Fighting Incels with Sex Work: The Manosphere is a National Security Threat, Proper Prostitution Might Be the Answer

Content Warning: sexual themes of inter alia violence

In February of this year, the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s recommendations in their report into sexual exploitation and trafficking via adult service websites was met with a nuanced and unemotional response from sex worker-focused charities and organisations, such as National Ugly Mugs.

The Commissioner highlighted enduring issues; there were weak verification controls, weak reporting systems, instances of third-party control, and listings design which encouraged relinquishing boundaries. The Commissioner recommended stronger Ofcom interventions, legislative changes to increase enforcement, possibly prohibition of the websites, and a focus on victims and survivors. 

National Ugly Mugs largely agreed these issues existed based on their own knowledge base. Yet they did not agree with the recommendations in full. They noted that the report failed to acknowledge how the websites have helped to improve sex worker safety and independence, and that it is mostly these sex workers, with no relation to the separate concepts of exploitation or trafficking, which utilise these sites. 

Both groups made professional contributions based on the experiences of the people they serve, yet the central problem remains the same from a decade ago. Then, the Home Affairs Committee found “the poor quality of information available” meant the government struggled to make “informed decisions” about an effective legal regime on sex work, and how best to target state services and programmes. 

There has been a wide range of contributions since then. The English Collective of Prostitutes found most sex workers are single mothers using work to escape exploitation, precarity,  and to support their children. Healthcare workers now train on sex workers’ issues to enhance empathetic support. The European Sex Workers Alliance seeks stronger labour rights and greater mental health support. Ruhama, an Irish NGO, seeks more state services to remove the multiple barriers in the paths to exiting sex work. 

All contributions are valuable, yet one contribution is often missing, which is the “buyer”. “Buyers” are perhaps as poorly understood as the sex worker; often they are typecast as misogynists, violent men, or rich men abusing women to seek self-gratification. Yet, this is as much a stereotype as the “sad hooker” or “happy hooker”. 

Most “buyers” are not extreme misogynists, violent, or incredibly rich and powerful. They are often ordinary, and approach sex workers as a way to manage their physical disabilities, aging, sexual dysfunction, mental health conditions, or anxieties. There is no one demographic of buyers, except that most are men. 

Those men are often suffering from isolation, marginalisation, or poor sense of belonging. While Internet users often enjoy making sarcastic memes about the male loneliness epidemic, it is a very real phenomenon. One of the consequences is men seriously struggle to manage positive self-image, intimacy, positive platonic relationships with women, and healthy non-competitive relationships with other men.

This is the true national security threat. It is not that men are approaching sex workers to manage their psychologies. It is that men do not have the adequate support to manage their psychologies healthily. Without support, their psychologies are vulnerable to manipulation by Manosphere movements, which exposes them to a radicalisation pathway toward incredibly harmful far-right thinking, and violent behaviour. 

This is where sex work has excellent potential to enhance our national security. Fundamentally, sex work involves the man meeting a woman, which is a de facto form of exposure. The man encounters the woman, he realises the imagined form in his head as he interacts with the woman is incorrect, and he re-evaluates his perceptions to create a positive, realistic, and healthier schema around women in his head. 

Sex workers are often unofficial experts in women’s issues. They understand sexual consent, and personal boundaries. They understand what good and healthy sex looks like. They understand connected issues such as stalking, harassment, assault, rape, but also disabilities and motherhood. They could share their insight with men – who may never have understood these issues without lived experience – if they were supported with the right framework.  

Perhaps the best approach is not to solely decriminalise or prohibit sex work but recognise the unlocked potential. A decentralised statutory structure offering contracts with the purpose of ensuring men learn about intimacy in a safe and controlled environment can achieve a lot. 

It could empower women with a formalised education and training. It can protect them with accountable and auditable safeguarding, HR, and financial systems. It can support them with fair pay, flexible scheduling, and labour rights including notice periods and defined exit pathways via transferable skills, alongside wellbeing support. It can recognise their most meaningful role in an urgent mission in our societies beyond “making money”.  

For men, they learn about and understand self-image, boundaries, consent, respect, sexuality, and women’s issues. This approach has potential as a critical source of prevention and mitigation for men grappling with the pipeline of fear-to-misogyny-to-violence, greatly enhancing our national security. It can shatter the myriad myths about sex work, by redefining it as something routine, administrative, and even mundane to outsiders who otherwise variously and imaginatively interpret sex work as they wish. 

This proposition is not to be confused with Jordan Peterson’s garbled “socially enforced monogamy” concept. It means giving men a time-bound and limited package of services based on a case-specific care plan, as in counselling. It’s not about gratifying men, but facilitating their personal development, ensuring they truly understand themselves, and how there is more to intimacy and gender relations than mere sexual gratification. 

In Revolting Prostitutes, Juno Mac and Molly Smith say they hope for a world where no one needs to sell sex just to live. I completely agree with them, but I believe we can go further and add that we must strive for a world where no one feels they need to buy sex either. It’s no joke; a world where we achieve both outcomes is one in which we have learnt to sincerely value positive gender relations, and empowered everyday communities.

Image: Flickr/Julia Tulke

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