Demonizing sex workers

[Lifestyle66]

As much as I considered the late Larry Flynt to be disgusting, he wasn't afraid to advocate a sex-positive agenda. It takes wealth, though.

It's the bluenoses. They trot out the ever-reliable "we need to protect the children" whenever their Puritanical worldview is threatened. And how can you possibly advocate something that is going to be bad for children. You are therefore a bad person, and if you advocate "a lesser position" in public, you get to wander the streets with a big red 'A' on your chest.

Many decades ago I was visibly active in a cause that was counter to the prevailing authority, and had my words twisted in TV interviews. My side eventually "won", but getting there wasn't pleasant.

Every year during the last week of October, Key West, Florida becomes the host of their "Fantasy Fest". Thousands of people will descend on the city and wander Duval Street wearing outrageous costumes or almost (some) wearing nothing at all (even though genitals and women's nipples must be covered.) There are women who will pay to be body painted, with just the paint covering their "assets", and if you look closely enough, you'll see some of the body painted women have no real clothes on.

I've heard that the Mayor of Key West wants to pass an ordinance making it illegal for body paint to be considered a cover over the nipples.

Now, I must wonder, "What 'problem' is the Mayor trying to fix with such an ordinance?"

If she's trying to protect "the children" or the innocent, think about how much the prices in rooms are raised during that week. Anyone visiting Key West during the last week of October is paying outrageously higher prices for the privilege of being there, and they should KNOW (or at least ASK) why it's so much more expensive for that week. I find it hard to believe people go there and, when asked, they say "We didn't know this was going on!" (Yeah, right!)

Even those living in Key West should know that week is bringing in massive tax revenues and incomes for the residents. Watch your kids a little more closely for just that one week, and enjoy the economic benefits the rest of the year.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I don't quite see the same thing. For one thing, as I noted before, if you read the comments to Emily's story the criticisms are more concerned with the husband-wife relationship than with sex workers generally. Second, I haven't seen negative commentary about sex workers in general at this site, and I see far LESS criticism of women and their sexuality in other categories than in LW. I've written hot wife stories in E&V and they do fine. A few stray negative comments, but not enough to knock the score way down or hurt the story's performance. In general, I think Lit is far more accepting of women exploring their sexual horizons than society at large.

I think... Mmm, it's complicated. I mean, there's a reason we still have a Pink Orchid event each year on the site. A huge number of the women in these stories are written as dolls fulfilling a man's fantasy, not as full characters. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's... not great on the whole. Like I said, Pink Orchid exists for a reason.

However, there is, on big chunks of the site, a revulsion towards women who have their own agency, ESPECIALLY if it's expressed in the form of sex work. It doesn't show up everywhere (Lesbian is pretty free of it, for obvious reasons), but in the comments of any story with a sex worker that's also in a relationship with someone, there are pretty much always comments about her being a whore and how he needs to find someone new. Even in stories where it's just a woman playing the field, if she has a guy that she sees regularly, even if he's fully aware and accepts it, the "cuck" comments show up.

I don't think it's that Lit is "far" more accepting of women exploring their sexual horizons. I mean, it's definitely more accepting, but I wouldn't go with "far" more. Instead, think it's the case that if the fantasies being presented align with what the reader came for, they'll react positively. If they're not, they won't. It's most obvious in cuckold story comments, where the fantasy presented is diametrically opposed from most typical male fantasies, but, like I said, stories with sex workers that also juggle boyfriends get them, too. And I think that's because they're the next closest thing in those readers' minds.

LC86 actually had a good point a while back that the Fetish section of the forum has a lot of positive tilt towards hotwifing, which seems at odds with comments on LW stories about it. But look at the topics there. Some of them are "it's great that my wife is into this," but those very regularly end up at "now let me show her off to you." A lot of the other threads are "how can I get my wife into wanting to do this," i.e., "how can I get her to fulfill my fantasy?" Not her fantasy; the husband's fantasy, that she's perhaps already shown herself to be resistant to.

Like I said, complicated.

 

[NoTalentHack]

As an aside, I have a story that's been backburnered for a while about a bull trying to get out of the bull/cuck/hotwife scene, because it leaves him lonely and unable to have a solid relationship. He eventually ends up with a former sex worker who's also trying to leave her life behind, not because she's ashamed of it, but because she did it to make ends meet in school. She's not ashamed of it, especially compared to the bull (for reasons I'll go into in the story), but she's also not proud of it either. It was a job, she was good at it, and she'd done now. It's largely about the dynamics of two people who both have had performative sex find a real connection and get past both of their own hangups, which are significantly more about intimacy and trust than sex.

I expect it's going to go over like a lead balloon in LW, especially since one of the encouraging supporting characters for the bull is the husband of his favorite "client."

 

[Lifestyle66]

I think... Mmm, it's complicated. I mean, there's a reason we still have a Pink Orchid event each year on the site. A huge number of the women in these stories are written as dolls fulfilling a man's fantasy, not as full characters. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's... not great on the whole. Like I said, Pink Orchid exists for a reason.

....

LC86 actually had a good point a while back that the Fetish section of the forum has a lot of positive tilt towards hotwifing, which seems at odds with comments on LW stories about it. But look at the topics there. Some of them are "it's great that my wife is into this," but those very regularly end up at "now let me show her off to you." A lot of the other threads are "how can I get my wife into wanting to do this," i.e., "how can I get her to fulfill my fantasy?" Not her fantasy; the husband's fantasy, that she's perhaps already shown herself to be resistant to.

Like I said, complicated.

My Pink Orchid story almost two years ago was about a husband encouraging his wife to explore her own fantasy of getting onstage as a stripper. ("Her Bucket List: Strip Club") The wife got onstage and took over the male audience with her outrageous act. The story is about the WIFE fulfilling HER fantasy, and yet I got one comment saying:
******
by Anonymous user on 02/09/2022

Stripping is hardly my idea of the Pink Orchid theme. 2* off for that alone.
******
But I posted that story in Mature, where it received a 4.44 with 193 ratings. I wonder how it would have done in LW.

 

[NoTalentHack]

My Pink Orchid story almost two years ago was about a husband encouraging his wife to explore her own fantasy of getting onstage as a stripper. ("Her Bucket List: Strip Club") The wife got onstage and took over the male audience with her outrageous act. The story is about the WIFE fulfilling HER fantasy, and yet I got one comment saying:
******
by Anonymous user on 02/09/2022

Stripping is hardly my idea of the Pink Orchid theme. 2* off for that alone.
******
But I posted that story in Mature, where it received a 4.44 with 193 ratings. I wonder how it would have done in LW.

Oh, it would have gotten nuked into the ground. But that's because of the turf war, which, sadly, is also part of what makes the category as a whole work.

 

[Euphony]

I have a story that's been backburnered for a while about a bull trying to get out of the bull/cuck/hotwife scene

Must be a logical counter category theme b/c I have one as well. Riff on Ferdinand with the sex being "Bullfighting" (drama with husbands demands/expectations, objectification by his female partners) and "Smelling flowers" being some form of normal, healthier relationship. (not vibing w/bog standard monogamy relationship that magically "fixes" everything.)

Feels a crazy fruitful area for exploration but, as always...

I expect it's going to go over like a lead balloon in LW

 

[KeithD]

In the world of my stories, being a sex worker is accepted as normal.

 

[CyranoJ]

PS This isn’t really about my story (hence no link) it’s about attitudes to prostitution on Literotica

Most of the political spectrum still shuns, demonizes or infantilizes sex workers in various ways. The right wing does it the old-fashioned way: a shame-driven whorephobic model of contradictory consumption and criminalization with a heaping helping of empty "moralism" (almost all of it directed at women) for good measure.

The left wing cooked up its own approach more recently by following the logic that the shame should be placed on the customers, criminalizing "Johns" instead of the sex work themselves. This is most famously manifested as the "Nordic model" of legislation on the subject. It's basically just kind of playing three-card Monte with the fundamental shaming, though: its whole premise is still that sex workers are the symptom of some kind of social disease, and it has never faced squarely up to the fact that illegalizing the market for sex work has essentially the same effect as directly criminalizing sex workers. SW activists condemned the Nordic model when it was first rolled out, and all the data I've seen since suggests that their predictions have proved out.

More recently yet, the left and right have somewhat coalesced over a shared dread of "trafficking." A concern that has a basis in real-world examples, but that also gets recklessly applied to any and all sex work regardless of evidence, leading to legislation like SESTA-FOSTA.

SW activists have gained some visibility in recent decades for the idea that maybe listening to what sex workers have to say about their own profession is worthwhile. From doing so comes a specific set of ideas:

a) sex work is work,
b) sex workers deserve the same rights as any other worker,
c) attaching particular shame to sex work is an unhelpful and backwards attitude,
d) what sex workers mostly want in order to practice their trade safely is decriminalization.

For all the drawbacks of social media, I do have to credit it with disseminating the perspectives of actual sex workers more widely than I've ever previously seen them reach. The above perspective is more popular now than I've ever known it to be. But it's relative: "anti-trafficking" rhetoric, "Nordic model" squeamishness and the raw misogynistic whorephobia of the right are all still commonplace.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Oh, it would have gotten nuked into the ground. But that's because of the turf war, which, sadly, is also part of what makes the category as a whole work.

Two years ago, I was still chasing the ratings.

Now that I've found my niche with poking the LW audience, I'm working on another Pink Orchid entry for next year (if O does it again), and this time it will be in LW. It's a first person POV from my favorite MFC, explaining how she controls men and why she enjoys it so much. I'm almost 8k words into it and enjoy writing her character profile in detail.

One telling line I have is when she tells her husband "But I’d bet I could get any man to bend over, if I ever wanted to use a strap-on.”

 

[EmilyMiller]

I am assuming that most of your male readers will see themselves in the role of that husband and will feel outraged because he accepted such a marriage. Because they themselves would never accept such a thing, they vote down the story. It is as simple as that, I am afraid. I believe that it is exactly this "putting themselves in that role" thing that prevents them from judging the story on its literary merit rather than on its content. Maybe a more tolerant category was a better choice in this case (Fetish?)

I wasn’t complaining about the reception of my story. I was expecting nothing less. Just the disrespect and dehumanizing of sex workers.

As I say, not really about my story.

Dm

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hey Emily,
I've been mining the smoking fetish models on Reddit for stories. What is interesting is that several of them see themselves as prostitutes but without the actual contact.

With using only/Loyal Fans they are selling their bodies.

When I post their stories they do equally badly on Lit!

B

And yet they do good business, right?

Em

 

[Djmac1031]

These are the same assholes who regularly jerk off to porn then call the performers whores.

It's sad, but not the least bit surprising. Hypocrisy is rampant in our society, especially when it comes to views on sex and sexuality, and of course misogyny plays its part as well, because men can fuck anyone they please, but god forbid a woman loves one man but fucks another.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I really enjoyed the story, but I'm not at all surprised at the response to it, especially to the husband at the end. And I say I'm not surprised, but it's not that I'm not surprised in LW: I wouldn't have been surprised at that response anywhere on Lit. Sex workers are still maligned, and Lit is as sexist as any other place on the web. We may tell ourselves otherwise, but it's just that the manifestation of the sexism is different. It's still Madonna/Whore complex all the way down. You can't have a sex worker in most stories unless it's a one-off in a stroker, a hooker with a heart of gold (that MUST be "redeemed" if she's the FMC), or who continues to hook because that's the husband's fetish. Outside of that? People get real, real mad most places on Lit.

It’s kinda sad.

Again, not about my story, but about the prejudices that it brought to the fore.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

In the world of my stories, being a sex worker is accepted as normal.

That sounds like a better world.

Em

 

[Euphony]

Just the disrespect and dehumanizing of sex workers.

Society sucks on many women's issues.

Lit is a reflection of society with anonymity to hide behind.

I'd bet a ton of men in LWs think "Suffragette" is some sort of BDSM thing but at least the woman truly knows a woman's place.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I wasn’t complaining about the reception of my story. I was expecting nothing less. Just the disrespect and dehumanizing of sex workers.

As I say, not really about my story.

Dm

Ah okay, sorry.
One thing would be interesting, though. Writing a story about a gigolo in a similar situation and observing the reactions. My bet is that the story would have been received much better. Then again, maybe not. I don't know much about the average reader in LW, I am just guessing based on general experience.

 

[Djmac1031]

Ah okay, sorry.
One thing would be interesting, though. Writing a story about a gigolo in a similar situation and observing the reactions. My bet is that the story would have been received much better. Then again, maybe not. I don't know much about the average reader in LW, I am just guessing based on general experience.

I'm of the belief that MOST readers here are NOT misogynistic fuckwits.

It's just that the misogynistic fuckwits are the most vocal.

And I'd bet they'd literally DROOL and CUM all over themselves reading a story about a MAN who gets paid to fuck women.

But only beautiful women, of course.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Ah okay, sorry.
One thing would be interesting, though. Writing a story about a gigolo in a similar situation and observing the reactions. My bet is that the story would have been received much better. Then again, maybe not. I don't know much about the average reader in LW, I am just guessing based on general experience.

No, they'd hate him even more. The vibe from the comments is less what a horrible woman she is (although there are some of those) and more what a "weak" man the husband is, how it's abhorrent that he'd "let" her go out and endanger herself like that and/or that he treats her like a queen after she's been out having sex with other men.

If there's anything the BTB guys hate more than cheating women, it's the men that enable those women to cheat. There's a reason why the AP is FAR more likely to experience actual physical violence, targeted destruction of their finances, etc. in the stories. It's the same misogyny, just dressed up in different clothes, though. They would absolutely detest the gigolo; they'd see him as a parasite and a homewrecker.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Ah okay, sorry.
One thing would be interesting, though. Writing a story about a gigolo in a similar situation and observing the reactions. My bet is that the story would have been received much better. Then again, maybe not. I don't know much about the average reader in LW, I am just guessing based on general experience.

I read a story in LW from the guy (her lover's) POV fucking another guy's wife. The husband was portrayed as a powerless cuck, and the wife was cheating on him.

That story did rather well in LW at about 4.0, BECAUSE the story reinforced their belief that wives cheat on their impotent husbands, and the husband deserved it.

 

[Euphony]

I'm of the belief that MOST readers here are NOT misogynistic fuckwits.

It's just that the misogynistic fuckwits are the most vocal.

Agree.

But it only takes a couple fuckwits to ruin the theater going experience of a packed house.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Ah okay, sorry.
One thing would be interesting, though. Writing a story about a gigolo in a similar situation and observing the reactions. My bet is that the story would have been received much better. Then again, maybe not. I don't know much about the average reader in LW, I am just guessing based on general experience.

There is some misogyny for sure.

Em

 

[MelissaBaby]

I just did a quick count, and 20 of my 67 published stories feature sex workers as primary characters. I've never received any significant negative response on the subject.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I just did a quick count, and 20 of my 67 published stories feature sex workers as primary characters. I've never received any significant negative response on the subject.

The quality of your writing probably transcends the prejudice of some of your readers.

Em

 

[Lifestyle66]

I wrote the story "A Dare at the Nude Resort", about a husband encouraging his wife to do what he knew she wanted, even though it was against their rules. ("Husband watches his horny wife and her boy-toy in a restroom.") I took great pains to make it as balanced as possible in their relationship.

One comment was:
*****
by Anonymous user on 09/05/2023

For me her saying that she will just lay there and you can use me any way you want is a real downer. So for her husband she is just a piece of meat. No way.
*****

My own wife, IRL has said that to me ("I'll just lay here, and you can use me anyway you want") on various occasions when I've helped her achieve her ultimate orgasm. She's been satisfied and realizes I'm still frustrated. That's just her way of saying "thanks" and taking care of my needs. We take care of each other!

But some people find sexism everywhere, and it's easier to find when they carry it with them. Misogyny is always in the "undercurrents" everywhere they look.

 

[AchtungNight]

I wrote the story "A Dare at the Nude Resort", about a husband encouraging his wife to do what he knew she wanted, even though it was against their rules. ("Husband watches his horny wife and her boy-toy in a restroom.") I took great pains to make it as balanced as possible in their relationship.

One comment was:
*****
by Anonymous user on 09/05/2023

For me her saying that she will just lay there and you can use me any way you want is a real downer. So for her husband she is just a piece of meat. No way.
*****

My own wife, IRL has said that to me ("I'll just lay here, and you can use me anyway you want") on various occasions when I've helped her achieve her ultimate orgasm. She's been satisfied and realizes I'm still frustrated. That's just her way of saying "thanks" and taking care of my needs. We take care of each other!

But some people find sexism everywhere, and it's easier to find when they carry it with them. Misogyny is always in the "undercurrents" everywhere they look.

Is there a female equivalent to misogyny? Plenty of women shame men and this is not condemned. Count me as one man who does not appreciate it. I’m a good man, or I like to think so. I’ve encountered my share of bad people of both genders. If I knew more nonbinary people, I’d probably see good and bad there too. I don’t demonize people unless they have earned it. And I always like (and give) a chance to atone.

I too have enjoyed it when women say things like “I’ll always want you, babe.” Of course it upsets me if and when I find out they’re lying- when that happens, I treasure the memories of when it was real.