The Oldest Profession

[sesmo]

Seriously NSFW anti-prostitution ad, and one that comes closer to any I have ever seen to convey to men a visceral sense of how awful it must be to be a woman in the sex trade:


Campaign against Prostitution English version from Black Moon prod on Vimeo.
I should say, as a point of order, that I'm not anti-sex. I'm sure there are out there many

Comments

[jamethiel_bane]

...

I have actually worked in the sex industry. While it's still an industry that I'm tremendously conflicted about and it did tremendous damage to me and some of my friends, I can say:

The problems he's talking about? The abcesses, and drug use and all of that? Come about PURELY because the sex industry is illegal. You decriminalise brothels, legislate the hell out of them and make them subject to standards and OH & S and give sex workers OPTIONS then you substantially decrease the number of sex workers with these problems. They will still exist, but then you have less strain on the resources that are there to HELP PEOPLE.

Also: I don't have any data

OIC. How about doing some research.

This whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Also, heaven forfend that womens bodies not be perfect! Especially from something like childbearing!

[doe_witch]

+1

I don't do and have never done sex work but from what I have seen in the activist community centered around sex workers' rights, none of this stuff really quite speaks to the sum total of sex workers' experiences, to say the least. Also I felt like the descriptive language in this piece was rather dehumanizing.

[jamethiel_bane]

It's--zie's talking about them being sexy and that is NOT WHAT SEX WORK IS ABOUT. It's a job. Unless you're interacting with a worker as a client, you probably shouldn't be worried about how sexy they are! And also, why the fuck should zie find them sexually attractive, zie is treating them as their DOCTOR.

There's a conflation between the job and the person here that I'm finding is making me very incoherently angry.

[temperance_k]

I agree that his entire rant about the 'sexiness' of the women is problematic, but I thought what he meant to do by pointing out that they 'weren't sexy' was to try to rid people of the thought that prostitution WAS a sexy industry, and that these people should stop automatically imagining sexy women walking the streets just ~ready and willing to have sex with them~, because the reality is not like that, and having that mentality is problematic.

Of course, I could totally be wrong and he's just a douchebag, but. :/

[jamethiel_bane]

It's just another way of treating these (mostly) women like objects, rather than people. He could try actually talking to sex workers and getting them to tell their story.

(He's possibly well intentioned, but if he comes into his work with an attitude like this and it's shared by his colleagues, I have to say that the hospital he works at would get a rep of "AVOID UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO" among sex workers. Aside from anything else, it's work that gives you a REALLY GOOD ability to assess people)

[temperance_k]

From what I've seen, this view is relatively common among ER docs due to their working circumstances, which yes, causes incredible issues for the doctors but especially for the patients who come in seeking treatment. :/

I can only hope that when he actually encounters people in the ER, he remains professional. As for quality of care, well... That's lacking in most areas of American health care.

[ms_maree]

Those problem do exist when it's legalised too. But probably far less. In Australia the police are constantly fighting illegal brothels because they hire illegal immigrants who probably didn't know they were coming to Australia to be a prostitute (they were lured here being told they would be a waistress, or entertainer). They hire underage girl, and they charge clients for unsafe sex practices.

The illegal brothels don't have to worry about health regulation, or following the guidelines or having their license revoked - and in teh end of the day, because they exploit their workers they make a bigger profit margin.

So, I don't think legalisation of prostitution will entirely eliminate these problems, but they will reduce them, for sure.

[jamethiel_bane]

I'm an Aussie, and the brothels I worked in were in Australia.

The best way to actually combat illegal brothels is to make others legal. The workers have a vested interest in cutting down competition. We HATED the illegal brothels, and the minute we found out about them would report them to the police. Really, the only way that illegal brothels can exist is by exploiting the illegal immigrants, etc with limited english skills and keeping them isolated from the general community. And that's going to happen whether things are legalised or not.

[ms_maree]

And that's going to happen whether things are legalised or not.

Yeah, unfortunately.

[jamethiel_bane]

You're conflating sex workers with sex slaves. Which is problematic and denies sex workers a lot of agency. Someone who chooses prostitution is different from someone forced into it.

I see them as separate issues, myself. Illegal immigrants being forced into doing ANYTHING is bad. The fact that it's sex work probably adds to the trauma.

[jamethiel_bane]

As someone who has actually worked in the sex industry for EXACTLY THE REASONS YOU JUST OUTLINED, yes. Yes, it does make a huge difference.

It was my choice.

[jamethiel_bane]

You can say "I'm not talking about your personal experience" except that I HAVE experienced this, and you're trying to say "Oh, your experience doesn't apply". Your experience may be different, but mine still applies.

Society is fucked up. I'll work to change it, but in the meantime I have to live in it and make the best choices I can in any given situation.

As for agency, most of the ladies I know are fiercely independent women. Yes, even the women who are addicted to various things. Pretty much all of the workers I know would tell you that they chose this.

[five_sunsets]

We should make like the Netherlands about it. Seriously.

[jamethiel_bane]

The industry left me pretty damaged, and it's done some amazingly awful things to friends of mine but I've had positive experiences as well. To me, at the end of the day, it comes down to harm minimisation and not forcing people into dead ends.