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On The Game: Football and Prostitution

by Alexander Netherton
6 September 2010 17 Comments

In the fallout of the Wayne Rooney allegations the tabloids are painting a glamorous picture of going on the game, but the reality is far less inviting.

Right, so Wayne Rooney has been accused of using prostitutes over the course of his career. From 16 to 24, that’s eight years he’s had to learn his lessons, and at the very least learn that discretion can’t really be secured from someone you pay to have sex with you. He’s naive or stupid. Probably both.

The thing that’s interesting about this story is not the fact that someone is telling us that an English footballer is paying for sex. I hope I’m mistaken, but given the stories in the press it seems like a depressing proportion of the England squad is similarly occupied at one time or another every week. No, what I thought remarkable was the News Of The World constantly reassuring us of this woman’s independence. They tell us things like, ‘she enjoys her work and is good at it,’ and, ‘she earns enough money to then go off partying.’ This might all be true, and if she really does enjoy her work, I’m not the moral arbiter to intervene. What’s dangerous though, compounded by other similar stories from the tabloids about celebrities and footballers, is that the only stories of prositution the biggest selling papers are telling us about glamour and pride. So, fancy some more information about the fun these women are having?

According to research, 82% of women working as prostitutes experience violence. Apart from boxing or wrestling as a living, there’s no other job I can imagine that’s got such a return.

68% of these women have been raped. In this case, rape means that they were subjected to sex without payment or permission for the sex.

That’s bad enough, but remember this, it is estimated that 40% to 85% of prostitutes have drug problems, and that is often chiefly the reason for their sex work - to fund a drug addiction. Paying someone to have sex with you, when their motivation is to get enough cash together for the day’s fourth £10 bag of heroin, is rape. It’s not voluntary intercourse, it’s a transaction based on desperation.

82% of women working as prostitutes experience violence. Apart from boxing or wrestling as a living, there’s no other job I can imagine that’s got such a return.

It is estimated that more than half of women working as prostitutes were sexually abused as children. Whether they’re paid £25 or £25,000 a time, and they’ve been sexually abused as children, you cannot justify further extending their abuse. Not to be condescending, but the sense of self-worth of these women is probably such that they cannot improve their situation without society’s help. Paying them for sex, and subjecting them to more unhappiness, is plainly not the way to do this.

84% of women who work as prostitutes report that they either are or have been homeless. Is it responsible of the tabloids to constantly disseminate the idea of prostitution as a viable career option, implicitly justifying it by paying the few who end up on the wrong end of a witless manchild athlete?

Next time this sorry outrage kicks off again, when you see the glee of the tabloids and Sky News presenters, remember the type of politics the Sun and the rest of the Murdoch and Dacre stables propagate for most of the time. They’ll be looking down on, ‘slags’, telling women readers to stay indoors and look after the kids because of the latest, ‘research,’ and advertising phone sex lines between the sport section and the TV guide They’ll also be criticising Job Centres at the same time for advertising work in strip clubs. Women, taking their logic to its conclusion, are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

Do you spot a recurrent theme? I’ve got a sneaking suspicion they hate women.

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image descriptionCOMMENTS

Costi 3:56 pm, 6-Sep-2010

I don't think he did it.

sgr 4:37 pm, 6-Sep-2010

some good points there. Tabloids are more concerned with poor coleen, wife of millionaire shrek, than the reality of abuse that goes on.

Ricardo Soares 4:41 pm, 6-Sep-2010

great piece

Robert 5:17 pm, 6-Sep-2010

Remember when that story broke about the academic who was behind the 'Belle de Jour' sex work blog? Newspaper comment threads – and columns – were full of people extolling the woman's self-reliance. By virtue of paying her own way, popular wisdom declared, she was beyond reproach. A quite extraordinary message to communicate in the mass media.

Kathryn 5:28 pm, 6-Sep-2010

I wrote a thesis on this topic over 20 years ago. Entitled 'women at work; prostitution as an occupation', it considered both sides of the argument as to whether women working in this field are in control of their own labour process. Looking at the statistics in the above piece, it appears that sadly but unsurprisingly little has changed, and that for the majority of workers in the sex industry, the answer is still a big fat 'no'.

Keith Wildman 10:42 pm, 6-Sep-2010

I think the bits of body dredged out of the river Aire just behind where I live a few months back is the reality of prostitution, rather than a woman who 'earns enough to go partying.'

Darren 7:14 am, 7-Sep-2010

Wasn't she an escort rather than a prostitute?

Del LaGrace 9:49 am, 7-Sep-2010

Where have you cherry picked your statistics from! A few good points...about the media...but far from balanced IMHO.

indgio Nero 11:26 am, 7-Sep-2010

Sadly your 80% and 49% are not real as they are based on data from pros asked. For it too be real you would have to ask every working girl in the UK not the ones arrested whom they get the data off? We need numbers of people asked not % if you ask ten girls and eight were homeless thats 80%. Bollocks to get more funding for whomever! Tiger woods paid one of his Pros 60,000 us dollars for a weekend. The girls at the dorchester charge £5000+ a go. Ron's girl looked like a £50 pound a night type so he was taken for a real ride. Homeless drugs abuse is no excuse for who we become.

Bill H 1:37 pm, 7-Sep-2010

What a strange piece. It could have been a decent effort if, as the two posters above point out, the statistics had been corroborated or sourced. The statistics from my own dealings with call girls is that 80 per cent are intelligent, articulate women living good lifestyles because of the extra income it brings in. Haven't come across a single heroin-addled, homeless, economic refugee in many hours of consensual business

Alexander 2:17 pm, 7-Sep-2010

I'll try to get round to posting statistics and sources later this week. They're not just plucked out of thin air.

Llywarch 11:31 am, 8-Sep-2010

Great article. Sadly some of the comments above show that it will take a lot more to change the views of a lot. Bill H obviously has money but is easily fooled and lacks real understanding of his fellow human beings.

Frazek 5:12 pm, 10-Sep-2010

Alex, I assume that even if prostitution is far from an ideal choice, the very fact that many women enter the industry must tell us something about how unappealing the alternatives are. For outsiders (like me!) to argue the pros (excuse the pun) or cons of ‘The Game’ is pretty moot, but the fact that so many women do choose that option would suggest it is preferable to, say, 16-hour shifts in a sweatshop etc, or turning to (different) crimes. So while wider society generally may take a sneering view of the prostitution industry, it does provide important financial independence for many women, independence that they would otherwise be denied. It is also worth remembering that the low barriers to entry, with little education necessary, low capital costs and, arguably, little need for conventional ‘good looks’, based on the wide scope of man sexual preferences, makes prostitution a viable option regardless of background and previous opportunities, or lack of them.

Alexander 8:26 am, 11-Sep-2010

Frazek, You silly cunt. Best, Alexander

nicholasR 8:01 pm, 11-Sep-2010

i kind of get the impression that call girls are often just doing it for the money because they have something to sell. i've never used a call girl, but i think these girls are a world away from street prostitutes

Canolli 7:23 pm, 13-Sep-2010

@Darren... um... lol is all I can say. @Alexandre - the "oldest profession" needs to become legal worldwide. This would allow enterprise to provide the appropriate environment in which the girls can work safely.

Sophie Stepover 3:15 am, 24-Sep-2010

Solid article Alexander. Nice to see a man writing intelligently on the subject. Wish I could say the same for some of the commenters.

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