"I challenge you to tell the difference between a nude prostitute and a classy lady in the nude" said the lawyer (of Dominique Strauss-Kahn).
"The definition of a prostitute is a woman who sells her pussy for money, a woman who gives it away for free is a whore" said the pimp (from the South Side of Chicago).
For my upcoming documentary 10,000 Men I have spent two years researching and interviewing all the players in the business most still call prostitution, but correctly should be called sex trafficking. I have heard so many specious arguments to justify "the world's oldest profession" or that "boys will be boys" it's hard to tell whether I am listening to a high-powered lawyer or a career criminal.
Does any of this matter? And if so, to whom? The law? A judge? A jury of one's peers? The press? To a woman or girl under violent pimp control it surely does.
It seems we are only at the Neanderthal stage of understanding how victimized those who work in the commercial sex industry are, and how and why we must help them. We have to stop burying our heads in the sand and connect the dots: the sexual exploits of wealthy men and politicians do not help advance the human and legal rights of the girls, women and boys who are exploited in the $15 billion a year global sex industry.
If we are to advocate for the teenage girls and boys forced into the commercial sex industry and the adults they become, it is essential that people in positions of power and influence look honestly at their part in the culture of impunity for pimps, traffickers and johns. Statistics are few in this field (who is rushing to fund the research?) but most experts who work in and around the commercially sexually exploited estimate that 90 percent are or have been working under "force, fraud and coercion" which is the Federal definition of human trafficking.
So if you happen upon a lady in the nude, who you don't know, in some hotel and you decide to have sex with her, consider that she may not actually be there by choice and that she may not be having quite as much fun as you are. For 10,000 Men I recently interviewed a man who informed me that of the 500 or so prostitutes he had paid to have sex with "at least 50 or 60 percent had orgasms." Really?
Follow Jane Wells on Twitter: www.twitter.com/3Generations
KZN legislators slam human trafficking
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Wasting time trying to catch and prosecute those just selling and buying sex certainly isn't going to help the real victims of trafficking all the while the real villains are slipping away.
http://www.theskinny.co.uk/deviance/features/301212-conversations_with_independent_escort_part_1
It is well worth a read.
Not so hot, huh...
Well, maybe trying another way?
"Oh no, not MY husband... he is good and loyal and dependable"
But in your heart you know that every wife thought that until they caught him in bed with his secretary.... and so began that long and messy divorce, all that disruption to the kids... weekend dads and talking through solicitors... the other mother... all that emotional disruption for everyone.
And that is the crux of it. Without prostitution, men get themselves involved with affairs of the heart, and that always ends badly for everyone... most especially the innocent parties... the wife and kids. If anything, you should hope that your husband would, if he was going to stray, see a working girl rather than having an affair with his secretary. At least that way you get to keep him.
Prostitution is clean and clear cut. No one is going to get their heart broken.
So actually, rather than damning us all to hell, you should be grateful to us...
...prostitution SAVES marriages!
Do you have any information to back up this claim?
Any self respecting woman would not be happy with their man "straying" regardless of who he is "straying" to. Just like any self respecting man would not be happy with his woman "straying".
I strongly suspect that if they could not see a working girl then they would find what they need elsewhere, in the form of an affair. Seems a reasonable conclusion to draw.
The majority of my clients are middle aged, middle class business men and professionals and many (but not all) are happily married to women who they love dearly and would never want to hurt. But there is something missing for them... perhaps intimacy, perhaps sex, perhaps just that spark of excitement. Sometimes they might have certain sexual desires which their wife is unwilling to cater to, but most often seeing a girl like me is just much cleaner (and safer) then finding what they don't get at home elsewhere.
Testosterone is a powerful drug; sex is not the same for men as it is for women. They do not find it easy to forgo the things they desire or to switch off that powerful urge. And if they no longer feel sexually excited by their wives (or their wives by them, in fact) that is no reason for the whole marriage to break down, surely?
"Any self respecting woman" would value the right to negotiate the terms of her own marriage without your input, thanks.
COMMUNICATION saves marriages, as well as humility and the ability to recognize genuine issues of fidelity, sexual need and personal choice. "Self respect" and "Selfishness" are not to be confused.
Your assignment? Read "Sex at Dawn."
See you in a week.
So long as some men are going to stray (and some always have since the beginning of human civilisation, across all cultures) perhaps it is better that they discreetly see a working girl than have an affair or pick up girls in bars.
Any half decent working girl is sexually responsible, always uses a condom (even in her personal relationships) and gets her sexual health checked regularly. The same can not be said to be true of girls in bars. And a guy is not going to fall in love with a working girl... okay, it does happen some times but if she is a professional girl then she will not usually be receptive to such advances. So no nasty diseases being brought into the marital bed from casual liaisons, and no hearts broken. Or.... he could just keep it in his pants? And become bitter and twisted and learn to despise his wife?
It's far from ideal, but it is probably the best of a whole bunch of really rather bad options.
I wish every marriage could stay strong. If couples could just communicate, maybe there would be no need for girls to see married men? I would be more than happy if all my clients were single... which a surprisingly large number of them are, by the way.
Laws only bring about the recognition of the fact that we are a lost and sinful people.
Um...
I get that you believe in Jesus Christ. We could go into a lengthy public discussion that goes over all the flaws of Christianity and its virtues... but... we've been there.
My comment had to do with the practicality of the issue, not the merits of religion. Too many people attempt to insert religion into what is not a religious discussion, and the result is a sidetracking of important issues into a debate that can never end because it is centered in a leap of faith which some people are willing to take, and others are simply not.
Prostitution needs to suffer the same fate. It EXISTS. IT HAPPENS. Those who disapprove don't tend to participate anyway.
The criminalization of the act forces women engaged in prostitution into a secretive, marginalized status. This results in them being unable to get jobs because they have prostitution convictions, unable to be self confident because they feel like criminals, and easy prey for pimps they do NOT NEED and who often trump their own intuition with an insistence on taking every John they arrange.
Instead, women who choose to enter prostitution should have access to training in self defense and screening, confidence and safe sex from mentors within a community that has been allowed to emerge because the women are no longer afraid of being publicly shamed, losing their children, being arrested. I PROMISE you if that community is allowed to emerge, they will, like the porn community, police themselves against abusers. Just as the pornography industry has helped to relegate child pornography to the dark underbelly of the internet through it's own patrols and whistle blowing in order to a) kill the competition and b) maintain its own integrity... "We may be porn stars," they say, "but we have DIGNITY and we have MORALS. And we DON'T hurt kids."
Open your mind, open your heart and look at the facts.
BUT - modern escorting doesn't really look like that. Trafficking happens, and law enforcement should work with those inside the industry to eradicate it, however, as a seasoned working girl I can say that I work independently of my own free will, and so do ALL the girls I know. No one takes a "cut" of my income. I thoroughly enjoy my work, in fact I would suggest that I get more job satisfaction than any office worker! Time and company are being paid for, not sex. If I engage in intercourse (which doesn't always happen) it is by my choice and with my consent... that guy who thinks 50-60% of girls he has been with had orgasms might well be right!
We in the trade can not abide exploitation, especially of the young, but in truth the majority of working girls are in their 30's and 40's, a good number in their 20's and their 50's, but there are very, very few working outside of those age brackets.
Trying to curb prostitution will push the industry underground, resulting in a less safe environment for us girls. We will end up having to work covertly though pimps and doing things we don't want to do if we can not trade freely as independent escorts.
Trinity Belle
Escort working proudly and happily in the UK
I've got to tell you. You're right and wrong.
Dismissing trafficking as "not the face of prostitution" is a dangerous game.
Trafficking not only HAPPENS, it's the predominant face of prostitution in many civilized nations, including yours. Until free, responsible sex workers take responsibility for purging their industry of coercion, force, disease, drug abuse and acceptance of the interference of abusers, you will be plagued by the specter of trafficking.
In short- DO SOMETHING.
Band together, folks. Ladies and Men who sell adult entertainment.
TRASH TRAFFICKING. Otherwise trafficking will limit your income by limiting your acceptance in society.
I didn't mean to come of as blasé about it, I just wanted to stress that in the UK it is not predominant. It happens, and it is dreadful... we do hear reports in the press of traffickers being caught and it is always good when that happens. If I knew of anything like that I would have no hesitation in calling it in and the other girls I know in the industry feel the same. Not only is it tragic for the girls who find themselves in that situation, it also damages our business as a whole.
We do have organisations in the UK to represent the rights of sex workers, where girls can get help and advice, learn how to operate in a safer way. We also have an anonymous tip-off system so that if any girls happen across a trafficking situation or who are vunder-age, we can inform without prejudice.
Law enforcement need to work WITH the industry, not AGAINST it. If we work in fear of the law, more girls will be forced underground. Surely what we want to see is the underground girls coming out into the open so they can operate freely and safely or get out of the business altogether if that is what they want.
What I wanted to stress is that in the UK in 2012, trafficking is a problem and we should not be complacent about it, but it is rare.
Given this, as well as the excellent and well-researched resources showing almost no objective basis to the trafficking hype, the people who bleat on about the 'epidemic' of trafficking must accept one of two conclusions:
1. It probably does not exist, and certainly not in the numbers they claim it does, or,
2. It has nothing to do with the mainstream sexual services industry, given almost no one involved has ever encountered it.
One of these must be true. Either way, blaming and criminalizing consenting adult service providers and entertainers is hardly going to help anyone.
In dealing with these girls don't underestimate their agency. Some of them choose this and even if you rescue them from the streets they might end up running back to pimps. This is big problem for those who intervene. They are not old enough to choose so they have to be stopped from doing this. Maybe we can do the same for our young boys who are criminally exploited as drug dealers and gang members. They too need a intervention to keep them alive and out of prison.
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/that-was-the-week-that-was-7/
http://rightswork.org/2011/11/where-is-the-village-to-raise-these-children/
http://bit.ly/wIbk6u
http://www.fpif.org/articles/sex_trafficking_the_abolitionist_fallacy
http://bebopper76.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/gaatw-human-trafficking-research/
http://bit.ly/xbQ4gB
http://bit.ly/oCFFTK
http://bit.ly/rJAZIh
http://bit.ly/y6OHJh
http://bit.ly/wdNhHQ
http://rightswork.org/2012/01/addressing-the-demand-side-of-trafficking/
http://bit.ly/yBDByz
http://rightswork.org/research/issue-papers/english/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ronald-weitzer/human-trafficking-myths_b_935366.html
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/08/its_time_to_legalize_prostitution/
Let me guess what the answer to that is.....I know, "think of the children"....
http://www.scribd.com/doc/82746111
http://www.scribd.com/doc/82746116
http://www.scribd.com/doc/82746142
http://www.scribd.com/doc/82746191
http://www.scribd.com/doc/82746236
"..but most experts who work in and around the commercially sexually exploited estimate that 90 percent are or have been working under "force, fraud and coercion" which is the Federal definition of human trafficking."
Oh really? Most experts who work around the commercially sexually exploited estimate that 90% have been working under "force, fraud and coercion". Now it's not exactly clear what the author is referring to by "commercially sexually exploited" but that certainly does not refer to the average individual in commercial sex trade. What I am assuming is that the term "commercially sexually exploited" is one that applies to all minors in the commercial sex trade since by law they are not considered to be able to consent.
The author is apparently trying to say that out of all teenagers/minors (NOT adults) involved (and, legally, exploited) in the commercial sex trade, 90% are working under "force, fraud and coercion". OK. But what do "facts" about minors have to do with adults in prostitution, which is the group the author claims is also victim of trafficking?? (Answer: Nothing at all) Oh, that's right, the magic words...."think of the children" makes it unnecessary to support the claim.