Because we've decided that kids aren't sexual beings? Even though rates of teen pregnancy are sky high? Twelve and 14 year old kids ARE having sex, some of them LOTS of it. And, yes, they are making a conscious choice. Whether or not we agree with that choice, or whether or not we think it's a good choice for them, or whether or not it's a legal choice doesn't change the fact that they've made the decision that they would like to engage it sex work to support themselves. I don't give a shit whether or not they can "legally" consent to sex enough to become an "illegal" prostitute. That doesn't change whether or not they WANT to do it.
Well. because we've decided that kids shouldn't be sexual beings, not that they aren't. And for good reason.
Having sex, even lots of it, with boys in school is different than having a career in the sex industry.
By conscious, I meant informed and carefully weighed, and I don't think even 18 year olds are capable of that, developmentally speaking.
I view 12 year old girl committing to titillating men as in need of help.
WHO has decide that kids (and by this I mean teens) aren't sexual beings. Because, I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. They are very, very much sexual beings.
Being a sexual being doesn't mean that you're going to end up in the sex industry, however.
Also, will people PLEASE move off the 12 year old thing? I've posted several times now that that age is inaccurate - it was used to describe TRAFFICKING (which we can all agree is bad) and was based on a 2001 study.
Post by Velar Fricative on Feb 2, 2013 17:03:02 GMT -5
Whoa, this thread had about three replies last time I opened it recently.
First, call me Prudey McPruderson but I don't think people can truly choose to be a sex worker until adulthood. Teenagers are sexual beings, yes, but they are still-developing sexual beings in several ways. And I say this as someone who does think sex work should be legalized...but for adults only, obviously. If a 25-year-old decides one day she wants to be a sex worker, more power to her.
I'm just most angry over all the sick fucks who take advantage of these underage victims - both their pimps and/or the people who pay for this shit. Going to the Super Bowl isn't an excuse to do something who heinous and it's tragic that there's demand for the services of minors. I can't get over that.
Post by EloiseWeenie on Feb 2, 2013 17:09:31 GMT -5
Serious question: are the 15 year olds only servicing their peers, or do they have adult clients. What happens if a 19 year old pays the 15 year old for sex. What happens if a 50 year old pays a 15 year old for sex. Do these teens card their clients? Will pedophiles feel justified since these teens accepted their money?
"Economic necessity" doesn't sound anything like a free, informed choice but since you're done debating I guess I'll take my ball and go home too.
I see you conveniently forgot to mention the "fascination, and curiosity with what appeared to be an emerging lifestyle" options.
And somehow I bet you didn't go read it, so..yeah. Go read it, and then we'll have an open, honest discussion about it. Although, again, I'd read the entire multi-part report, and not just the exec summary, because it has great interviews with these underage sex workers so you can hear IN THEIR OWN WORDS how and why they're doing what they're doing.
Serious question: are the 15 year olds only servicing their peers, or do they have adult clients. What happens if a 19 year old pays the 15 year old for sex. What happens if a 50 year old pays a 15 year old for sex. Do these teens card their clients? Will pedophiles feel justified since these teens accepted their money?
From the exec summary:
Almost all of the youth said that they served male customers, and a majority said that they predominantly served white males between 25 and 55 years of age, with a preference for older, wealthy White males. Eleven percent of the girls and 40% of the boys said that they had served a female client, but only 13% of the boys said that they exclusively served female clients.
Also, I think perhaps you're misunderstanding pedophilia. Pedophilia is generally characterized by an attraction to prepubescent children, not teenagers.
Not that that makes an adult buying sex from a teen any better, of course.
But if the choices available are shitty are they really choices? Like die from starvation and thirst, or sell your body to that old perv over there....is that really a choice?
ETA: It's a choice, but is it a "choice" like saying it's something you want. It's semantics. The word "choice" is bugging me.
Or just a general feeling, as is usually the case, that this is your best and/or only option because you've been raised in a shitty ass environment where you are under educated, have very little support, etc.
Just because no one forced you per se doesn't mean there isn't someone, namely society playing on your weaknesses to get what they want out of you.
"Economic necessity" doesn't sound anything like a free, informed choice but since you're done debating I guess I'll take my ball and go home too.
I see you conveniently forgot to mention the "fascination, and curiosity with what appeared to be an emerging lifestyle" options.
And somehow I bet you didn't go read it, so..yeah. Go read it, and then we'll have an open, honest discussion about it. Although, again, I'd read the entire multi-part report, and not just the exec summary, because it has great interviews with these underage sex workers so you can hear IN THEIR OWN WORDS how and why they're doing what they're doing.
Have a nice evening, Caden.
im on my phone making dinner so no I haven't read anything. Except the other 8 pager you posted earlier that said 95% of child sex workers did it to support themselves aka economic necessity. So if you found other studies to contradict that I'm going to start questioning the studies as well. Or perhaps the "curious" we're part of the 5% and thus so far from the norm as to make all of our points for us.
“I really wanna stop now, but I can’t ’cause I have no source of income since I’m too young,” said a girl who’d begun hooking at age 12. “So it’s like that I have to do it; it’s not like I wanna do it. As I say, I’m only 17, I got a two-year-old daughter, so that means I got pregnant real young. Didn’t have no type of Medicaid. . . . Can’t get a job, have no legal guardian, I don’t have nobody to help me but [friends], so you know, we all in this together.”
Wait, we're taking personal accounts as solid truth?
i hope the accounts can explain to me why someone who loves sex would want to have bad sex multiple times a day. I love steak. You don't see me at Denny's every weekend. Or maybe the sex is amazing, according to new research.
Loving sex is not the same as loving sex with total strangers either (and having sex on their terms with your enjoyment being totally irrelevant).
Exactly.
I'll be honest. I can see one willingly going into sex work because they enjoy it, like the money, etc. But I would assume that the vast majority of women who go this route are doing it on their own terms. Escort services, call girls, hotel bars, things like that. But that makes up such a small portion of sex work. I just don't think there is any decent percentage of people standing on street corners or working in many of these notorious districts who is in it for funsies.
Wait, we're taking personal accounts as solid truth?
i hope the accounts can explain to me why someone who loves sex would want to have bad sex multiple times a day. I love steak. You don't see me at Denny's every weekend. Or maybe the sex is amazing, according to new research.
Caden, you should volunteer with a group doing such surveys this summer. Then you'll have expert cred.
Also would someone like the woman in the OP count as being a sex worker by choice? She left her pimp years before she stopped prostituting. But I don't think the latter years of her prostitution were a "choice" on her part per se, although technically they were because she did stop eventually. But I don't think i would classify her as a sex worker who wanted to be in that line of work.
So I like what TTT said about the spectrum and shades of grey.
Thank you for contributing lolaburns. This sounds heartbreaking and more of a what is it likely like for so many of these young men and women that are in this "career" from such a young life.
Thank you for contributing lolaburns. This sounds heartbreaking and more of a what is it likely like for so many of these young men and women that are in this "career" from such a young life.
Agree. This gets back to the OP, and I would like to educate myself more on this situation so I can see about doing more than just pondering it helplessly.
Thank you for contributing lolaburns. This sounds heartbreaking and more of a what is it likely like for so many of these young men and women that are in this "career" from such a young life.
Predicting drama and accusations of slut shaming about your use of quotes here in 3...2...1...
What struck me about the documentary when I first saw it a few years ago were the words that came out of the mouths of these girls. When they would first speak to them, they would tell you how their "daddy" loves them and how he takes care of them and how he wants to keep them safe. They said that no one loved them until they met him and they're happy they found someone to look after them. They talk about how they know other girls who don't have a "daddy" and they're getting killed on the street. But later on, they also talk about how this dude treats them, how they left their last daddy, how they tried it on their own and got beat up, how they have no where else to go.
Thank you lolaburns! I really appreciate you weighing in and I'll check out the link you posted - it sounds like it's an amazing resource for young girls.
Okay, y'all. I'm sorry that some of you seem hellbent on misinterpretation, or hell bent on refusing to read the shit I post, or hellbent on refusing to do any research of your own, but to clarify:
Sex work =/= sex trafficking.
Underage sex workers DO exist. And, yes, they ARE choosing this (please to be seeing the article I posted above).
Underage sex workers, at least in NYC, are, by and large, not being handled by pimps - most of them get into it through friends as a sure way to make money and support themselves.
NONE of what I've said above means that I don't believe that some underage sex workers are coerced into sex work. NONE of what I've said means that I don't believe that some teens are trafficked. NONE of what I've said means that I don't believe that some individuals who become sex workers have experienced past traumas.
Anything else y'all would like to misinterpret?
My problem is with your choice of wording. I can't see how it's a "choice' when it's more like 'this is the only way I can earn some money and not starve to death. If there were other avenues for them to make some decent money, would sex work still be their "choice"?
I totally agree. New Orleans in general makes men lose their minds. Where they are treating women disrespectfully at a minimum and at worst they paying for trafficked women and teens.
I also don't see legalization of prostitution as the answer to curbing human trafficking and the underage sex trade. In fact, in most countries with legalized prostitution, they have seen an explosion of human trafficking . Places like Amsterdam and Rotterdam have become a Mecca for traffickers in Europe and organized crime has exploded.
Decriminalization might perhaps be helpful, in a sense. When I was volunteering, we worked with the NYC District Attorneys and ADAs on getting them to recognize the signs of a trafficked individual so that they were seen as a VICTIM by the courts, because that is what they truly are. The NYPD has also become better and more versed in this, as well. It's all a very convoluted, vicious cycle.
There is nearly nothing as sickening and heart-wrenching as talking to someone who thinks her life can't get any better than standing out on a street corner and being raped multiple times a night.
Thanks for your thoughts Lola. I'm adding that movie to my netflix queue although I'm not sure I'll be able to stomach the whole thing. It needs to be watched though, I'm sure.
It doesn't even have to be as stark of a choice as starving or prostitution. There are plenty of other coercive and life intersecting ways one can get into prostitution that negate the ability to choose.
There seems to be a sense of familial community among some types of prostitutes. The feeling that someone is looking out for you, cares what happens to you, notices you, that you have some value to someone. Now we all know that value is the money you bring into the house but to these girls who know little else, it feels just as real and warm as our relationships with our families do so it's difficult to simply take their word for it when they say it's a choice. Some simply do not or do not want to recognize that they are being victimized and have been devalued.
Post by cattledogkisses on Feb 2, 2013 22:39:59 GMT -5
I can't quote (stupid mobile app) but I agree with ttt's post at the top of the page. There's a vast difference between liking/enjoying sex, and being paid to perform sex acts on any random with some cash.
I'm having trouble with the jump from "loving sex" to "wanting to be a sex worker." Most people like sex. Most people also have no desire to work in the sex industry.
It doesn't even have to be as stark of a choice as starving or prostitution. There are plenty of other coercive and life intersecting ways one can get into prostitution that negate the ability to choose.
There seems to be a sense of familial community among some types of prostitutes. The feeling that someone is looking out for you, cares what happens to you, notices you, that you have some value to someone. Now we all know that value is the money you bring into the house but to these girls who know little else, it feels just as real and warm as our relationships with our families do so it's difficult to simply take their word for it when they say it's a choice. Some simply do not or do not want to recognize that they are being victimized and have been devalued.