Friday, January 15, 2010

She's Not a "Real Woman"

The UK's Guardian interviewed over 700 men about their experiences with prostitution. Some of the responses were pretty disturbing. The thoughts and views of some of the men exhibited how prominent misogyny is in our society.

The main issue is that men are able to distinguish prostitutes from "real women". Because these women are willing to do things other women would not, they must be lesser humans because they must have something wrong with them. These women are doing them a favor by performing sexual acts that others would not, but instead of being thankful, men lose respect for them.

Men see sex as something they're taking from women so they should be left with less than they started with. "I don't want them to get any pleasure. I am paying for it and it is her job to give me pleasure. If she enjoys it I would feel cheated." Just because you're paying her doesn't mean she can't enjoy it at the same time. That's like saying people shouldn't get paid if they enjoy their job.

Lastly, men see prostitution as an alternative to rape. They make it seem as if it's one or the other so we should be thankful they chose to have sex with someone who's "willing". You can hardly say that these women are "willing", especially when most of them have been sold either into sex trafficking or exploited by their pimp. Many of the men interviewed admitted that they knew that the prostitute was not there on her own will, but didn't think they should do anything about it and still had sex with the women/girls.

Hey guys, do us a favor. Save your money and make the effort to find somebody who actually wants to have sex with you. Oh, and by the way, before treating these women like scum remember each and every one of them is someone's daughter.

More at Jezebel

Photo by Adam Crowe via Flickr

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