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Would you?

2

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,676 ✭✭✭strandroad


    No, I wouldn't and certainly not for a pair of football boots like she supposedly did. I don't believe she is a real person either, with her account being so squeaky clean. My feeling is that it's all to market an "oh my God an educated woman selling herself" book.

    I agree about the arguments saying that with social welfare safety net in place there is no need for a committed parent to engage in activities putting her own safety at risk. If she was assaulted, raped, HIV infected, arrested as part of some ruckus etc. how would it help her children?

    If she is such a promising book writer, why not to write a book on something else. A middle class woman braving the recession story would sell well too, if she put enough spark in it. If she had the gusto to blow strangers, this should be a walk in the park!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 37,215 ✭✭✭✭Dudess


    And lets not forget, some people really, really like sex. So for them, if they enjoy what they are doing, why should other people look down on them?
    Are there people who enjoy the sensation so much that it doesn't matter a jot whom it's with? Perhaps, but rare I'd assume. The money rules methinks.
    Nobody's looking down on prostitutes here btw - just offering views on the pitfalls of the profession.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 17,485 ✭✭✭✭Ickle Magoo


    mariaalice wrote: »
    Its easy to take a moral position when you have never been tested!

    That's a bit of lazy assumption tbh - and it's more that a little disingenuous to ask "Would you" and then throw out the moral high-ground card when posters take the time to respond. Why should being tested automatically mean prostitution should or would be the only option anyway? Millions of people manage to get by in life without resorting to prostitution - in the OP it was a "rational" choice.

    I left home at 16 with very little to call my own, I worked two low paying jobs at nights to get through university...at no point did or will I ever think a mortgage or lifestyle maintained by prostitution was/is a fair exchange for losing autonomy on who can touch my body, nor for disregarding my personal safety. That's my "rational" choice.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,288 ✭✭✭pow wow


    johnr1 wrote: »
    If she or you lived in a country with no social supports, and there was a real danger of your children dying of hunger, or lack of shelter or of them growing up without an education, then yes, it would be in their interest to do this.

    However, neither she nor you do, and the potential damage caused to them by having a mother an escort/prostitute is in my opinion more than that caused by having to live on the welfare system here.

    I don't think any woman who does this is waiting for the day they can tell their kids how mummy was a prostitute back in the day and the woman in the interview was a discreet as she could be so it's not automatic that her children are going to find out. They may find out, they may not, who knows. As her children grow up they'll form their own opinions on what to them is or isn't acceptable. Sometimes parents do things outside of that but they are adults with choices to make.

    It is a personal choice and much as it may abhor you to think any woman would rationally choose it in a country with a good welfare system, it's a choice more than one woman makes every day. I doubt any of them would have written this into the story of their lives and that of their children unless they felt they had no better option. The context of this particular woman's story meant that for her the jump from guys she met online dating who were only after one thing and taking that one step further and charging for it wasn't a great leap.

    Just because it's not a rational or morally correct choice for some people it doesn't mean it's not for others. Most of us are lucky enough to chart out our life stories saying how tough we had it but we made it through without ever even considering prostitution. Some of us just aren't that lucky.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 965 ✭✭✭johnr1


    pow wow wrote: »
    It is a personal choice and much as it may abhor you to think any woman would rationally choose it in a country with a good welfare system, it's a choice more than one woman makes every day. I doubt any of them would have written this into the story of their lives and that of their children unless they felt they had no better option.

    Just because it's not a rational or morally correct choice for some people it doesn't mean it's not for others. Most of us are lucky enough to chart out our life stories saying how tough we had it but we made it through without ever even considering prostitution. Some of us just aren't that lucky.

    Where did I say it abhorred me?? Stop putting words in my mouth.

    Yes it IS a personal CHOICE, I've been saying that in every post. :confused:
    What it is not is necessary. She had other options.

    I never made any moral judgement on this choice.

    My one and only point is that it is disingenuous to say "I had to,- for my kids", because this is untrue. She didn't have to. She chose to.


    .


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,551 ✭✭✭panda100


    sherbett32 wrote: »
    This is not the "real" face of prostitution in Ireland - very dangereous and damaging story IMO & may make soem women think it's easy money

    Completely agree. I was in Easons in Dublin at the weekend, and it was number 3 in the bestseller chart! The book was also widely reviewed in most of the weekend papers.
    I think if it was being sold as fiction it wouldn't be so bad,but it is meant to be 'real' account of working as a prostitutue in Ireland!That is what is so damaging, as there are women whom are in dire situations and think prostitution is a lucrative option after reading this completly fake account. The author states in her interviews that its the easiest money she ever made. Of course, this will appeal to lots of women,but her account is absolute and complete fiction.It is without a shred of doubt written by a journalist, struggling writer or pimp working in the sex industry.

    Firstly, there is no way a women in her late 30's would make €400/hour in recessionary times. Not even in the celtic tiger boom would an escort in their late 30's make that money.You could get Brazilian twins in their teens for half that price!It is very unclear and vague wether she was working for an agency or as an independent. If she was working for an agency,she'd only be making €200 an hour or less, after they have taken their cut. The figures of what she earned really don't add up. She is also a very stupid women with no regard for her saftey. She was meeting strangers in hotels and nobody knew where she was. There are very,very few escorts who would do outcalls like that with no security or buddy contact system.

    As for the type of clients she had, well thats just laughable.Lonely,poor men who she feels sorry for! This is not what your average punter is like in Ireland. The majority of punters who encounter a women in her late 30's with stretch marks standing at their hotel door, would laugh in her face and have no qualms with telling her she was an old bag.
    It seems like she had absolutely no bad experiences whatsoever, and it was all fun and games. Lets be realistic,in any job you have sh*t days and encounter really sh*t people.Yet,Scarlett O'Kelly seems to have had none of these days or met any bad people. Is that really believable?

    I was in an internet cafe in Phibsborough one night, and there was an old smelly man beside me looking at escort ireland. He was ringing up a whole pile of the escorts trying to get the cheapest one he could for 30minutes. The power was in his hands, as he rang 10 diffeernt girls and asked them what they would do for him in 30minutes for the smallest price. I listened as they rang him back one after one, desperate for cash,negotiating what sex acts they would peform on him for the cheapest price. That is not empowering for women, and books like this are just absolutely dreadful, as they are promoting a false account of an industry that we should be doing everything in our power to stamp out.

    Did anyone see the front page of The Sun yesterday?There was an article with the headline 'Tarts coming to Ireland'.Basically saying how there'll be lots of 'tarts',escorts to you and me, in Ireland this weekend for the rugby match. They had a picture of some 20 year old Latvian girl, who said she was really up for it and open for business. I think calling women whom work as escorts 'tarts' is disgsuting. But you can bet that the people who buy The Sun are those who probably will use escorts, and that is their view on women.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,512 ✭✭✭baby and crumble


    panda100 wrote: »
    Completely agree. I was in Easons in Dublin at the weekend, and it was number 3 in the bestseller chart! The book was also widely reviewed in most of the weekend papers.
    I think if it was being sold as fiction it wouldn't be so bad,but it is meant to be 'real' account of working as a prostitutue in Ireland!That is what is so damaging, as there are women whom are in dire situations and think prostitution is a lucrative option after reading this completly fake account. The author states in her interviews that its the easiest money she ever made. Of course, this will appeal to lots of women,but her account is absolute and complete fiction.It is without a shred of doubt written by a journalist, struggling writer or pimp working in the sex industry.

    Firstly, there is no way a women in her late 30's would make €400/hour in recessionary times. Not even in the celtic tiger boom would an escort in their late 30's make that money.You could get Brazilian twins in their teens for half that price!It is very unclear and vague wether she was working for an agency or as an independent. If she was working for an agency,she'd only be making €200 an hour or less, after they have taken their cut. The figures of what she earned really don't add up. She is also a very stupid women with no regard for her saftey. She was meeting strangers in hotels and nobody knew where she was. There are very,very few escorts who would do outcalls like that with no security or buddy contact system.

    As for the type of clients she had, well thats just laughable.Lonely,poor men who she feels sorry for! This is not what your average punter is like in Ireland. The majority of punters who encounter a women in her late 30's with stretch marks standing at their hotel door, would laugh in her face and have no qualms with telling her she was an old bag.
    It seems like she had absolutely no bad experiences whatsoever, and it was all fun and games. Lets be realistic,in any job you have sh*t days and encounter really sh*t people.Yet,Scarlett O'Kelly seems to have had none of these days or met any bad people. Is that really believable?

    I was in an internet cafe in Phibsborough one night, and there was an old smelly man beside me looking at escort ireland. He was ringing up a whole pile of the escorts trying to get the cheapest one he could for 30minutes. The power was in his hands, as he rang 10 diffeernt girls and asked them what they would do for him in 30minutes for the smallest price. I listened as they rang him back one after one, desperate for cash,negotiating what sex acts they would peform on him for the cheapest price. That is not empowering for women, and books like this are just absolutely dreadful, as they are promoting a false account of an industry that we should be doing everything in our power to stamp out.

    Did anyone see the front page of The Sun yesterday?There was an article with the headline 'Tarts coming to Ireland'.Basically saying how there'll be lots of 'tarts',escorts to you and me, in Ireland this weekend for the rugby match. They had a picture of some 20 year old Latvian girl, who said she was really up for it and open for business. I think calling women whom work as escorts 'tarts' is disgsuting. But you can bet that the people who buy The Sun are those who probably will use escorts, and that is their view on women.

    Can I just ask- what evidence do you have to back up those points?


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,882 ✭✭✭JuliusCaesar


    johnr1 wrote: »
    There are plenty of other escort bloggers - some who found it to be a more positive experience than the one you linked.
    Most are however by single women without children, and for them the motivation seems to be money, lifestyle, material possessions.
    I think that's fine, if those things are most important to that person.

    I don't know - I worked with prostitutes in a variety of circumstances, not always in my professional capacity. Most of those I encountered if not all (I don't actually remember ANY exceptions) found it a degrading and stigmatising experience. They all (as far as I recall- this was about 20-30 years ago mostly) regretted having done it.
    Dudess wrote: »
    Would you consider rape natural? I mean it's sex, a natural bodily function...

    For many people, anal isn't "just sex" - it's something they'd rather not do. Personal preference.
    Dudess wrote: »
    Are there people who enjoy the sensation so much that it doesn't matter a jot whom it's with? Perhaps, but rare I'd assume. The money rules methinks.

    I enjoy eating - but there's a limit beyond which I no longer enjoy it. I remember watching a documentary about a woman who set out to break the world's record for having the most men ever (a woman with whom I had a slight personal connection) and it was the saddest, most ridiculous, revolting thing ever. The men queued, massaging their dicks to maintain their erections, to have a go while she squirmed supposedly in ecstacy. She took a break after every 30 men, and they were all supposed to wear condoms...but didn't.

    Would I accept cash in exchange for a variety of sexual acts? Yes, absolutely, if I needed or wanted the money.

    Now think of the most disgusting and repellent man you've ever come across and tell me that yes, you'd have sex with him. And that sex includes being ordered around by him, without any regard for you having any feelings or opinions.

    mhge wrote: »
    I don't believe she is a real person either, with her account being so squeaky clean. My feeling is that it's all to market an "oh my God an educated woman selling herself" book.
    panda100 wrote: »
    I think if it was being sold as fiction it wouldn't be so bad,but it is meant to be 'real' account of working as a prostitutue in Ireland!That is what is so damaging, as there are women whom are in dire situations and think prostitution is a lucrative option after reading this completly fake account. The author states in her interviews that its the easiest money she ever made. Of course, this will appeal to lots of women,but her account is absolute and complete fiction.It is without a shred of doubt written by a journalist, struggling writer or pimp working in the sex industry.

    There's a long history of writing these books which are actually more for the titilation of the reader than they are about being truthful. The word 'pornography' itself means 'the writings of prostitutes'. Pornography doesn't claim to reflect reality, even though nowadays fashions may reflect pornography!


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,017 ✭✭✭The_Thing


    Addressing the House Of Commons in 2009, the Parish Priest of London's Soho had this to say about prostitution in his area:



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,048 ✭✭✭Da Shins Kelly


    I wouldn't do it. Fair play to any women who do it, are okay with it and feel in control, but I don't think I could ever be okay with being used for sex. It would really f*ck me up I think. It's just the kind of person I am. I guess it just kind of depends what kind of mental disposition you have, and I don't think I'd be mentally equipped to deal with the psychological effects of a job like that.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,325 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    I have thought about this, I had not fully realized that she did it to maintain a lifestyle and not just to pay her mortgage. I was in a book shop this morning and flicked trough it I think it is a highly sanitized account of her life as an escort.

    The things I found interesting was how she found men, on interned dating site looking for something casual really meant they were just looking for commitment free sex, so those were the men she targeted for her service's

    I would not do it to maintain a life style and John1 is right she did have other choices she could have taken.

    If my children were starving and the only way I could feed them was by becoming an escort yes I would do it.

    I feel women ( and men ) are exploited by prostitution and that the purchasers of sex are the ones who should be prosecuted, because I think the shame of being caught, charged and named in the paper might be enought to make some men hesitate and not to pay to use another another human being.

    People take the oddest inferences for what you say on boards.ie so before I add the next paragraph, I want to say I am completely uninhibited and have no hang ups about sex and I don't make value judgment on what people want to do in a consensual sexual relationship, I have had lovely relationships with various men I have been very luck I think,

    However I don't think we have a divine right to sex, while a a good sexual relationship is a wonderful, pleasurable, life enhancing experience, being celibate is not going to harm you in anyway, so therefore if you cant access sex in the normal way ( for what ever reason ) you have no right to access it by paying to use another human being.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 18,174 CMod ✭✭✭✭The Black Oil


    I remember watching a documentary about a woman who set out to break the world's record for having the most men ever (a woman with whom I had a slight personal connection) and it was the saddest, most ridiculous, revolting thing ever. The men queued, massaging their dicks to maintain their erections, to have a go while she squirmed supposedly in ecstacy. She took a break after every 30 men, and they were all supposed to wear condoms...but didn't.

    I saw that a few years ago (on Channel 4, I think). IIRC she self-harms on camera. As you say, the whole thing was pretty sad and revolting.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,111 ✭✭✭mrsdewinter


    So did anybody see last night's Primetime about prostitution in Ireland last night? Grim viewing but very interesting...


  • Administrators, Politics Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,947 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Neyite


    So did anybody see last night's Primetime about prostitution in Ireland last night? Grim viewing but very interesting...

    I had one eye on it and one on boards. Bit sickening. But it seems the demand is there - those pimps were raking it in. And after all that, the woman at the end said that she got about €20 to €30 a day. If she was profiting out of her clients it wouldnt be so bad, but for pimps to? Ugh!


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,325 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    I watched the Prime time program and out of sheer curiosity I got the book and all I can say there is a serious disconnect between the way she describes it and the way Prime time portrays it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 134 ✭✭Eileen_Lang


    Dudess wrote: »
    Are there people who enjoy the sensation so much that it doesn't matter a jot whom it's with? Perhaps, but rare I'd assume. The money rules methinks.
    Nobody's looking down on prostitutes here btw - just offering views on the pitfalls of the profession.

    I have to say Dudess that you nailed it there for me. As an ex-hooker and newly resurrected activist the word "prostitution", for me means, simply:
    *the absolute last, desperate resort when you run out of money and options

    That's it...at which point, as long as I don't have to sell out my soul, my honour or my belief system, I am past being fussy about whether you want sex or 5 dozen fairy cakes, because my only, honest, interest is in the money.

    Even so, my resurrection has become something of a journey. I have met lovely women who tell me they are fine with selling sex...not as a dream job, but in the same way they would be fine with working in a call centre or a supermarket...

    I think books like "Between the sheets" always need to be taken with a whole bag of salt...if you told the truth, no-one would publish...but WHERE does this crackpot idea that it might "sell" women in financial difficulties on the idea of prostitution?

    People aren't that suggestible...I am sure that every single woman reading this, even a virgin, has a fair, ball park, idea how she would feel about having sex with an unattractive stranger, whatever sales pitch you throw at them.

    ...and if, by some chance they aren't sure, they would only have do it once to be in no doubt...

    ...and if, by chance, they should find the experience tolerable, despite the damage to my own preferred political agenda, I don't think it will initiate the end of the world...


  • Registered Users Posts: 116 ✭✭Raditub


    to just answer the question....no i wouldn't! There'd be other ways to get money...it just wouldn't be worth it for me! Not saying it's always a bad idea! Just not for me!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,154 ✭✭✭Dolbert


    I think anyone who claims that prostitution is harmless or that the woman is in total control is being incredibly naive. There's an interesting article about this in today's Irish Examiner:
    The harsh realities of ‘being raped for a living’

    Wednesday, February 15, 2012

    A former Dublin prostitute speaks about her seven years working in the Irish sex trade and argues against the idea that legalisation can make the work any safer

    FOLLOWING the latest revelations about Ireland’s booming prostitution rackets, a former Dublin prostitute has written a stark account of her seven year ordeal in the industry which began when she was just 15.

    At that young age, circumstances no child should ever experience forced her to sell her body to elderly men, who would openly be aroused by abusing a child. Before she managed to extricate herself from a life in which she says she was "raped for a living", she admits she even contemplated suicide...

    "The nation is finally beginning to take a look at the intrinsic harm of prostitution. I welcome this because it is a harm I have understood since I was a 15-year-old prostitute, being used by up to 10 men a day. The one thing that linked those men together, besides their urges to pay to abuse my young body, was that they all knew just how young I was. They all knew because I told them, and I told them because it had the near-universal effect of causing them to become very aroused.

    "When a man is very aroused in street prostitution that is a good thing, because it means he’ll climax quickly and the whole ordeal will be over fairly fast. I learned that on my very first day while sitting in the car of an elderly man who repeated over and over the thing that was causing him such sexual joy: ‘Oh, you’re very young — aren’t you? Aren’t you?’

    "That is the true, sleazy and debased face of prostitution — the face that pro-prostitution lobby groups hysterically deny and attempt to conceal. Well, they cannot conceal it from me. I spent too long looking at it, too long being abused by it, and too long trying to recover from the soul-level injury it left behind.

    "Many of the girls I worked alongside were not much older than I was, and one was only 13-years-old — and there was no shortage of grown men paying to abuse her. Most of the older women had been working since they were our age or younger, and many of them had histories of sexual abuse that predated their prostitution lives. When a person looks at a 30- or 40-something prostitute what they forget is that they are looking, in most cases, at a woman who has been inured to bodily invasion since she was a prepubescent child.

    "I didn’t just work outdoors. When the Sexual Offences Act of 1993 came into force it drove me and many others indoors, where we had even less autonomy over the conditions of our own lives. In the brothels and the ‘escort’ agencies, we had to endure the same things we did on the streets, but we had to endure them for longer, and with no screening process as to who would pay to abuse us.

    "You might wonder, ‘if you were a prostitute, what did it matter who it was?’ That is an innocent question, and it is deserving of an answer. It mattered because, far from being unaware of the abusive nature of prostitution, a lot of men were not only aware of it but actively got off on it. The misogyny from a lot of men was so potent and so deliberate it could cause nothing but trauma. And we, as the prostituted class that we were, could do nothing to protect ourselves other than try to avoid its most potent manifestations. This had been at least somewhat possible on the streets, where we could do our best to discern whether or not a man had hatred and the desire to hurt us seeping out of every pore. It was not at all possible once we’d gotten run indoors, and the immediate effect was a rapid escalation in violence and murder.

    "Irish prostitution has been mainly conducted indoors since then, and nothing about this ugliness has abated because it’s been concealed from the public view. In fact the opposite has been true. We were abused more thoroughly, not less, with the only difference being that now there was the secrecy of closed doors to conceal it.

    "There is no doubt that many of these men had daughters older than I was, yet the abuse they unleashed on me was devastating, violent, humiliating and degrading. It was paid sexual abuse. It was ritualistic, and I experienced it in every area of prostitution.

    "Do not for a moment think that the men paying to abuse here are not ‘ordinary men’. I could not count the number of wedding rings and babies car seats I encountered. The men who pay to debase and degrade women and girls in prostitution are the same men who play out the pretence of being happily married family men. I wonder sometimes at the amount of women who would be shocked, not only to know their husbands are visiting prostitutes, but also to know the depth of their own husbands’ contempt and misogynistic hatred of women.

    "Under Irish law, the abusive nature of prostitution has been allowed to flourish unhindered and it is a living hell for the women struggling to survive within it. It is primarily for the sake of these women, but also for all of us who want to live in a gender-equal society, that I am gladdened to see the Irish Government finally pledge to tackle this issue.

    "I only hope that they go the right way about it, which is to criminalise the purchase of sex, because nothing will change for prostituted women and girls until the commercialisation of female bodies is dealt the hammer-blow it so richly deserves.

    "To those who would say legalisation would make prostitution safer: I think the same thing any former prostitute I’ve ever spoken to thinks, which is that you may as well legalise rape and battery to try to make them safer. You cannot legislate away the dehumanising, degrading trauma of prostitution, and if you try to, you are accepting a separate class of women should exist who have no access to the human rights everyone else takes for granted."


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 134 ✭✭Eileen_Lang


    Dolorous wrote: »
    I think anyone who claims that prostitution is harmless or that the woman is in total control is being incredibly naive. There's an interesting article about this in today's Irish Examiner:

    Most important thing first, in the middle of all this is the most persuasive argument anyone could make for rolling back the 1993 legislation that forced the women underground and into the clutches of the pimps:
    examiner wrote:
    "Irish prostitution has been mainly conducted indoors since then, and nothing about this ugliness has abated because it’s been concealed from the public view. In fact the opposite has been true. We were abused more thoroughly, not less, with the only difference being that now there was the secrecy of closed doors to conceal it.

    Pre 1993, during decriminalisation, the women had the power, pimps barely existed and what you can hide from the cops and what you can hide from a hoor (like me) are two very different things. I won't say it wasn't possible to abuse a woman or a child in Ireland at that time, I am sure it was, sadly I am sure it always will be, but it was a great deal harder than it is now, and far easier to escape.

    Further criminalisation will only force the sex industry further underground and facillitate worse abuses...just as the '93 act did.

    Incidentally, the youngest street prostitute I was aware of (and I knew most of them) during the period of decriminalisation between '82 and '93, was 18 and sadly (for unrelated reasons) is no longer with us, the next youngest were 19 and 22...the women did not allow young girls to work on the street...pre '82 decriminalisation I have absolutely no idea, one way or another. If she says so it must be so.

    I was a teenage runaway, I was in care...I lived independently since I was 16, I never sold sex at all till I was 22, and not regularly until 5 years later...but I was far from naive...a lot of the other teen runaways in London were prostitutes very young (I didn't look young enough for the pedophiles, so I mostly went without food and lost a lot of weight and got cold in between squats and young men) but...

    ...I have never heard a story remotely like this...not even close...that doesn't mean it is untrue, but it certainly does mean it is very, very unususual (- perhaps a bit PG for the workplace? I will link it http://secretdiaryofadublincallgirl.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-subtle-infiltration-of-prostitution/ ) but, as far as I can pin down the facts it would seem that she was entrapped into some kind of fetish ring in her teens...which sounds quite horrible to me, but not much to do with prostitution, and then went on to develop a pathological compulsion to sell sex, despite being otherwise financially, emotionally and materially comfortable.

    Now everyone I ever knew who was selling sex was doing it just because they needed the money...and in most cases, though they were very proud women, between the lines, they needed that money pretty desperately too, like I did, and, for me, it was a question of survival.

    It is just about the money to us...I know for me, and anyone I knew well enough to discuss such personal matters with, it did not even count as sex, our own sexuality was not in any way engaged or involved at all.

    If you have never sold sex that must be hard to get your head round, but it is the truth, and I do not think it is fair to judge the other women who have, or still do, sell sex for the money by the standards of a very unusual case like this, much less to consider it grounds for legislating to take away the incomes they need to get theit lives together.

    That would be like firing all the ESB crews because one man develops vertigo!!

    It seems to me this person was selling sex because she desperately needed serious help (and I hope she gets it) but the vast majority of us are selling sex just because we desperately need the money, as she did not...

    Very different situations...

    I have recently put up some of my own impressions and experiences in prostitution in case anyone interested...it's all pretty dry and academic but you are welcome to take a look:
    http://www.stop-the-lights.com

    I hated every minute of selling sex...it's not "me" at all, I am not even close to "the type" (or course it helps that hardly any of the other women were "the type" either)...but it was better than the alternative...which would have been homelessness and hopeless destitution (so my head and my life is messed up...so sue me :) )

    Sometimes people fall through the cracks, I was one of them, thank heavens it was possible for me to sell sex to save myself...and the guys I sold sex to were just normal...like anyone else...they just were not men I wanted to have sex with in my own right...but some of them did go on to become personal platonic friends.

    I lost the run of myself a bit there and forgot to wind this up properly, but I think that when a person has sold sex to survive, and get to a better place in life, and do not need to sell sex any more, it is extremely unfair to try and prevent other people from having the same, last resort, chance to get their life to a better future intact, because without it, some of us will not make it at all, and that is far worse.


  • Registered Users Posts: 486 ✭✭jackie1974


    I would need to be in dire circumstances, my children hungry or cold and no way to feed and heat them then yes I would but I think we have a good enough safety net in this country that we're not pushed to those extremes.

    If I lived in a country where there was little or no social welfare and I had to find a way to provide for myself and my family, all other avenues were a no go then yes I would, it would kill me and i'd feel like tearing the clients head off because it goes against everything I believe in but seeing my children suffer would be much worse.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,424 ✭✭✭Storminateacup


    If it was the only possible means of survival, so that my child was safe, fed, sheltered and clothed, if there was absolutely no other way out.

    Otherwise no, I don't have that little respect for myself. My body isn't just something I'd allow someone throw money at for them to relieve themselves. I was brought up better than that.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 134 ✭✭Eileen_Lang


    I am going to quote both of you together her, because I am pretty sure all three of us are on exactly the same page, attitude-wise.
    jackie1974 wrote: »
    I would need to be in dire circumstances, my children hungry or cold and no way to feed and heat them then yes I would but I think we have a good enough safety net in this country that we're not pushed to those extremes.

    That is true for *most* people here...I'll even go further and say "for the vast majority"...even at this point in time, and things are pretty bad right now. But even during the boom, a very people fell through the cracks.

    Some of them wind up suicide statistics, some wind up criminals, some sell sex. The best estimate anyone seems to even be able to come up with of how many women are selling sex in Ireland at any point over the past 20 years is 1000 - 1500...that is less than 0.1%, and there tends to be an exceptionally bad, even far fetched combination of circumstances driving each of them.

    Unfortunately, as things are now, the "safety net" is springing more holes with every budget, and more and more people are at risk of that degree of desperation all the time.

    Let me give you a few examples:
    1. People who had a business that went broke aren't entitled to claim anything at all, they are living on savings till they run out...there are proposals to sort that out but they will not come in time for all of them
    2. If you are 18 years old, in an abusive family, and need to leave, or are thrown out, all you are entitled to is €100 a week to get a room, buy food, everything...there are no jobs for anyone, but even such few as there are will be going to people who radiate far more mental and emotional health than you can
    3. The recent, erratic cuts to maximum rent limits for rent supplement have left loads of people in a position where they suddenly have to move, have no money to move with, and nowhere to move to. I know, for a fact, CWOs around the country are bending the rules to breaking point to firefight there, but there are limits...and I know a few people who have no way out of being homeless by may barring a miracle

    This is all nightmare stuff you don't want to hear...me neither...I have to switch homeless ads off the TV...because of PTSD for example...but it is really happening to real people...right now...

    During the boom I was happy to jump up and down and tell politicians they needed horsewhipping for leaving people in desperation...but now? There is no money...and it can only get worse.

    Even so, most of those people will be fine (though I am sure they do not feel that way)...family and community supports will hold them up until a better time and place arrives...

    Just a very few will be left stranded, because they were unlucky, because they had additional problems, whatever...doesn't matter...they will be left trapped in desperation, right here in Ireland...
    jackie1974 wrote: »
    If I lived in a country where there was little or no social welfare and I had to find a way to provide for myself and my family, all other avenues were a no go then yes I would, it would kill me and i'd feel like tearing the clients head off because it goes against everything I believe in but seeing my children suffer would be much worse.
    If it was the only possible means of survival, so that my child was safe, fed, sheltered and clothed, if there was absolutely no other way out.

    Otherwise no, I don't have that little respect for myself. My body isn't just something I'd allow someone throw money at for them to relieve themselves. I was brought up better than that.

    I used try and catch Mums who felt just like you two on their first few nights out (the other women were not welcoming and supportive for a week or two...not badness...but it was a crude, communal, way of making sure nobody joined them unless they REALLY needed to...it just wasn't *MY* way) and I would tell them to always remember that what they were doing, terrified and disgusted, was probably the bravest, most loving thing they would ever do in their lives, and to always hold their heads up and be proud of that.

    Then I would go home and cry myself to sleep because they had to be there, and there was not one, single thing I could do to save them from that.

    That is why I am SO ANGRY that I could get violent (my friends would tell you that is a really mild way of putting it) with all these people getting huge salaries from NGOs who are appointing themselves to make life EVEN HARDER for those same women.

    They will still have their cars, and their clothes and their expensive lunches, and their totally unjustified sense of their own smartness and superiority, while ordinary, decent women, like both of you, are wandering around in shock, taking the last resort, having to try even harder, offer more invasive things, accept less money and worse conditions because a crowd of silly, selfish privileged little madams cooked up a fad ideology between them and found a way to impose it on their world.

    Prostitution has always been a horrible business for most people, and it always will be, but it will always be with us until someone finds a way to eradicate poverty and desperation completely.

    These silly ideological fads just come and go and only make things worse for the women trapped in prostitution by circumstances beyond their control.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,017 ✭✭✭The_Thing


    The woman who wrote the Irish Examiner article is a mouth piece for Ruhama and as such it is her job to paint as bleak a picture as possible.

    She has previouisly dismissed the "Scarlett O'Kelly" book as complete nonsense, but wants us to take her account as the gospel truth. I think Ruhama didn't want people to see that there is another side to the sex industry that doesn't get any airtime and they probably made a few phonecalls to RTE asking to have the programme aired as it would further their cause. It has to be pointed out that there are already laws in place to deal with the issues of trafficking, pimping, and sex with minors.

    Here's a video interview with a Swedish sex worker discussing the effects of the law in her home country:



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,116 ✭✭✭RDM_83 again


    A male browser here with an ambivalent attitude to the area and thanks for an informative post. But in relation to your experiences, this is mainly from a UK perspective? I have heard anecdotally from a MD in the UK that in areas like Sunderland the prices for acts like anal sex is amazingly low (to avoid confusion in a GUM sense!) is this really comparing like with like when talking about Ireland with the sex industry being far less visible and probably much smaller.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 134 ✭✭Eileen_Lang


    A male browser here with an ambivalent attitude to the area and thanks for an informative post. But in relation to your experiences, this is mainly from a UK perspective? I have heard anecdotally from a MD in the UK that in areas like Sunderland the prices for acts like anal sex is amazingly low (to avoid confusion in a GUM sense!) is this really comparing like with like when talking about Ireland with the sex industry being far less visible and probably much smaller.

    No, my experiences in prostitution are mainly from an Irish perspective...

    I have worked as a prostitute in the West End of London (I specify because I have a feeling that is totally different to the rest of the UK?), but not for very long. I went to school for a while, was a teen runaway and was in the care system in the UK.

    Until I actually worked full time, as a prostitute all I knew about prostitution was from a UK perspective.

    One of the differences that surprised me in Ireland (then decriminalised) was that, when I was a teen in and out of the UK care system, heavily criminalised prostitution was a survival option we all took for granted as young as 13 in London. But in any city I am familiar with in Ireland, during decriminalisation, it would be absolutely impossible for a for an underage girl to sell sex...it would be like a 14 year old boy trying to drive a hackney cab...exactly the same thing...NOT A CHANCE anyone (women, guards, clients whoever) was going to let them do it.

    Prostitutes are normal women, often mums, and, during decriminalisation in Ireland they could afford to react to a teenage girl trying to sell sex like normal women and mums.

    In London they were too busy dodging the police to take care of anyone but themselves.

    For the rest, the recession in the UK is being allowed to hit vulnerable people far worse than it does here, and government policy is leaving more people in literally impossible positions.

    I am heartbroken, but not surprised, that women are having to offer thins like anal sex for a few pounds...that is really painful unless you are very into it at the time (anyone want to fill in the science bit on that?)...I cannot even imagine doing it for money...all I can think of is how desperate they must be for the money to have to do that...and how cruel it would be to even take that money away...which is *ALL* prohibition and crackdowns achieve, taking away that last desperate resort money too.

    ...on that level, crack down, and you turn a prostitute into a homeless bag lady...*snap* just like that...

    Prostitution, like everything else, is still a lot easier here...but for how long?

    ...and there are still plenty of people who who are selling sex here because they have fallen through enough cracks to be in an absolutely desperate situation, as bad as any in the UK...is it really a good idea, in their best interests, to make prostitution even more dreadful and desperate, just like the UK, too?

    I am going to repost Pye too. I came across her one night after spending far too long in the surreal, gaslight world of "Ruhama" and "Turn Off the Red Light" trying to plead, in vain, for a little reason, sanity and humanity towards the real women in prostitution they claim to support (might as vwell talk to the wall, they just do not care) and I was looking for specifics concerning the claim that the Swedes put ample "exit resources" (that term always sounds like a one way trip to Zurich) , social services and social welfare in place along with their peculiar sex law (they didn't). I was completely freaked out by the illogic, unreason, and unreality I had seen...the there she was in front of me...Pye...

    I could have booked a flight to Sweden just to hug her...for being normal, sane, human, down to earth...an ordinary decent hooker like me, just telling it the way it actually is, for real people in a real world, that, right now, is not being terribly kind to the vulnerable.
    The_Thing wrote: »


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 965 ✭✭✭johnr1


    Now I realise how ignorant most of us in the general public are of the issues surrounding this life.

    Great to hear from the "horses mouth" so to speak.

    Eileen Lang, I am in awe, my question is this: What can we as general society who do not see or come into contact with this industry do, - which attitude would help? Should we support, ignore, or condem Ruhama? If there was ever a vote on legalising or criminalising prostitution, which side of the argument would be the one to take which actually helps the women and men in this industry without increasing the numbers working in it.
    I ask, as it seems to be a more nuanced and complex issue than it first appears.
    Upthread I posted that we have enough safety nets to make it an unnecessary choice in Ireland. Now I'm not so sure.

    .


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 134 ✭✭Eileen_Lang


    johnr1 wrote: »
    Now I realise how ignorant most of us in the general public are of the issues surrounding this life.

    Great to hear from the "horses mouth" so to speak.

    Eileen Lang, I am in awe, my question is this: What can we as general society who do not see or come into contact with this industry do, - which attitude would help? Should we support, ignore, or condem Ruhama? If there was ever a vote on legalising or criminalising prostitution, which side of the argument would be the one to take which actually helps the women and men in this industry without increasing the numbers working in it.
    I ask, as it seems to be a more nuanced and complex issue than it first appears.
    Upthread I posted that we have enough safety nets to make it an unnecessary choice in Ireland. Now I'm not so sure.

    Ruhama have literally never worked for, or with the best interests of women in prostitution in the 23 years since they were founded. They set the agenda, then impose that upon the women.

    It bewilders me that they have gone on being funded for so long. They do not seem to serve any real purpose at all that could not be served far better without them. Yet, they get €700,000 in direct funding and heaven knows what in indirect funding...all at the expense of a government that is flat broke, and could find a lot of better uses for that money.

    They probably have a dozen or less token women they have reduced to a state of long term dependence that they can trot out as an human shield to justify their existance, but that is it, all they have ever achieved.

    Reasoning, even pleading with them for sanity and a real voice for the women is like talking to the wall.

    I believe Ruhama's funding should be pulled and put to better use...ANY better use. I do not believe that any organisation should be funded to represent the views of a disadvantaged minority unless more than 50% of their board are drawn from that minority anyway.

    SWAI ( http://www.sexworkersallianceireland.org/ ) are an excellent beginning of a real, user lead, support and representative organisation for sex workers. They get no funding at all and are obstructed at every turn in terms of establishing themselves formally. They are all volunteers, no-one is even drawing expenses, and meanwhile "life happens". Even a very little funding and full government recognition and support would turn SWAI into a strong, democratic and representative voice for sex workers (which does include some gentlemen)...and a platform from which real sex workers could begin to decide, among themselves, what they really need from their representative organisation.

    Sex work will always be self limiting...just because it is bl**dy awful to do most of the time, and the stigma is not of the kind you can eradicate...perhaps the best thing to equate it with is Funeral Directors...we will always need them, some of them are lovely people who get tremendous satisfaction out of their work...but there will always be a stigma, and the industry has never become oversubscribed at any point in history.

    The best approach is to re-examine the 1993 laws with a view to revision from a safety point of view (for which I would refer you to SWAI, because that really is more about day to day regulation in areas I am unfamiliar with, so whatever I say I would get it all wrong. But the gist is that everything that prevents women from being able to work together and support each other for safety, and, of course, company needs to be removed or revised).

    Advertising laws need to be revised to encourage independents and discourage exploitation - one possibility would be a state owned online advertising space for independents...a "virtual red light district" if you like.

    This could use confidential (perhaps as in even the site owners do not get to see the identity of the client except in the case where a crime has been committed) credit card verification for clients, which could be used as a means to tax the client (whenever he visits the site and/or whenever he contacts a sex worker) and avoid the anomaly of the state pimping off the women.

    The sex workers would be expected to verify themself to the same extent as clients and either allowed advertise for free or for a nominal fee (perhaps €20) just to ward off messers that could either be contributed to SWAI for their benefit or donated to charity.

    But the main, real problem that leads to cries for the further criminalisation of sex work in times of recession is the public order issue. As more women need the money from sex work and there are less clients. So you cannot just rescind the public order aspects of the 1993 act to encourage genuine independents, what you *CAN* do is amend the act to allow for zones to be specified as exempt from the provisions of the act for specifed time periods.

    This can not only be used to restrict street prostitution to specific non-residential areas and hours, but can also be used constructively to provide free additional security for premises or people at night, and could even be considered as a traffic calming measure. There is no reason why exemption zone cannot be very flexible and change to accord with changing needs.

    Given that degree of reasonable provision for sex workers and their clients it is reasonable to operate a zero tolerance policy outside that provision and, of course against any associated crime like theft or assault.

    Within that framework, the independent sex workers will once again be empowered and trafficking and coercion with become easy to detect and prosecute. Coercion, within Ireland, will be more trouble than it is worth within 18 months.

    We can work on making sex work an unnecessary choice when the recession is over...that's not just a figure of speech for me, I intend to be there, making DARN SURE we do. ;)


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 81,310 CMod ✭✭✭✭coffee_cake


    so you think legalising it with certain controls would be the way forward?
    i've always figured that would be best but it's great to hear directly from someone who knows what they're talking about if it would really work and all

    ruhama are a bunch of crazy people from what i've seen tbh, no time for them at all


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,644 ✭✭✭✭lazygal


    I have heard Ruhama referred to as a "Catholic agency". Does anyone know if this is true? Does it have a religious ethos? I find a lot of advocacy is populated by quite self important people with the actual needs of the people for whom they advocate quite far down the list of priorities.


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  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 81,310 CMod ✭✭✭✭coffee_cake


    lazygal wrote: »
    I have heard Ruhama referred to as a "Catholic agency". Does anyone know if this is true? Does it have a religious ethos? I find a lot of advocacy is populated by quite self important people with the actual needs of the people for whom they advocate quite far down the list of priorities.

    yes, they are catholic

    i also found this interesting snippet on a different board
    Not least because Ruhama are run by two of the same orders who ran the Magdalene Laundries. A fact that seems to have escaped the media.
    I don't know if it's true, but it wouldnt surprise me


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