 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

everyone around them is poverty-stricken and they can be easily replaced is not. Similarly, paying anyone to engage in sex they find degrading simply because they feel they have no reasonable alternative is terrible, one very short step (if that) from coercion and therefore rape. However, honest negotiation with someone who is free to say no, is not.

Now, I don't use prostitutes, myself, partly because the things I most value in sex is to be desired, and to please my partner, and knowing that either of those is being faked for money would ruin that. But that's just me.

daisyboo 1 05 March 2013 9:04pm

@insertfunnyusername - Choice is over rated. A young girl (or boy) with no family or at least none that care, no support, little or no education, no money. There ain't no choice. Real choice is a luxury. The most important things in life are the things we have no choice over, genes, family, childhood, all imposed upon us not chosen at all. Choice is an illusion.

daisyboo 4 05 March 2013 9:19pm

@Geeky_Disco - Can't see any sneer just truth. I'm sure by the tone of your reply your experience with prostitutes is much greater than mine. I have no inclination to use prostitutes, I like a genuine friendship & emotional connection, so much nicer. I'm sure the prostitutes in your legal brothel were kind, caring and compassionate to you. Oh, and I'm sure they really enjoy the sex too. Your are paying for a service and getting it. Husbands, ewww. If my husband was visiting a brothel time for a divorce. You do realize that most men have never been with a prostitute don't you?

insertfunnyusername 9 06 March 2013 12:06am

@daisyboo -

"Choice is over rated. A young girl (or boy) with no family or at least none that care, no support, little or no education, no money. There ain't no choice. Real choice is a luxury. The most important things in life are the things we have no choice over, genes, family, childhood, all imposed upon us not chosen at all. Choice is an illusion."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 186 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Yes, the standard argument of fundamentalists and extremists all over the world, whether religious fundies, atheist fundies, 2nd wave feminists fundies, liberal fundies: people are not able to think and act for themselves, they are mindless victims, and need you to tell them what to do.

People who do the thing you disapprove of, have no "real" choice.

Yes, we have no choice over our parents, our families, our genes, where and when we were born.

That is PRECISELY why the things that we DO have a choice over are so precious. That is PRECISELY why self-determination, is precious, so fundamental a human right, and must be cherished and protected against the extremists, such as you, who seek to deny self- determination.

You deny self-determination to someone, and you are denying that that person has the same rights as you. You are arguing that sex-workers do not deserve the rights you have.

If you think that choice is overrated, fine. Are you willing to let me decide for you what to you should do with your life? Yes?

"I have no inclination to use prostitutes, I like a genuine friendship & emotional connection, so much nicer."

Guess what? It is entirely possible to have genuine friendships with sex workers. Sex workers are humans too. They have interests, hopes, ideals, outside of sex work too. So, sex workers can form genuine friendships with people who aren't sex workers, based on those shared interests, hopes, ideals.

Geeky_Disco 06 March 2013 9:00am

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

daisyboo 4 06 March 2013 9:49am

@insertfunnyusername - You deny self-determination to someone, and you are denying that that person has the same rights as you. You are arguing that sex-workers do not deserve the rights you have. I don't really see how you come to that conclusion. I very much want sex workers to have rights, that's why I would like to see brothels legalized so the girls can work in safety. Choice is an illusion and it is, for me, for everyone. I think I'm about as far away from an extremist as it possible to get. You sound rather extreme though.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 187 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

paulrudolph 4 05 March 2013 8:18am

A quick link to Rhoda Grant's page in Holyrood.

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oGkmq6qTVRwk4AI2JLBQx.;_ylu=X3oDMTE 0ajdya2NjBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMgRjb2xvA3NrMQR2dGlkA1VLQzAwMl83Mg-- /SIG=12rpgpd04/EXP=1362500154/**http%3a//www.scottish.parliament.uk/msps/c urrentmsps/Rhoda-Grant-MSP.aspx

StevHep 90 05 March 2013 8:18am

It is a small step from being able to dismiss some women as stupid sluts Guardianto dismissingcontributor all women as stupid sluts It seems a very big step to me.

MrVholes 16 05 March 2013 8:58am

@StevHep - yes, for me too. It was the only jarring note in an otherwise spot-on article. I don't know why so many people seem to lack any compassion for others whatsoever.

richmanchester 19 05 March 2013 9:17am

@StevHep - But one some people seem to manage.

Door 10 05 March 2013 10:38am

@StevHep - I didn't think of you as the type to call some women as stupid sluts.

But seeing as how you do, keep an eye on how you view all women then. Careful self examination might show it does have an effect after all.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 188 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

HughAkston 23 05 March 2013 12:16pm

@StevHep -

It is a small step from being able to dismiss some women as stupid sluts to dismissing all women as stupid sluts

It seems a very big step to me.

This statement implies to me that you think it could be acceptable to ever refer to a person as a slut.

The very term 'slut' is offensive as it based on the notion that having sex for fun or pleasure or with multiple partners is somehow immoral.

It is not surprising that somebody with a religious avatar would think this though.

One of the most evil aspects of Abrahamic religion is it's hatred of pleasure for pleasures sake and hence it's unrelenting hatred and fear of sex for reasons other than procreation. Some examples of this would be it's ridiculous fear and hatred of homosexuality and it's opposition to contraception etc.

Pleasure is good. Sex is good. Get over it.

Nobody is a slut.

HughAkston 7 05 March 2013 12:18pm

@HughAkston - Great article by the way Hannah.

StevHep 19 05 March 2013 12:38pm

@HughAkston - I think both you and Door have expended an enormous amount of effort to misunderstand me (or to pretend to misunderstand me). I quoted the article which stated that it was a small step from one presumption to another much much larger presumption. In stating that the step was not small but large I drew no conclusions about the rightness or wrongness of the original presumption. Apparently you require me in commenting about one specific thing to comment also about other things besides. I had no intention of doing so since they have no bearing on my original point. But since you appear to want me to animadvert additionally let me state simply that it is a grave sin and contrary to the Christian faith to describe any person on God's earth as a 'stupid slut'. No acts of violence of any description are ever justified under any circumstances against prostitutes for being prostitutes or women for being women. Anything else you woul like me to clarify? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 189 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

piffedoff 12 05 March 2013 12:42pm

@StevHep - blimey--poor old stevehep--you write a very clear line which is then grotesquely misinterpreted by othe commenters.

What you wrote is spot on.

HughAkston 2 05 March 2013 12:56pm

@StevHep - Fair enough. I made an incorrect assumption based on your comment and your avatar.

You don't agree with the term slut and that is good.

However, as a (presumably) Christian, what are you views on the following?

Sex for fun or pleasure. Sex with multiple partners. Homosexuality. Contraception.

Of course, that is a lot to comment on so I don't mind if you don't reply or comment.

However, if your views on the above are anything like I suspect (I know I've already made incorrect assumptions) they are, you'll forgive me for taking your disapproval of the specific term 'slut' with a pinch of salt.

Door 3 05 March 2013 4:07pm

@StevHep - My pretense to misunderstand you was to make a point:

You say its quite a big step and I am contradicting you:

It is actually very difficult to hold an opinion such as that and not have it denigrate the opinion held of women overall.

If you did take on that attitude to "some" women it would begin to effect negatively your opinion of all women.

I was simply hoping to put yourself in the shoes of someone who would think like that for a moment. What would your opinion of other women be if you thought like that about some?

Not all might become perceived as sluts, some might be perceived as

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 190 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

paragons of virtue, to be put on pedestals and isolated from their natural sexual expression. But that is just as unrealistic and damaging: If they rebel, they would be fallen women, even more despised than those the term was originally applied to. If they do not they are trapped in a unnatural and confining mode of behavior. Sounds a bit like the situation we have had for centuries.

Whatever, the holding of such a belief would have negative consequences and they would spread one way or another to the perception of all women, as indeed they do, which is part of the mechanism, though not the root cause, for the extreme misogyny of the societies we live in.

To think you can have such an opinion and not have it effect you perceptions of other people, yet also acknowledging that the opinion would be a damaging one, a sin in your terms, is to attempt to remain ignorant of the effect of beliefs in general, even while protecting yourself from the effects of them.

Captn Scorp'yo 6 05 March 2013 6:25pm

@StevHep - It's not.

You see, the very acceptance of the word "slut" as a valid term -- for which, notice, there is no masculine equivalent -- means that there is, in fact, a category of women who are to be despised for their expression of sexuality. Once that has been established, then exactly which women fit into that category becomes merely a matter of opinion.

This is especially true as it is regularly used with no component of promiscuity at all -- it is a generic derogative term, which somehow taps into the connotation of sexual impropriety without any even being involved; women are commonly called "slut" as retribution for any offense at all (including, absurdly enough, for NOT wanting to have sex with someone.)

The Rush Limbaugh nonsense of last year is a great example. A woman testifies about other women's ovarian cancer. Therefor, she is a slut. Go on Free Republic right now, you'll read about Ms. Fluke's sluttery in terms more revolting than anything you're likely to have imagined.

Fortunately, I've taught this much to my daughters: that it's a word with no content, just connotation, and that anyone using it against them is doing so out of an impotent desire to control them. Sadly, most women will not grow up having had that that lesson.

CustosCustodum 2 07 March 2013 9:17pm

@Captn Scorp'yo -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 191 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

the very acceptance of the word "slut" as a valid term -- for which, notice, there is no masculine equivalent

Don't be silly. Men are derided as sleazes, pigs, etc.

TheManFromRotherham 87 05 March 2013 8:12am

I have to agree, it is time society grew up and accepted the sex industry isn't going to go away, it should be regulated, (and taxed) and its workers protected. Yes, it won't be perfect, some people will fall through the netbut that always happens but its no reason not to legalise and regulate, it ill give protection to both workers and their customers. As for feminists when it comes to this issue, they tend to be affluent middleclass women looking for their next whore to burn. The theorhetical woman who fuck and lead astray their feminised men.

StarGazie 84 05 March 2013 9:10am

@TheManFromRotherham - 'As for feminists when it comes to this issue, they tend to be affluent middleclass women looking for their next whore to burn. The theorhetical woman who fuck and lead astray their feminised men.'

Feminist-bashing is also the thin end of a wedge.

deezer 49 05 March 2013 9:42am

@TheManFromRotherham -

As for feminists when it comes to this issue, they tend to be affluent middleclass women looking for their next whore to burn. The theorhetical woman who fuck and lead astray their feminised men.

So what, they are only women in theory? And how exactly are men 'led astray'?

I find this so odd, like you had a decent point to make, but ya just HAD to punctuate it with something nasty (and constructed from straw) at the end.

TheManFromRotherham 28 05 March 2013 11:02am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 192 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

@StarGazie -

Feminist-bashing is also the thin end of a wedge.

Feminism is a type of affluent middleclass politics, also shared by some men (who see something in it for themselves)

TheManFromRotherham 15 05 March 2013 11:05am

@deezer -

So what, they are only women in theory? And how exactly are men 'led astray'?

You obviously didn't read what I right and in usual feminist fashion jumped to your prejudiced conclusions.

No one is led astray, both parties are adult making adult choices. I can't help it if your puritanical feminist values can't cope with that idea.

TheManFromRotherham 25 05 March 2013 11:09am

@deezer -

I find this so odd, like you had a decent point to make, but ya just HAD to punctuate it with something nasty (and constructed from straw) at the end.

I once had the misfortune to work a short while with affluent middleclass feminists and didn't like what I saw and heard, totally hypocrisy from what I saw and no, I didn't have a run in with them, I just observed in distaste.

deezer 21 05 March 2013 11:14am

@TheManFromRotherham -

The theorhetical woman who fuck and lead astray their feminised men

Those words are visible, a few posts above, I don't really see how you can try to say you didn't type them. If no one is lead astray, then why did you say men were led astray?

Don't tell me I didn't read something right before considering whether or http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 193 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

not you/your writing is the problem!

TheManFromRotherham 2 05 March 2013 11:15am

@TheManFromRotherham - also wrote.

deezer 39 05 March 2013 11:18am

@TheManFromRotherham -

I once had the misfortune to work a short while with affluent middleclass feminists

Ok, well you seem to have a well-informed opinion based on considerable experience and interaction with feminists. Don't ever be open to changing your mind, or asking genuine (even challenging) questions, ok? Just keep hating from a distance. It's a marvellous way to live.

TheManFromRotherham 13 05 March 2013 11:19am

@deezer -

Those words are visible, a few posts above, I don't really see how you can try to say you didn't type them. If no one is lead astray, then why did you say men were led astray?

Oh that! I came to that conclusion after listening to hypocritical female probation officiers talking, who were ardent feminists but didn't mind having the odd affair with their clients (offenders) while criticizing prostitution. One of the (fortunately) short part time jobs I had once supervising offenders on Saturdays.

TheManFromRotherham 31 05 March 2013 11:22am

@deezer -

Ok, well you seem to have a well-informed opinion based on considerable experience and interaction with feminists.

Unfortunately I have more than you think.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 194 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I remember once while teaching life study at college, a demonstration of feminist activists disrupted the class complaining about the objectification of women, it took them a while to realise the model was a man, even though his anatomy was all in the right place. Not the first time such nonsense happened. I could write a book on such nonsense.

TheManFromRotherham 24 05 March 2013 11:27am

@deezer -

Just keep hating from a distance. It's a marvellous way to live.

You should direct that at your fellow feminists.

Geeky_Disco 35 05 March 2013 11:33am

@TheManFromRotherham -

Have you ever met or even heard of a feminist who was not middle class, educated and generally not poor and unskilled? No, neither have I (cue lots of women saying "I am!"). Feminists exclude and despise a whole group of women for not being what they think they are. If it's just snootiness it simply rebounds on them and shows an obvious fault. But on issues like prostitution their attitude can actually cause harm and that cannot be ignored.

deezer 14 05 March 2013 11:40am

@Geeky_Disco -

Some. Some. Some. Some.

TheManFromRotherham 21 05 March 2013 11:53am

@Geeky_Disco -

Feminists exclude and despise a whole group of women for not being what they think they are. If it's just snootiness it simply rebounds on them and shows an obvious fault. But on issues like prostitution their attitude can actually cause harm and that cannot be ignored

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 195 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

That's my experience, which is why I have a problem with them. They really don't care about liberating poor women.

funwithwhips 59 05 March 2013 12:01pm

@Geeky_Disco - I have many female friends who describe themselves as feminists but HATE the susanne moore variety that deezer probably subscribes to.

These girls are able to enjoy things like women being models, strippers, pole dancers(infact a couple of them are) but are also vehimently anti voilence against women, pro fair wages, fair treatment,etc.

It's a very( and I hate to say this because I describe myself as left wing) leftie stance of "we don't like this so anyone who does like it MUST have been brainwashed or is too stupid to think for themselves". Hence escorts, pole dancers or strippers who make large amounts of money and ENJOY their jobs, women who ENJOY sex, even the few women out there who enjoy the idea of being in a "traditional relationship" where they keep house and the man works, (yes there are some and it's a perfectly reasonable thing to want if THAT is what THEY want) must all be treated like kids because obviously there is something wrong with them.

It is this whole post modern bollocks. A bunch of journalist or english grads trying to do social experimentation and complelty ignoring the results until they get what they want. Hence "belle de jour" was obviously some fake middle class mother making it all up, until she wasn't. Then she was some low class escort with not much brains lying to everyone about her life, Until she wsan't and now because obviously she is VERY well educated,EXTREMLY clever, VERY confident woman, she has obviously been brainwashed by the Patriarchy. It is all bullshit. So you get things like the Poppy project taking Government money to "help traficked women", but only doing it for women who are willing to turn in evidence against the traffickers, completely ignoring the realities of the situation because they haven't actually talked to anyone in the field.

Bindel's group's "research" into the price of escorts in london, which involved men phoning up numbers they found in phone boxes and asking how much it was, completely ignoring the fact that the £20 price given was not for sex.

You see the same thing with middle class NGO's who go out on "povery porn" trips to "fix the brown people" because obviously they can't fix themselves. Middle class kids going out to "build schools", taking work from local workmen and building shoody buildings. It's patronising and is literally ONLY done to make these people feel better about themselves,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 196 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

to get them newspaper inches and in my mind is no different to some rapper screaming down a microphone singing "look how much fucking money I got", this lot are essentially shouting

"look at me!look at how clever and caring I am! Look at how I'm helping those poor stupid £1000/day escorts who can't even think for themselves, aren't I awesome!"

because at the end of the day all this posturing from Burchill, Moore, Bindel, Harmen, et al actually makes things more dangerous for sex workers, make things more dangerous for other women on the streets and perpetuates the "women are victims" thing, which makes women who subscribe to all of this MORE of a target because they THINK they are more of a target

deezer 15 05 March 2013 12:21pm

@funwithwhips -

I have many female friends who describe themselves as feminists but HATE the susanne moore variety that deezer probably subscribes to.

Why do you think this? Have you read my other comments on here?

iruka 28 05 March 2013 12:25pm

@TheManFromRotherham -

As for feminists when it comes to this issue, they tend to be affluent middleclass women looking for their next whore to burn. The theorhetical woman who fuck and lead astray their feminised men.

I can certainly see why you, for one, would prefer to pay for a half hour with a woman who pretends to know her place.

Geeky_Disco 12 05 March 2013 12:49pm

@TheManFromRotherham -

I suspect that this is because for many "feminists" it really is a leisurely, educated, middle class pursuit for the chattering classes. They are as far removed from the experience of low paid, working class women as it is

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 197 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

possible to be - which is why they look down on them and show themselves guilty of many of the things they claim "women" are victims of themselves. But hey, they've got breasts so they can't be criticised and if you do you're a rotten misogynist!

Geeky_Disco 13 05 March 2013 12:53pm

@funwithwhips -

That's probably the best comment on the subject below the line. Totally deconstructs the type of feminist I was talking about. The important thing is that in this context that type of feminst helps endanger real women with such an attitude. Every time they comment you see an agenda is more important than a (certain kind of) woman.

insertfunnyusername 13 05 March 2013 12:53pm

@StarGazie -

"Feminist-bashing is also the thin end of a wedge."

True.

However. What is worse than feminism, is some feminists refusing to address the problems and flaws of some feminists:

The disdain, the outright hate, for those who are amongst the weakest and most marginalised: sex workers, transgendered people.

The disdain for non-white people, non-white women.

insertfunnyusername 17 05 March 2013 1:01pm

@funwithwhips -

"have many female friends who describe themselves as feminists but HATE the susanne moore variety that deezer probably subscribes to.

It just seems that over the last 10-20 years the most vocal feminists, the ones who actually discourage MOST women in all strata of society as declaring themselves feminist are the "middle class, guardian reading" fans of Harriet Harman type feminist, who don't REALLY care about http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 198 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

women different to themselves. "

Yes: the white liberal upper middle class type of feminists, often influenced by 2nd wave ideology, who think they have the right to tell all other women what to do with their lives. And who think that they have the right to self-appoint themselves as champions, spokespersons of other people. And then start frothing at the mouth, when those people they have self-appointed themselves as champions of, tell them to feck off.

"bunch of journalist or english grads trying to do social experimentation and complelty ignoring the results until they get what they want. Hence "belle de jour" was obviously some fake middle class mother making it all up, until she wasn't. Then she was some low class escort with not much brains lying to everyone about her life, Until she wsan't and now because obviously she is VERY well educated,EXTREMLY clever, VERY confident woman, she has obviously been brainwashed by the Patriarchy. It is all bullshit"

The personal attacls that all the anti-sex workers have made against Magnanti has made me respect her ever more. And the really really funny thing about their attacks against her is: she is a smart, educated, succesful, confident, opionated, physically strong women. Don't feminists want that for women? For women to be smart, educated, succcesful, confident, opionionated, physically strong?

deezer 7 05 March 2013 1:06pm

@funwithwhips -

No really, can you explain why you assumed that about me?

funwithwhips 19 05 March 2013 1:49pm

@deezer - I'm making assumptions from your comments above mine.I might have been wrong but my comment wasn't an attack on you personally just the susanne moore type feminists, of whome you MAY be one, but I don't know apart form your rather terse replies to @themanfromrotherham.

Do you agree with my sentiments with regards to 2nd generation post modern feminists or not?

@iruka what from the comments @themanfromrotherham make you think that he is interested in a "woman who knows her place"? What is different to going to see an escort to a Footballer getting a trophy wife who is literally there to be bought presents for and dumped when someone younger and better looking comes along?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 199 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

I personally see no problem with men seeing escorts. It is "feminist thinking" that drives women to work on the streets in dangerous areas, which is why I support a red light safe zone type idea in major cities of the type you see in Amsterdam, where the police and sex workers can work together to keep safety at the top of the agenda. Home/Hotel sex worker tend to have a driver waiting outside. It is only in the puritanical areas where local papers or politicians with an axe to grind drive women into unsafe practices. There should be an increase in brothels, the removal of the law that says only 1 girl at a time can work. Every part of the law seems to be thought out to make the whole process of sex work as dangerous as possible for the women AND MEN who work in it.

deezer 21 05 March 2013 2:19pm

@funwithwhips -

I was asking questions about some pretty spurious claims about 'feminists', and thought the responses were a little sad. The poster said he worked, for a short time, with some feminists who he never spoke to but rather just listened to in distaste.

Fair enough, they may have been assholes. But they are not representative of all women, or all feminists, by any stretch. I still don't see how what I wrote would categorise me as a certain type of feminist to be honest - I saw what I thought was a pretty generalised slur and I questioned it. That doesn't put me in any box except the one that requests a little logic and common sense!

As for your question, well, I would disagree, however I can see why the internet would give you such an impression. Real life is very different, in my opinion, from the comment or women's section of the guardian (thank fuck).

I myself have worked in strip clubs, done some modelling (many moons ago), and in moments of stress and desperation have toyed with the idea of sex work. I am very well educated (which I will never apologise for) and I am in a heap of debt since my MA.

My feminism is borne not from books and abstract thought, but from experiences - mine, and those of women around me and further afield. I very much care about women who are different to me, and yes, I volunteer hours of my time every week at a rape crisis centre (which I can assure you is not a self-aggrandizing thing and does NOT make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but rather a little bit broken sometimes).

Yes, there are branches of feminism and feminist thought that I find problematic, but these are actually far rarer than the internet would have you believe. You even said yourself, in real life you know lots of feminists who don't go in for bigotry or hatred. That's what most of us are like. But I cannot abide to see all feminists being bashed because someone overheard some feminists with too much money having a silly conversation once. I would like if people who were sceptical or mistrustful or even hateful towards feminism would perhaps ask about it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 200 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

rather than writing off the excellent and difficult work and campaigning done by IRL feminists, rather then falling back on the totally fallacious idea that Dworkin/Burchill are spokeswomen for all of feminism.

Sorry for length of reply!

NotMyDog 4 05 March 2013 2:20pm

@deezer - Think he was making a joke. Calm down, dear.

NotMyDog 05 March 2013 2:29pm

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funwithwhips 16 05 March 2013 2:33pm

@deezer - np with the lengthy reply. The issue of the assholery is that it makes ALL women think that there are hoards of men running around wanting to rape them, when infact there isn't. It is more likely to be someone they know.

When, as on a twitter rant I had with a "feminist" they go on about how "it's impossible for women working for companies to bring about complaints against sexist bosses because HR never take it seriously", what they are infact doing is telling women that they should NEVER complain to HR if their boss comes onto them or says something inappropriate and makes many less confident women scared of bosses who they don't need to be scared of, making them more quiet in the office, less likely to offer opinions and making the reduced chances of promotion a self fulfilling prophecy.

I'm not say none of this shit happens, I have been walking down the street with friends when guys in white vans (always white vans) shout out "smash her back doors in for us", they always get confused when I say "no, but I'll let her do me", so there are a LOT of issues, but going on and on and on is turning women to a victim culture and getting used to being abused, whereas with the earlier feminist movements it pushed forwards the idea of "liberated strong women".

The problem is that Bindel, Burchill et al, shout and scream like harpies and politicians in this country take notice thinking THEY are representitive of the vast majority of women in this country. So when THEY say that strip clubs increase rape rates, when infact it probably is the opposite from the police figures(although I do accept correlation doesn't mean causation), the politicians listen and then laws are brought http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 201 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

in that actually do more harm than good.

So when Hackney decides that it doesn't want any strip clubs in it's zone, it takes away safe working places with bouncers and council checks and H & S checks and brings in an environment where illegal clubs can open, without fire checks, without bouncers, without the protections where dancers can't be forced to have sex with clients if they don't want to.

The unfortunate thing is that, while these "feminists" ( I put feminist in quotes because I genuinely believe these women hate women who aren't like them, it is the ONLY thing that explains their vitriol) shout and scream, the social scientists, the sex workers who pop their head over the parapets, those who ACTUALLY know what is going on on the ground get death threats. Guys who use escorts occasionally or go to strip clubs feel the need to hide it, which makes it seem that only perverts and wierdos use these services, which makes them easier to legislate against, which then again becomes a spiral of self perpetuating abuse and murders and sex workers are driven more and more underground.

I call for the win on length of reply :P

deezer 11 05 March 2013 2:36pm

@NotMyDog -

Are you blind to the irony of what is happening here? In that, I questioned what someone said, and now you are criticizing me (equally if not more aggressively than I did) because you don't consider 'so- called' feminist opnion valid?

Also, militant? This?

I find this so odd, like you had a decent point to make, but ya just HAD to punctuate it with something nasty (and constructed from straw) at the end.

Don't be so hysterical ;)

deezer 19 05 March 2013 2:50pm

@funwithwhips -

The issue of the assholery is that it makes ALL women think that there are hoards of men running around wanting to rape them, when infact there isn't. It is more likely to be someone they know.

C'mon now - ALL women? No, that is not true, sorry. One of the biggest myths feminist have fought for YEARS is that of the 'stranger in the bushes' http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 202 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

as rapist.

As for your HR issue, that is interesting - I personally found that I was not taken seriously when a male manager said something really awful to me, but I never attributed that to sexism, rather just to a bad HR guy who saw me as the lowly call centre agent I was! I must say I find it a little disconcerting that you think women are so easily led by the opinions of a few people. We can be pretty good at thinking for ourselves you know ;)

Ok, as far as your 'victim culture' statement, unfortunately women are far more likely to have suffered rape and sexual assault. Feminists are not causing that. You say 'going on and on and on' about rape and sexual assault as though that is a bad thing? I personally think it needs to not be made a silent subject ever again. I understand that it makes people uncomfortable (men in particular, who I can accept may feel defensive as though 'guilty by association), but I think that the discomfort of some is not as important as fighting for a change in society. (incidentally, many/most crisis centres follow an empowerment model of working, that is NOT telling women to feel like victims, or telling them anything, but rather listening).

I was not screaming or being a 'harpie' though, was I? I was challenging a strange sentence that the OP came out with, about burning whores and theoretical women leading feminised men astray. I think questioning is absolutely fair enough!

deezer 7 05 March 2013 2:59pm

@TheManFromRotherham -

Hahaha, that's completely silly! Who were they? Did they not understand the difference between art and Nuts? I did life modelling for a while. I would have gone insane if a bunch of people barged in while I was naked, that's SO much worse than people painting you. How did they get in?

funwithwhips 16 05 March 2013 3:04pm

@deezer - I'm not saying that it should be a "hidden subject" but the issue is that if you tell a group of people the same thing enough times, they start to believe it.

Guilty by association is a bit harsh. As a guy I have no issue with being who I am, I don't feel guilty that there are men out there who are rapists but I will fight it when women like Bindel infer that ALL men are rapists because that affects the kind of relationships that girls growing up have with men. It's exactly the same as those idiot parents I saw in a documentary once who infer to their kids that EVERY person outside the house is a potential paedo, even though the most dangerous person a

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 203 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

kid will know,statistically is it's mother.

And it depends on WHAT change in society that you want. Respect for women, fair wages,etc,etc fine. But low paid men are treated like shit as well by bosses. I know a couple of guys who worked for public sector who were bullied by their FEMALE bosses because they felt that as women they were protected by the rules.

Societal change is good, but trying to link that to personal campaigns is what I am against. So Harmen, Bindel.Moore, etc dont' like women working as escorts or strippers, it has nothing to do with rape or anything like that. It is because I genuinely believe they hate men, for whatever reason and I'm not going to apologise for the fact that I have seen escorts, that I go to strip clubs and that I like ot look at hot skinny naked women. (some of my friends like hot REALLY fat naked women,personal preference but thats chubby chasers for you)

The attitude amongst a LOT of guardian articles and journalists is that men should constantly apologise for being men. that doesn't mean that I don't think rapists should be locked away or that I don't think women should be fairly paid or that I think guys who shout stuff at women in the streets aren't total assholes.

Geeky_Disco 3 05 March 2013 3:17pm

@insertfunnyusername -

"The personal attacls that all the anti-sex workers have made against Magnanti has made me respect her ever more. And the really really funny thing about their attacks against her is: she is a smart, educated, succesful, confident, opionated, physically strong women. Don't feminists want that for women? For women to be smart, educated, succcesful, confident, opionionated, physically strong?"

No. What they really want, they really, really want is that you agree with them. That's all. Nothing more. Just nod in agreement.

deezer 11 05 March 2013 3:21pm

@funwithwhips -

Please don't think or imply that I meant I think anyone is guilty by association, I clearly said "men in particular, who I can accept may feel defensive as though 'guilty by association'. Yes, most feminists will also challenge someone saying all men are rapists, but then that is not what Bindel said. She said 'potential rapists' which is basically like saying all women are potential murderers (a horrible thought, but true, depending on each individuals circumstances). So see, there you are railing against something that isn't even true.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 204 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Yes, I want lots of things to change. And I did also make a point of saying that I didn't see my issue with HR as a sexist one, rather an incompetence based one.

Can I ask how it feels to pay a woman for sex? Is it a necessity to you, or just a little extra sex sometimes? I was seeing a guy once who denied ever seeing a prostitute, and then I found out he was lying, and had in the past. I asked him about it and but he always said he was just really drunk. Being very honest, I didn't and don't like the idea of it at all, but I am interested in your point of view and experience. I just think I would feel kind of, I don't know, like my pride would be hurt by handing over money for sex, but again, I have no experience!

funwithwhips 9 05 March 2013 3:51pm

@deezer - I've been completely sober and most of my female friends know I have seen escorts and don't care, some are very bad and encourage me to do it more ;o)

It's just one of those things. I see it as no different to paying for my cleaner. Although wierdly my female friends are more aghast that I pay someone to do my ironing than they are that I pay someone for a happy ending massage.

It's not a necessity in that I won't die if I don't have sex but since I don't like the whole dating scene and prefer to go out for meals and drinks with female friends rather than potential shags, it makes life a little easier. I would never lie to a partner about it, but on the flip side, because of me openly describing myself to everyone I meet as the "friendly pervert you can introduce to your parents" I naturally filter out the kind of women who would have an issue with it. Which is a good thing as they also tend to be the kind of women who have an issue with me not wanting to go backpacking or Ikea every weekend

funwithwhips 8 05 March 2013 4:13pm

@deezer - just a quick addition to my novel up there.

It all boils down to whether you can see sex the act and se x(love) as different. In the same way that a quick fumble in a nightclub and a romantic week away are totally and completely different things, but both involve sex. Sex with an escort is a totally different experience to sex with a gf/bf.

What some people are trying to combine is the idea of driving a sports car on a track and driving a sports car on the road. Totally different experiences, same act, but mentally very very different. A lot of women have been brainwashed into this whole "women can't enjoy sex" thing and the idea of "sluts and studs being different".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 205 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

there are women out there who can have loads of 1 night stands and still be mentally and physically as strong as a woman who only holds out for the boyfriend. There are many guys out there who are terrified by the idea of sex.

This whole argument is based on the incorrect assumption that all feminists are middle class women, all sex workers are disease ridden whores and all men are assholes. But that kind of black/white thinking is what the British public has been fed for years and seems that the papers can only think in that way.Which is probably why a lot of print is dying, not because it's inconvenient,but because newspapers b/w views don't match the publics more flowing values and ideas

jameslegrand 5 05 March 2013 4:45pm

@TheManFromRotherham - It is not true that legalized prostitution is any safer, it is not true that it eliminates the problems, if anything the problems will grow.

OlympicSquashNow 4 05 March 2013 5:25pm

@funwithwhips 05 March 2013 12:01pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.

i wish I could recommend that post 100 times

Geeky_Disco 5 05 March 2013 8:02pm

@jameslegrand -

Tell that to Swiss and German prostitutes of my acquaintance. Experience the hell of no regulation here with the relative calm of it over there. You're spouting morality James not fact.

colin913 129 05 March 2013 8:11am

Hatred of prostitutes has implications for all women who desire to determine their sexual existences. These obviously stigmatised targets allow a kind of thin-end-of-the-wedge, sanctioned misogyny. It is a small step from being able to dismiss some women as stupid sluts to dismissing all women as stupid sluts, the former operating as some sort of entry level for the latter. As Magnanti noted: "Ladies wearing shiny

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 206 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

things, high heels, and makeup also Very Suspect". That's me guilty as charged, then, and my eight-year-old niece.

An incredibly thoughtful and well-written article. Thank you for sharing this, Hannah Betts.

TheGreatRonRafferty 40 05 March 2013 9:00am

@colin913 - Agreed. Excellent article!

PennieB 20 05 March 2013 9:35am

@colin913 -

Seconded.

jameslegrand 13 05 March 2013 4:42pm

@colin913 - You must be joking! The generalizations abound and the shiny dressing and make up is just a ridiculous extended argument. There is some truth in hatred of prostitutes- statistics of violence against them prove this - but the greatest risk to them are men , often the clients. Women's sexual agency does cause hostility but the topic is too wide to generalize in this manner. Conflating ordinary women and prostitutes is also extremely unhelpful and detrimental to women.

notavictim 18 05 March 2013 6:38pm

@jameslegrand - can you please tell me how many actual prostitutes you know? Because I've been a sex worker (now retired) and a sex worker rights activist for 31 years and I know thousands and thousands of them. The greatest risk to us are cops... because cops know they can count on people like you to overlook their crimes and abuses against us- so they rape and extort us with impunity.

We ARE ordinary women- we have families, we have siblings and parents and live normal lives- except when someone like you discovers that we are.... gasp... whores... then we lose our children, our 'regular' jobs and are driven from our homes.

Actually, the statistics show that there are far more NON SEX WORKER http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 207 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

women who are raped and abused than sex workers are. And yet the police manage to apprehend very few of the rapists out there, as they are too busy arresting sex workers - or threatening to arrest us in order to get their free samples. It is men like YOU who are detrimental to women.

Bandarlog 2 06 March 2013 12:28am

@TheGreatRonRafferty - Well, I must confess that I did not expect you to be with this lot but then again, why not?

fb177 3 07 March 2013 2:48pm

@notavictim - but it doesn't really matter that you are "normal" women. Wat matters is that you think it's OK to sell female sexuality, and you don't care how that affects all women. From what I"ve read, you only care about YOUR rights to sell female sexuality. That's why people criticize you.

Brownly 206 05 March 2013 8:09am

Decriminalise prostitution - both sides - those that wish to sell and those that wish to buy.

Bring it out in the open - safer for working girls, safer for punters, safer for society.

dorice 107 05 March 2013 8:45am

@Brownly 05 March 2013 8:09am. Get cifFix for Firefox.

Agreed Brownly. I met a 'Madame' a few decades ago - she owned a 'sauna and massage parlour' near to the Law Courts in Embra. I was the beat cop, and she complained about a customer bouncing a cheque. She stayed within the law, and lived in a part of the world where she was considered a pillar of the community. She looked after 'her girls' very well, and her client book (yes, she kept records of their preferences) was mostly those in the legal profession. When she opened a new premises even closer to the courts, she actually created a small, functional 'dungeon' - at the request of a High Court judge (now deceased), and like the late Dora Noyes, her busiest

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 208 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

period was when the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland hit town. She and her husband became good family friends, and looking at some of Rankin's novels - he possibly knew her too !

Now retired to the south of France, she was a thoroughly decent person - and would have been a superb after dinner speaker !!

Brownly 101 05 March 2013 8:56am

@dorice - Doesn't surprise me at all.

Sex is very often transactional anyway, even if money doesn't change hands. Making it a financial arrangement doesn't somehow make it 'worse' - in fact it's often more honest.

It's the oldest profession and is never going away. People need to get over it and legislate for reality.

Risveglio 80 05 March 2013 9:19am

@Brownly -

I completely agree. In fact, drugs and gambling should be legalized as well. And for the record, I am diametrically opposed, in every way, to each, but we must cease this senseless, never-ending, societal war of morality.

HermitBee 20 05 March 2013 9:30am

@Brownly - Is it actually criminal at the moment? I was under the impression that kerb crawling and being a pimp were both illegal, but that prostitution was not.

But either way I agree that legislation can improve things. I doubt this will be enough on its own though.

daisyboo 16 05 March 2013 9:31am

@Risveglio - , but we must cease this senseless, never-ending, societal war of morality.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 209 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Why, is it bad to be moral? Surely to have morals is a good thing.

deezer 51 05 March 2013 9:38am

@daisyboo -

Nothing bad about it, except expecting everyone to live to the same standards.

And if you are an addict with two children to feed and no other source of income, you may not have room for morality.

callaspodeaspode 23 05 March 2013 9:43am

@dorice - Thanks dorice, that is a brilliant yarn. Loved the Church of Scotland bit. I heard a very similar story about the Southern Baptist Convention annual shindig. When those folk hit town, it's a boom time for the brothel and call girl/rent boy sector.

Door 26 05 March 2013 9:55am

@daisyboo - Risveglio didn't say cease being moral, s/he called for an end to using it as a justification for what s/he called "societal war".

War is an immoral method to try and address a problem.

TalkingBiscuit 80 05 March 2013 9:58am

@Risveglio - I'm the same. I find the buying and sex immoral. Not so much the women and men who sell themselves, and not all of the people who purchase sex. I just don't like the idea of bodies being commodities. However, my morality takes a stiff backseat to my pragmatism. There HAS to be a properly regulated sex industry and this includes strip joints, brothels and the like. The most damaging part of the sex industry are the gangsters that run it. They have to go. If drugs are legalised, taxed and regulated properly, and access to excellent quality.drug treatment facilities is the norm, then street prostitution rates will drop. But stereotypes, slut-shaming and ridiculous morality do worse than nothing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 210 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

JGrossman 21 05 March 2013 9:58am

@Brownly -

Decriminalise prostitution - both sides - those that wish to sell and those that wish to buy.

It's a no-brainer.

Which tells you what about the political class?

Jake G

Geeky_Disco 13 05 March 2013 11:06am

@daisyboo -

You can't help having morals. You can help having the ones you've got.

Geeky_Disco 30 05 March 2013 11:16am

@TalkingBiscuit -

The bodies aren't the commodity so much as a certain use of them. I know, I know, but really the two can't be separated. An artist at a class painting a live nude is paying for use of a body but, morally, that purpose is seen through different eyes.

Now I know for a fact that sex is a commodity and I know decently well off women (not prostitutes) I have paid for sex (upping what I was prepared to pay made the choice easier for them to make). I've also lived a Germany across a river from a legal brothel - red light and all. These things are only made sleazy if you look through the eyes of some Victorian morality preacher. Responsible adults with a free will to make decisions for themselves can work things out between them quite adequately without the tutting and disapproval of self-appointed others. It's this so-called morality which puts the participants in prostitution at danger from violence and disease by forcing it to take part in the shadows. Trouble always hates the daylight but why can't moralists ever see that?

And it's not like any law ever could stop people fucking anyway. Why deny anyone the ability to use what fate handed them for their advantage?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 211 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

commentatorcif 14 05 March 2013 11:20am

@deezer -

And if you are an addict with two children to feed and no other source of income, you may not have room for morality.

So instead of staying sober and changing a rotten society to prevent addiction and poverty we should legalise prostitution and the drugs necessary to make such a life bearable?

I guess it would make the ruling class and bourgeois feel a little more secure, but personally I'd like to live in a society where people helped each other to find other ways - yes, better ways - of living.

deezer 32 05 March 2013 11:35am

@commentatorcif -

So instead of staying sober and changing a rotten society to prevent addiction and poverty we should legalise prostitution and the drugs necessary to make such a life bearable?

That's not, at all, what I said. I said that it's easy to live by a set of morals when you have the financial, social, and mental capacity to do so.

In the mean time, why not offer protection for the most vulnerable people in society? Is that not helping people? Bearing in mind that we all live in the world as it actually is, rather than the one we would like it to be...

justonetom 4 05 March 2013 11:45am

@TalkingBiscuit - agree with much of what you say. One's personal views on the sex industry and drug usage are not the weathervane for policy decisions. Tyranny of the majority and all that...

I think, though, that as with cigarettes a high-duties/restricted-use culture would be appropriate. If commercial sex and drugs are to be brought into mainstream markets, then the taxpayer shouldn't be expected to in any way subsidise them; indeed, taxation should ensure that they are net contributors as industries (ie. any healthcare, policing costs etc more than covered by revenue raised).

We also need a robust debate about how and why these industries are historically stigmatised, and whether such stigmas are useful (policy supported) or worth challenging and reducing. There would be significant http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 212 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

consequences for, say, education in schools, were Prostitute to appear on a careers list alongside Barrister, Gardener, Policeman.

Sneezy2013 49 05 March 2013 11:46am

@Brownly -

Sex is very often transactional anyway, even if money doesn't change hands

Yes.I often make the wife a cup of tea after.

If it was particularly enjoyable I sometimes let her have have a chocolate biscuit.

It's spoiling her I know, but that's the kind of guy I am.

TalkingBiscuit 20 05 March 2013 11:46am

@Geeky_Disco - I'm about as far removed from a Victorian preacher as one can get, but you don't have the right to tell me how to feel about a certain subject. You don't have to be prude to realise that some things are indeed sleazy. I know drug addict prostitutes-- I've have family members who have prostituted themselves for crack.

You're a lot less open minded than what you're trying to make me out to be. Regardless of my personal morality, that I know is totally unworkable, legalising, regulating and taxing prostitution is the only way of protecting everyone involved.

piffedoff 24 05 March 2013 12:31pm

@daisyboo -<< Why, is it bad to be moral? Surely to have morals is a good thing.>>

forcing others to adopt your moral stance is the problem.

necronancy 54 05 March 2013 12:32pm

I'm quite shocked to see that the author of this article and the commenters see prostitution as a uniquely female issue. Men and boys

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 213 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

are equally involved in this and just as damaged by it for similar reasons.

I thought this was otherwise a thoughtful article but the sexism of ignoring men here is distasteful and unworthy of The Guardian which ostensibly, and often ostentatiously, promotes equality.

Geeky_Disco 1 05 March 2013 12:44pm

@TalkingBiscuit -

So it's not that we both agree that legalising is the way forward you want to criticise but that I generalise about the motives of the antis?

I can live with that.

tobyd 42 05 March 2013 1:21pm

@necronancy

I'm quite shocked to see that the author of this article and the commenters see prostitution as a uniquely female issue. Men and boys are equally involved in this and just as damaged by it for similar reasons.

That's very true, but society loves to have a stick to beat women with. Hence discussion of prostitution generally involves self-appointed moral guardians lasciviously carping on about low women while people who are a bit more grown-up like you and me have to spend the whole time defending them, with no chance to actually look at the whole situation rationally. It's the same mentality that means single mothers are demonised in the right-wing press but the absent fathers are never held to account.

Unfortunately the issue of prostitution is all mixed up with this country's views about women which seem to have been regressing since the early 90's, to the point where rape is an everyday joke and the PM gets away with saying "calm down dear" to an elected MP.

waltjabsco 6 05 March 2013 1:25pm

@daisyboo - what would you rather have ? morals or fun ?

TalkingBiscuit http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 214 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 1:52pm 11

@Geeky_Disco - Yes. I have no wish to impart my morality on anyone because morals are subjective. It's why it's frankly stupid to criminalise adults buying and selling sex to other adults based on moral codes.

necronancy 22 05 March 2013 1:57pm

@tobyd - Absolutely, I think you make very good points. I do think though that by presenting issues as uniquely 'female' rather than 'human', even though we still live in a patriarchal society, it perpetuates an 'us versus them' gender conflict where many problems such as this or domestic violence, for example, are not gender-specific.

I believe it would be more constructive to be inclusive and help both men and women realise that these are ultimately abuses against humans and would be fought more effectively together.

birney 10 05 March 2013 2:10pm

@TalkingBiscuit - what is the difference between making money from selling sex ie your body or making money from selling your brain eg writing a column based on your private life or being a researcher in some lab, surely the only constraint should be on whether or not you are being forced to do either

Fooster 05 March 2013 2:56pm

@Brownly - To your first post, are there any aspects of sex work that you wouldn't recommend be brought into the open?

jameslegrand 6 05 March 2013 4:36pm

@Brownly - Legalizing prostitution doesn't make it any safer. That's a myth.

notavictim 8

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 215 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 6:32pm

@jameslegrand - Marriage is legal, yet we have a serious problem with domestic violence and spousal abuse. Should we criminalize marriage to protect the victims of violent spouses? The legalization of homosexuality did not stop hate crimes against them- perhaps hate crimes actually increased... so, given your argument, we should consider re-criminalizing homosexuality to protect gays and lesbians from the violence? Fornication and adultery are no longer crimes, yet rape has not disappeared... so clearly making it legal to have sex for NO money didn't make women safer. It helps no one to arrest non violent, non abusive spouses to protect the victims of violent spouses- anymore than it helps to arrest sex workers OR their non violent, non abusive clients, employers and associates.

Geeky_Disco 2 05 March 2013 8:05pm

@jameslegrand -

Your morality is a myth.

TalkingBiscuit 7 05 March 2013 9:14pm

@birney - There is a massive difference. Let's not be obtuse. However, I respect prostitutes a hell of a lot more than many professions, including arms dealers and many politicians.

holly89 3 05 March 2013 10:09pm

@deezer - exactly the point, expecting people to live by your standards is silly. A Christian friend of mine wrote an article about gay marriage, saying the same thing- basically I don't agree, however you can't force your view on anyone.

Also I feel personally that sex is often money in so many ways. Titillation on the TV, porn, strippers & lap dancers etc without forgetting relationships in which people have sex in order to keep a partner, a home, money & car. I think sex work comes in varying shades & should not be hide away to fester, it is a fact of life which we must talk about.

billforsyth http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 216 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

05 March 2013 11:43pm

@dorice 05 March 2013 8:45am. Get cifFix for Chrome. The famous Dora, I believe she used to put a Tory election poster in her window every election time.

RichardGadsden 6 06 March 2013 8:39am

@HermitBee - Being a prostitute is legal. Advertising ("soliciting") isn't. Being a sex-worker's dependent ("living off the avails") is criminal. More than one prostitute in the same premises ("brothel-keeping") is illegal.

Forcing people to work is criminal regardless of the job; we don't need a specific pimping law to address sex slavery when we already have laws against slavery. What it does is catch friends, partners and sometimes children of prostitutes.

fb177 1 07 March 2013 2:36pm

@Brownly - no, actually, let's not legalize the sale of women's bodies and sexuality. Because doing that is really really ridiculous. OK?

fb177 2 07 March 2013 2:40pm

@dorice - OH, how NICE that she was so meticulous and "caring" about making girls into sexual conveniences for men, and making a nice little profit for herself. The problem here is you're not really seeing the forest for the trees, dorice. Like so many on the pro side.

fb177 07 March 2013 2:55pm

@holly89 - being gay and selling a gender's sexuality aren't the same thing, sorry. Expecting people to be OK with your opinion that exploiting a gender for profit is cool is equally if not more silly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality#show-all Page 217 of 218 We need to face up to hatred of prostitutes – among feminists, too | Hannah Betts | Comment is free | The Guardian 3/12/13 7:23 PM

Comments for this discussion are now closed.

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