Love For Sale

[samlad]

Interesting, have to finish the second half of it tonight but so far it actually seems to be balanced, is it a series or a one of show?

I believe this is part one of two.

[Curvaceous Kate]

It would be great if someone could put it on youtube. I can't get the channel4 link to it in Hong Kong.

If you know how to do it and can teach me, I would be happy to do it for you.

[Paul Carr]

If you know how to do it and can teach me, I would be happy to do it for you.

Thanks but I don't know how to do it.

[Hagane00]

I really enjoyed it, it was as balanced a portrayal of the escorts and other sex workers as I think you will ever see.

Some bits I found were a little depressing, like Bruno and his 8 friends who had committed suicide from the lonliness that they had due to escorting and the story of Rupert's friend who was murdered - on that with recent murders when do you think Police, governments etc will take their collective heads out if their arses and create an environment where all parties are protected, and not just their political one

I liked how Rupert talked back at Rachel Moran and the Nun with facts, and showed them that 1+1 does not equal 3 ie stopping or crimanilising sex for sale does not mean an end to trafficking, as he said traffickiing is essentially slavery and that should be dealt with seperately

I am loking forward to seeing part 2 and see how the clients end up looking afterwards.

Thank you Rupert Everett and Channel 4

[Curvaceous Kate]

This article has been written as a response. I felt compelled to join her twitter and put her right on a few things!

ARTICLE

The campaign to legalise prostitution has an advocate in the actor Rupert Everett. He has made a two-part series for Channel 4 called Love for Sale, in which he interviews prostitutes and punters; there are no pimps, of course, pimps being black-hearted with much to hide. Everett is obviously a romantic who romanticises what he finds because he is drawn to what his interviewee Russell Brand calls "maligned outsiders". At one point he compares prostitution to his own profession, although it is hard to imagine a co-star placing a penis in his mouth, or anus, and giving him money.

In Love for Sale, the feminist is the enemy of the prostitute, denying her free choices, thwarting her imperatives and daubing her with the mantle of victimhood. Feminists, a prostitute in a Dutch window tells Everett, makes her "feel small". Despite the Liverpool streetwalker insisting, "We are not doing it because we love it"; despite a male prostitute reporting that eight of his colleagues had committed suicide in the previous 18 months because of "loneliness" and "crystal"; despite visiting the Bois de Boulogne, where his prostitute friend was murdered in 1998 ("She wanted to marry you," a mutual friend tells him as they wander through the trees), Everett can only romanticise, and sometimes trivialise. An escort agency has a list of dodgy clients on the wall. "Jonny 12 (rough)" is one such. "Sounds my type," says Everett. He adores the transgressive; even so, he supports legalisation. He thinks it is the only way.

This is now the status quo, and it is popular where it should not be: that is, with progressives who do not see that the words freedom and autonomy are, in these matters, a Trojan horse for something else. Even Christopher Hitchens could not see the problem with prostitution, beyond the fact that a prostitute he met ("an avaricious bitch") did not seem to like him very much. Visiting a brothel with Martin Amis, which he recorded in his memoir Hitch-22 in the manner of a boastful gossip columnist ("Martin needed only to snap his fingers to enjoy female company"), Hitchens imagined himself as the victim of the prostitute: "of all the numerous regrettable elements that go to make up the unlawful carnal-knowledge industry, I should single out for distinction the look of undisguised contempt that is often worn on the faces of its female staff, [who] shrug off the fake charm as a snake discards an unwanted skin". Then he compared the experience to water-boarding. (I suppose I should add that Hitchens did not have sex with the prostitute; the "avaricious bitch" asked for more money than he had on his person). This self-pity conjoined with resentment is usual among punters. Everett found a nerdish man to complain that a young girl wanted £130 to have sex with him; so who, he asked, was exploiting whom.

But we must move on from the angry reviewers of Punternet, a ratings site where bounciness of breast is contrasted with affordability and compliance, and where punters ordinarily complain that women insist on using condoms; and from Everett's testimony from men relieved from getting "earache" after sex. That they are indifferent to the prostitute's emotions is obvious: were they not, they would not be there. Misogyny is probably ineradicable.

The effects of legalisation so far are likewise obvious; Der Spiegel published a comprehensive account of the impact of legalisation in Germany last year. The law is a shield for pimps and traffickers, who flock to the safe areas with penniless girls from eastern Europe. Prices are driven ever downwards; mega-brothels offer all the sex an inadequate lover can desire for €70 (£58), which leads to queues outside the doors of exhausted women. Here, then, are monetised gangbangs approved by the state.

It could be that well-meant laws are poorly enforced, or that many prostitutes are incapable, for complex reasons, of true autonomy. Can we imagine women with a glut of choices choosing this? There are, of course, exceptions, and these exceptions want legalisation. No one can drive a law through these murky areas and unpick paid-for sex from contempt for women. In Sweden, for instance, where the punter is criminalised, the trade just moves elsewhere. But in Germany the testimony is the stuff of nightmare, of capitalism run mad to its inevitable dusk. The utopia of self-employed happy prostitutes serenely paying their taxes never materialised; instead, legislation conjured hell.

Twitter: @TanyaGold1

[funlover12]

This article has been written as a response. I felt compelled to join her twitter and put her right on a few things!

ARTICLE


Twitter: @TanyaGold1

@tanya, burn bitch burn. that episode hasnt even aired yet. shes clearly trying to twist peoples minds before they even get a chance to seethe episode and the facts for themselves. fuckin harlotte

[tatoo]

is this repeated anytime soon?
Have part 2 on record

[samlad]

Part two will be aired on Monday 5th May, 9:00pm on Channel 4.

[Davidontour]

This article has been written as a response. I felt compelled to join her twitter and put her right on a few things!

ARTICLE

The campaign to legalise prostitution has an advocate in the actor Rupert Everett. He has made a two-part series for Channel 4 called Love for Sale, in which he interviews prostitutes and punters; there are no pimps, of course, pimps being black-hearted with much to hide. Everett is obviously a romantic who romanticises what he finds because he is drawn to what his interviewee Russell Brand calls "maligned outsiders". At one point he compares prostitution to his own profession, although it is hard to imagine a co-star placing a penis in his mouth, or anus, and giving him money.

In Love for Sale, the feminist is the enemy of the prostitute, denying her free choices, thwarting her imperatives and daubing her with the mantle of victimhood. Feminists, a prostitute in a Dutch window tells Everett, makes her "feel small". Despite the Liverpool streetwalker insisting, "We are not doing it because we love it"; despite a male prostitute reporting that eight of his colleagues had committed suicide in the previous 18 months because of "loneliness" and "crystal"; despite visiting the Bois de Boulogne, where his prostitute friend was murdered in 1998 ("She wanted to marry you," a mutual friend tells him as they wander through the trees), Everett can only romanticise, and sometimes trivialise. An escort agency has a list of dodgy clients on the wall. "Jonny 12 (rough)" is one such. "Sounds my type," says Everett. He adores the transgressive; even so, he supports legalisation. He thinks it is the only way.

This is now the status quo, and it is popular where it should not be: that is, with progressives who do not see that the words freedom and autonomy are, in these matters, a Trojan horse for something else. Even Christopher Hitchens could not see the problem with prostitution, beyond the fact that a prostitute he met ("an avaricious bitch") did not seem to like him very much. Visiting a brothel with Martin Amis, which he recorded in his memoir Hitch-22 in the manner of a boastful gossip columnist ("Martin needed only to snap his fingers to enjoy female company"), Hitchens imagined himself as the victim of the prostitute: "of all the numerous regrettable elements that go to make up the unlawful carnal-knowledge industry, I should single out for distinction the look of undisguised contempt that is often worn on the faces of its female staff, [who] shrug off the fake charm as a snake discards an unwanted skin". Then he compared the experience to water-boarding. (I suppose I should add that Hitchens did not have sex with the prostitute; the "avaricious bitch" asked for more money than he had on his person). This self-pity conjoined with resentment is usual among punters. Everett found a nerdish man to complain that a young girl wanted £130 to have sex with him; so who, he asked, was exploiting whom.

But we must move on from the angry reviewers of Punternet, a ratings site where bounciness of breast is contrasted with affordability and compliance, and where punters ordinarily complain that women insist on using condoms; and from Everett's testimony from men relieved from getting "earache" after sex. That they are indifferent to the prostitute's emotions is obvious: were they not, they would not be there. Misogyny is probably ineradicable.

The effects of legalisation so far are likewise obvious; Der Spiegel published a comprehensive account of the impact of legalisation in Germany last year. The law is a shield for pimps and traffickers, who flock to the safe areas with penniless girls from eastern Europe. Prices are driven ever downwards; mega-brothels offer all the sex an inadequate lover can desire for €70 (£58), which leads to queues outside the doors of exhausted women. Here, then, are monetised gangbangs approved by the state.

It could be that well-meant laws are poorly enforced, or that many prostitutes are incapable, for complex reasons, of true autonomy. Can we imagine women with a glut of choices choosing this? There are, of course, exceptions, and these exceptions want legalisation. No one can drive a law through these murky areas and unpick paid-for sex from contempt for women. In Sweden, for instance, where the punter is criminalised, the trade just moves elsewhere. But in Germany the testimony is the stuff of nightmare, of capitalism run mad to its inevitable dusk. The utopia of self-employed happy prostitutes serenely paying their taxes never materialised; instead, legislation conjured hell.

Twitter: @TanyaGold1

More of the same abolitionist navel gazing, the subtext being that because a profession has downsides, it should therefore be banned. In which case, sales of alcohol, tobacco and cheap clothing should be outlawed long before sex work.

Freedom of choice is derided and denied by this type of mindset, with the focus firmly on the negative and firmly away from the genuine benefits, financial, psychological, empowering and sexual, that sex work can bring.

I could wrangle with virtually every point in this article, but I'll just pick one -- ''In Sweden, for instance, where the punter is criminalised, the trade just moves elsewhere.'' Really? So the 1000 prostitutes that the Swedish govt admits still operate in the country are all sitting playing tiddlywinks are they?

At least glance at a few facts before embarking on your sloppy article Tanyagold.

[johnsmith69]

I thought the first episode was presented with a well balanced view.
Both the negatives and positives of the industry were equally shown and it was left to the viewer to decide
Rupert Everret, I understand, has experience in the industry and therefore knows what he is talking about
As for the Guardian journalist, Tanya Gold, the number of negative reviews I have read on her twitter account to her article speaks for itself
I'm looking forward to seeing next mondays second episode and the side of the industry seen from the clients