Would you?

RDM_83 again wrote: »

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: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D7nOh57-I8

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.

bluewolf wrote: »

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

OH ABSOLUTELY...and they always have been...not forgetting there is nothing harmless about the crazy if you happen to be involved in sex work, because all Ruhama will do is make you life a lot harder, and make your formal, state funded "exit options" conditional on submission to the ethos of what is, in truth, a bizarre and unhealthy ideological cult (imagine what your head would be like after a few weeks "exit counselling", I don't even have a way to articulate how unhealthy and potentially damaging that is).

I think legalisation is the way forward, but we have to legalise for an Irish context...I really do not see people hanging out of windows in Ely place in their underwear working here any time soon...and there are huge ethical issues with taxing sex work, ways have to be found to tax the buyer instead. That way, bluntly, nobody ever has to scr*w for the revenue commissioners.

My feeling is that rather than the state attempt to actively control the sex industry, the state should create a rigidly controlled framework (as above, or better), to contain the sex industry and respect the needs of society, within which the sex workers themselves, effectively, control the sex industry, as they are well able, and best placed, to do.

Dolorous wrote: »

Eileen thanks so much for sharing, I had never thought about how the legislation might actually be hurting sex workers... we can all speculate but there's nothing like hearing from someone who's actually been through it.

Thanks Dolorous, my point has always been to try and get people to stop and think and realise that because prostitution is so awful to do, most of the people doing it have to be pretty desperate for the money...so once they have to do it, it is just cruel to make it any harder.

I am in a really ironical position because, if you take a scan through the old book I wrote you will see that I always hung over an almost abolitionist point of view.

My (near fanatical) mission was always to try and show people that prostitutes are usually normal human beings who are the victims of abnormal circumstances not "saucy ladies defying society" or worse, human vermin in need of eradication (people believed both in 1993).

All I ever wanted to ask people to do was either give them a real way out to a real life, or leave them in peace to do the best they can for themselves.

I think, deep in my heart I have always felt that a prostitute is always, liuke me, the fault of the society that has consistently failed her, and society should be looking for way to make that up to her, not make it even worse.

But now I have to grow up, wind it in, and see that while that is truth, it may only be a part of the truth.

Jaziel Tinkling Lineman wrote: »

no no i wouldnt i would rather lick floors for a living .

That is pretty close to the way I have felt about selling sex most of my life Jaziel Tinkling Lineman...there was a time...a couple of years...round about the time I was writing the pdf in my site when I kept a little cache of sleeping pills I had spent three months conning out of a local Doctor as insurance against ever having to sell sex again.

Things were hard, I had nowhere to turn to for any real support or help, and, despite my best efforts my attempt at a legitimate income was about to run out...straight into the "self employed" no dole trap...I used phone around, trying to find information, drawing blanks (how many times in my life I have done that)...those sleeping pills were my last hope and comfort because there was NO WAY I could force myself to sell sex again, or face trying

Does that sound like someone who needed laws to discourage them?

Jaziel Tinkling Lineman wrote: »

maybe i am being naive but i like to think that there are some woman who geniuely see it as a job and enjoy it .

No Jaziel Tinkling Lineman, you are "NOT" naive, because I am having to grow up, quit with the projective identification and learn that myself too.

The past few days I have been chatting with a lovely, sweet, smart, sane lady who is older and wiser than I am (and has had a fascinating life, hoestly it has been a privilege to meet her) and I met her at all because she was a prostitute once too, and she definately did enjoy selling sex.

It's not my place to tell her she shouldn't have felt that way is it?

...and then I have to move on recognise that nobody died and made me god so that I get to decide that selling sex is only ok when you are absolutely desperate and hate doing it...though, of course, when that is the case, no-one who wants to qualify as human should be aspiring to make that harder for you...

Jaziel Tinkling Lineman wrote: »

But maybe thats because i cant bear to think of all that suffering . real men dont buy women

...ah but prostitutes are not for sale, only for rent...for me that WAS a huge part of the point...I wasn't selling the essence of *me* just renting a bit of me out for preference.

Regardless, a lot of my clients were DEFINATELY "real men" no kidding...the simple, smart mouth version is to add "they had just been around for 80 years or so...but that would only be part of the story...there were plenty of "real men" who were not in the vintage category too...but their stories would be a bit more identifiable so best not told.

Of course there were also royal *ssholes who's right to life seems shakey, but they tend to scr*w you sooner or later whether you are a prostitute or not!

mariaalice wrote: »

I think the point about Ruhama is very interesting, anyone with an ounce of common sense would realize that they have a very specific agenda and that prostitution is a very complex area.

I find that many charities in the broad area of social help are highly selective in how they present information, and are often very ideologically driven.

Don't GET ME STARTED...I suppose I lost my innocence watching the rise of Ruhama...and just how far the reality of what they were doing was from any kind of real help and compassion, let alone from their stated aims.

...and when you notice one Emperor has no clothes it isn't too hard to spot the others are buck naked too.