[girltrouble]

don't think you meet friends? there is always the cliche of a working girl marring her john, but, as i said, i knew several girls who were very much friends with their clients. some didn't mind seeing them socially. others kept it strictly business, but liked their clients enough to call them friends and ask favors of them. and one girl i know dated a couple of clients. that's not to say they are all dreamboats, but it isn't all assholes.

i should be more clear on how i know all of this, because my experience isn't one of knowledge gleaned from tv. i was looking for work and i saw an and in a local free paper-- an agency was looking for someone to handle thier phones. i have a great phone voice (when i think about it) and i talked to the woman running the agency. she and i got along famously, and became friends. she allowed me a lot of lattitude because i am a T-girl, and she knew i wouldn't try to jump ship or steal clients. but along the way, i met quite a few of "the girls". the "madam" of the agency, was actually very nice and would take some of her girls out for drinks if it was a good week. it's not like this was some seriously fancy agency, it was middle of the road. i knew some who started street walking and wanted to move to an agency, and others who were independent. it was cool in some ways because this woman made sure to keep feelers out with the other agencys so she knew when the cops were doing their sting operations, and her girls rarely got busted. i was in many ways the eyes, ears and voice of the agency since i was manning the phones, and even just doing that i got to know the clients and their predilictions quite well, and many of them were, very friendly and relaxed. not at all what i expected before i took the job. after you become a regular, much of that distance disappears.

now i don't want to paint a picture things are rosey for all working girls. it's not, but even when they needed money, there was always a choice. of course there are girls who were smacked up out of their minds, but they didn't get many clients after a while. most of the girls at the agency did drugs recreationally, but there were two who became addicts. but that doesn't seem like a high number to me, and there was a third, but i don't think the work had much to do with it. she was already on the medication before she started work. i was given a lot of lattitude with clients, as well. i was told if i thought something was fishy, i could tell any client that we would not take their business. when a regular was verbally abusive to one of the girls, we refused his business and told every other agency and girl working in this city about his issues, aliases, and cautioned them from seeing him. in less than a week, he couldn't get a girl short of a street walker. my view of prostitution was very much one of empowerment because of "the madam". and for years afterwards we were friends.

the view from the inside is very different than a lot of people think. many girls hire drivers, who are often bouncers looking to make extra $$$. they make sure nothing happens to them. my agency had a series of check in calls that would ensure the girl's safety.

my point, in its long, circular way is that if there was a safety net, the job really wasn't that dangerous. part of the thing is making sure that the clients knew they wouldn't get away with anything. checking id's and phone numbers, asking for refrences, are things that can be done, but aren't because there isn't always an environment for that. but with a safety net of legality, it isn't as dangeous as most people think. the clients at the agency knew they had to use protection, and would be put on probation for trying to talk a girl into doing without. two strike policy with that. but if you are independant you make all the choices yourself, which is the crux of it to me. there are a lot of choices to be made. believe me i am not a rabid republican, running around saying "personal responsibility!" but there are 1000 little choices to be made. and yes, street walking is the most vulnerable segment of that world, no doubt. but even that is often, from my pov, a choice. but if the street walkers are the bottom rung of "working girls" there are quite a few rungs above it, each more safe.



as for the GGW legalities, i think the wavers are considered valid is because they sign them when they enter the bar and are assumed sober at the time. i am not sure if they have to sign another when they go off privately, but i would assume from working on film that they simply ask them to show an id, and fill out another, less rigorus form so they can match their signatures with the form they signed upon entering. that's my theory. ive worked on a couple of filmed rock shows, and that's how we did it. not that there was anything remotely as crazy as GGW.

[maddy29]

hoosierman-that's totally what i was thinking with the GGW-how IS it legal? or is it illegal, but just most girls either a) don't care or are too embarrassed to make a case for it.

i'm with pepper on the prostitution thing. good stuff.

[erinjane]

(Posted in both feminist outrage and sex work thread)

Here's some links that are pretty interesting.
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/?p=459
http://victoriamarinelli.com/main/

I really like the second one. It makes some good points sort of centering around the recent discussion on FO.

[hoosierman78]

Along my earlier comment regarding everyone paying for sex, in one manner or another, the intent behind that statement may have been a little misunderstood. I was speaking of the hypocricy of those that are morally opposed to two consenting adults exchanging cash for sex, when those same people (more often than not men) often feel as though their date is obligated to 'put out' in exchange for dinner, drinks, movie, etc. I in no way meant to minimize the hell that I can't begin to imagine is the life of some prostitutes, given their lack of standing with most police when reporting rape/assault/etc. I'm in agreement with maddy's remark comparing the creation of criminals through drug laws with the creation of criminals due to illegal prostitution. When something is illegal, there becomes a black market for it, which more often than not attracts those that have fewer qualms about robbing/assaulting/raping/etc than most of us. If drugs are legal, the murders over drug turf, thefts by addicts that will do anything to get the required $$ to buy their fix, etc., all decline. Same with prostitution, with exception of a possible slave trade, prostitutes would have legal recourse to take when they are attacked.

As for ggw & Joe Francis, riddle me this: It is considered rape if you have sex with someone - whether they agreed or not - when they are drunk. The reasoning being they cannot consent to anything due to the temporary mental incapacitation caused by drinking. How is this same line of thinking not applicable to the 'consent' received by the drunk girls being filmed? Seriously, have you seen one girl that looked remotely sober on the commercials?

[pepper]

""having some...stranger's hands..etc. is a choice, and in many cases, the prostitute does have some choice in who she chooses. even if it is a woman walking the street, she has the option of going, you know what? i am getting a bad vibe here, i'll pass. they do choose not to go with someone if they suspect they are a cop. that "disgusting stranger" could be someone who they are actually friends with, athough it's not outside of 'work'. i've known girls who think their clients are great. and finding someone a "disgusting stranger...etc", happens with people you've dated too."

what i said was entirely based on the related experiences of women who i personally know, not my own opinion though i certainly concur with much of it. being a mom i know what it's like to feel like you don't have a choice in what you do to bring home money sometimes. i can go without something but my kids need the essentials and i would do whatever necessary to make sure they had them. those women felt like they didn't have a choice at all. you don't say "no" to someone your agency or pimp sets you up with or who wants a private dance from you in the club you work at. not if you want to keep your job you don't. you do whatever you can to make that man, or men, happy. keep in mind that a lot of the money these women earn is in tips as well. not only that, there is a ton of drug and alcohol use involved and so many girls get wrapped up in that to numb them, to make the endless late nights bearable and pass swiftly, and a lot of them end up as addicts with a habit to support and another reason to keep working. so many of them end up practicing unsafe sex as well because, as far as been related to me, that is what the vast majority of the men they meet are after. it's amazing to me that any man would want to have unprotected sex (a lot of them are after anal as well) with a sex worker but they do and they'll pay extra for it.

what i quoted above sounds really idealist to me. i don't think you meet "friends" in that industry. you meet people who are willing to take advantage of other people (and that goes both ways too) and people who see the value of other people in terms of flesh and money. that's not a moral judgement. i don't think it's "wrong", just horribly, terribly damaging on so many levels and that's where the imbalance and detriment is. that's a different discussion though.

[maddy29]

when i think about legalizing prostitution-i think about how we've created an entire class of criminals. just like with the drug laws- they've created criminals. as long as we see drug use and prostitution as criminal act, there will be stigma attached.

also i wonder how much time is wasted on busting hookers, that could be used for i dunno, catching rapists? etc....

and when you are talking about what is the difference between other jobs and prostitution-well, prostitution is illegal-that's the difference!

girltrouble-could you say more about why that statement that pepper made was a moral judgement? was it because of the words "disgusting stranger?" or something else.

i also think when we talk about prostitution we also have to talk about pimps. because to say most prostitutes have a choice in who they "work with" is just not accurate, i don't think. not like i know! maybe i just watch too much tv. but it seems like you'd have to make a certain amount of money, so you can pay your pimp dude, which means you have to take a certain number of clients on...

[erinjane]

I agree, I only used the Ipswich murders because they're so recent. I'm in Canada so it's hard for me to say internationally, but when I thought the pickton case got a lot of coverage when everything came to light but the amount of time it took police to sit up and take notice is unbelievable. I think it's disgusting the way police/media/everyone treats prostitutes as if they're not human. In BC there's some highway that has a creepy name because so many women have gone missing from there. Sitting in front of me I have a postcard to send to the government called "Stop Violence Against Indigenous Women" but fat chance with this government. /ragey incoherent rant.

[dusty]

My brother told me that he had read a book that said that the Netherlands has one of the worst problems with sex slaves, ie. women brought in from other countries to work as prostitutes against their will. If it is true, I think it says something because the Netherlands, as far as I know, has close to full employment and legalized prostitution. Does that mean that in a society where prostitution is legal and women have other employment choices, there aren't enough women who choose to be prostitutes to fill the demand?

Ipswich is getting a lot of international coverage, but what about the Canadian case, where at least 27 women, many or most of them prostitutes, were killed and it took years for the police to sit up and pay attention?

[erinjane]

i totally think prostitution should be legalized. but again, i think all the arguments presented center on a moral jugement. it's more dangerous? so is being a test pilot, logger, even a roofer ended up on the list. pro wrestlers constantly get injuries, so that is just as dangerous but there is no stigma for any of the above. and women don't only worry about being raped if they are prostituting, so i don't think that works either. and shame has everything to do with moralistic motives.
see maddy's post. i really think that the above is a moral judgement too. because it doesn't work for you, doesn't make it a truism. "having some...stranger's hands..etc. is a choice, and in many cases, the prostitute does have some choice in who she chooses. even if it is a woman walking the street, she has the option of going, you know what? i am getting a bad vibe here, i'll pass. they do choose not to go with someone if they suspect they are a cop. that "disgusting stranger" could be someone who they are actually friends with, athough it's not outside of 'work'. i've known girls who think their clients are great. and finding someone a "disgusting stranger...etc", happens with people you've dated too. moral judgements. the way we describe things says it all. i know i've been guilty of it too. but i really do appreciate everyone's thoughts on this. i am actually searching for the answer to the question i asked. if not morality, what else separates those other jobs. i haven't figured out an answer that works for me yet. and with that, i think i will move on to the next subject.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. Of course not only prostitutes worry about rape, but the risk is much much higher, as is the risk of assault. And for the most part when a sex worker is assaulted she has no recourse and can't usually go to the cops. Take a look at the murders in Ipswich. Sex workers asked for immunity and compensation from police because it wasn't safe to go outside and they were denied. Like I said, taking away the stigma in the media isn't the solution because then the current situation becomes (more) normalized and no one will want to bother for change. But I don't see these as moral issues.

[maddy29]

yeah, i think ggw is grody too. but the real issue, it sounds like, is consent. if you are drunk and you write a will or sign something legal, can't they get that totally throw out? since you weren't in your "right mind" ? he's definitely a piggy pig. snort snort.

[girltrouble]

i totally think prostitution should be legalized. but again, i think all the arguments presented center on a moral jugement. it's more dangerous? so is being a test pilot, logger, even a roofer ended up on the list. pro wrestlers constantly get injuries, so that is just as dangerous but there is no stigma for any of the above. and women don't only worry about being raped if they are prostituting, so i don't think that works either. and shame has everything to do with moralistic motives.

is that you aren't feeling like that with some disgusting stranger's hands on your boobs and his cock in your pussy. how do you distance yourself emotionally in that situation? impossible, i think, unless you start to disassociate and that's hugely psychologically damaging.

see maddy's post. i really think that the above is a moral judgement too. because it doesn't work for you, doesn't make it a truism. "having some...stranger's hands..etc. is a choice, and in many cases, the prostitute does have some choice in who she chooses. even if it is a woman walking the street, she has the option of going, you know what? i am getting a bad vibe here, i'll pass. they do choose not to go with someone if they suspect they are a cop. that "disgusting stranger" could be someone who they are actually friends with, athough it's not outside of 'work'. i've known girls who think their clients are great. and finding someone a "disgusting stranger...etc", happens with people you've dated too. moral judgements. the way we describe things says it all. i know i've been guilty of it too. but i really do appreciate everyone's thoughts on this. i am actually searching for the answer to the question i asked. if not morality, what else separates those other jobs. i haven't figured out an answer that works for me yet. and with that, i think i will move on to the next subject.

re:joe francis
i'm with erin jane and pretty much all the other busties on that f*ck stain. the thing i find so odious about that guy is, that he litterally makes money off of suckering drunk girls. while he makes all of them sign wavers (so legally he can tape them and air it any way he chooses), but he pays them nothing, only the cost of a couple of drinks and a GGW t-shirt. and that chaps my hide in the worst way. if she is the one who people are paying to see, she should get more than a quick buzz, and a hangover. the dude owns an island and the judge gives him a small (for him) fine. i really belive in porportional punishment. if an asshole steals billions from his workers and company, a (see enron) a million dollar fine is chicken feed. same in this case. if i were the judge, i'd be taking the island, a couple of million dollar homes, and his plane. the point is to make it sting enough so he won't do it again.

[anna k]

Despite himself being filmed as the sexual "bitch" of some guy, it hasn't changed his own endeavors:

In 2004, Francis was videotaped in sexually humiliating positions while held at gunpoint, and was subsequently blackmailed according to a Radar article. Joe Francis, in an interview on July 24, 2006, on The Adam Carolla Show, stated that he was in fact kidnapped, held at gunpoint, and later blackmailed for the tape, but denied rumors of him performing sexual acts on camera. He went on to state that he was only forced to say "something like" "I'm a homosexual." on the camera. The tape or a copy of it was recovered by the LAPD for use in the criminal trial of his assailant, Darnell Riley. On February 7, 2006, Riley pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in Corcoran State Prison.

[erinjane]

I don't think it's enough given his ultra creepy history, especially when it barely amounts to any of his profits.

The whole girls gone wild thing makes me extremely uncomfortable because these are intoxicated women who seemingly for the most part do not have the frame of mind to actually make an informed choice. So i see it as different than an issue of supporting women's choices. Getting a drunk women's consent to flash people for your profit does not fly with me.

[wombat]

Yeah, it's the fact that he is photographing them and videotaping them without any permission or compensationg, distributing the images to the general public, and making a profit.

which, really, he doesn't have the right to do, and the whole attitude behind it is "well they're just dumb slutty girls who deserve it."

And I think, they're young and having a good time and channeling the *awesome power of boobies* that doesn't mean they deserve to be punished later by having their employers or grandparents or whatever see it. Not that it should be an issue against them, but eck. Sometimes it is.

I guess it's more his attitude and profiteering that is the problem for me.

[maddy29]

Professional sleaze-bag, Joe Francis, was recently ordered to pay $1.6 million for using underage girls in his infamous "Girls Gone Wild" videos, most specifically the ones including two 17-year olds who were filmed at Panama City Beach over spring break 2003. Yahoo! News reports:

U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak ordered Mantra's multimillionaire founder, Joe Francis, to read aloud in court a victim impact statement from one of the women, who said she was emotionally tormented by her appearance on a "Girls Gone Wild" video and that the video damaged her relationship with her family. Smoak told Francis he added the community service because it did not appear a fine would be a meaningful punishment. The fine represents less than 3 percent of Mantra's profits since 2002 and only 12 percent of Mantra's 2005 profits, Smoak said. "It does not take a very brave man to go out and corner a girl in the middle of spring break who had four drinks," Smoak told Francis.

WHAT DO people think about this? is it enough? should he even be fined at all? don't you have to get permission from someone to use their image on film? is the problem that these girls/women were too drunk to give consent to be filmed? personally, i find this all repulsive, but i'm confused. aren't we supposed to say "oh well they are women and we support all women's choices"?

[pepper]

"and the reality of that is that many women feel ashamed, embarrased, uncomfortable, and they take a lot more risks than workers at regular jobs because they really have no recourse to take when something happens to them."

also, that lowered sense of self-worth may lead to a woman feeling like she doesn't deserve to be treated well, that she deserves abuse. after all, many of them are perpetrating self-abuse in the first place out a sense of self-loathing.
the thing about feeling like you're selling bits of your soul in a job, and believe me i've felt that way waitressing even, is that you aren't feeling like that with some disgusting stranger's hands on your boobs and his cock in your pussy. how do you distance yourself emotionally in that situation? impossible, i think, unless you start to disassociate and that's hugely psychologically damaging.
sure, i'm all for legalization and creating a safe work environment for sex workers but i think that's a stop-gap measure when so many of those women ARE perpetrating self-abuse through self-loathing and would really benefit from a major cultural attitude adjustment towards women in general. that attitude that sex work is nasty is just an offshoot of the attitude that being a woman is nasty and that women are useless, dirty, second-class citizens. sure, i live in the priveleged first world and hardly have to deal with that myself but there are still countries where women are circumsized as small girls, burned along with their husbands, publically stoned to death for nearly nothing, etc etc.
prostitution is just one small piece of the big picture.


on another note, listening to CBc daybreak Kelowna this morning and there was some piece on today (will be continued tomorrow AM) about the psychological/emotional damage that women sustain from abortion. i don't know exactly what they were aiming at but it ticked me off listening to the bible-thumping singer warbling her ditty about murdering her unborn child.
sheesh.
i'll tune in tomorrow for (hopefully) some balanced opinion.

[maddy29]

such a great conversation here! i am totally guilty of looking down on women in the sex industry. i worry that they are just participating in their own exploitation, and it makes me mad. i'm trying to work on my own views.

that being said though, i really do believe that erinjane is on the right track with making it safer for women. i know there are many arguments against legalizing prostitution, but to me it just makes sense. think of all the new tax money we'd be getting! that way it could be organized, they could have advocates with the law behind them. they could have health insurance, etc.

and it's true about the shame. i've been trying to pin down where i got the ideas that "being a hooker is really bad, the worst thing you can be." etc. i asked my roommates about it, we all agreed it was just something that we picked up along the way. it's hard to change that idea, especially when i do think that so many women/men/children are involved in the sex industry in a way that is so harmful to them.

i don't know how to say this-but it seems like the shame and disgust around prostitution has been created by our own views on sex. we see sex as something shameful or gross, so of COURSE we see sex workers that way too. i'ts like this cycle that keeps feeding on itself.

re: every job is like prostitution-i have to say, this is totally different, but when i was a therapist, my supervisor and i would talk about how we felt like prostitutes. not in a sexual way, but because we would have to be who our client needed us to be. i can't explain it well, but sometimes it did feel like selling little pieces of my soul- and with every client i had to kinda play a different role (with this client i'm the teacher, with this one i'm the loving mom/sister she never had, with this one i'm very clinical and therapisty....etc)

[erinjane]

I'm really not thinking of it in a moral way at all. The fact is for many people, myself included, prostitution is tied to sex, and sex work is a lot more dangerous than other jobs. An office worker and a pro wrestler don't often have to worry about being raped on a regular basis. I also agree with what wombat said, "one's sexual functions have deep personal, emotional resonance." This is basically what I was trying to say. For some people sex just isn't that big of a deal but for others it's hard to seperate from something like a job.

I'm a very strong supporter of legalization and better working conditions for sex workers, but I also recognize that it's a very different job BECAUSE it has to do with sex and the reality of that is that many women feel ashamed, embarrased, uncomfortable, and they take a lot more risks than workers at regular jobs because they really have no recourse to take when something happens to them.

I think addressing the media's framing of these women definatly needs to change but I also think that catagorizing prostitution will minimize the problems with it and make it easier to ignore rather than change.

[wombat]

I think it's important to support the women who sell sex as women who deserve safety and respect, but I don't agree that every job is prostuting yourself in one way or another -- one's sexual functions have deep personal, emotional resonance.

I am always a little suspicious of "all workers are prostitutes" when articulated by someone like French filmmaker Goddard.

I apprieciate your speaking up, though, girltrouble, I'm not in favor of shedding the "less desireable" either.

[pepper]

i think a big difference between sex work and other work is the personal shame. i know a few women who've worked or work in the industry and it's a big, dirty secret with all of them. no matter is she's peeling, working for an escort agency, doing porn or standing on a street corner, there is often deep personal shame associated with what she's doing to make a living. it's not the same as working in an office or slinging burgers or pumping gas or whatever. while you might not love those jobs, you might even be embarassed by them, you could still tell people, your grandma or a stranger, what you're doing for work. hardly anyone's going to announce that they have sex for money. even people who freely admit that they run a porn agency (etc) for a living have to be living in the shadow of some heavy stigma, that has a psychological affect. a big fat negative one.

as for everyone paying something for sex, well, i suppose if it's mutually satisfying an equal exchange has taken place but that's not exactly the same as paying for it. certainly there are people who 'put out' to get something else in return, no one can deny that. but that isn't the reality every time or for everyone either.