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| By Anna Pratts, 07/08/2018 |
APROSEX, an
association of “professional sex workers” based in Barcelona which offers an “Introduction
to the Prostitution Profession” course, received over €25,000 in grants from local
government authorities between 2016 and 2018.
The three-day course is conducted
via Skype and costs €90. According to the APROSEX (Asociación de Profesionales
del Sexo) website the course is broken down under the following headings;
-
Why
do I want to be a prostitute?
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Insisting...do
I really want to be a whore?
-
Have
you thought about the drawbacks?
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Do
I feel ready to practice this profession?
-
Little
and “not so little” sex tricks
-
An introduction to stigma in prostitution and
its consequences for mental health
-
The
professionalisation of sex workers
-
The
tax office and social security
-
Marketing
for sex workers
There is no mention of strategies to prevent sexually transmitted diseases or the abuse and violence they may suffer at the hands of their future “clients.”
APROSEX, in
the words of its president, Paula VIP (real name, Conxa Borrell), is “a non-profit
organisation which aims to create a network of sex industry workers, and a political
platform to oppose abolitionists and prohibitionists.” In their 2017 manifesto they
label prostitution abolitionists as “whorephobes” and accuse them of “poisoning
feminism.”
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| APROSEX president Conxa Borrell |
The
manifesto, entitled “Abolitionism Vs. Feminism”, has been endorsed by
politicians such as Antonio Baños, an important figure in the left-wing pro-Catalan independence
party CUP, and AMMAR, an Argentinian “sex workers union” whose leading members have
been tried for the crimes of sex trafficking and pimping.
In a 2014 interview
APROSEX president Conxa Borrell said that many of the young girls between the
ages of 18 to 23 who want to enter prostitution do so to pay
for studies or to help their families. Apparently, women of 50 years or older also
sign up because they struggle to find
employment elsewhere and “have hardly been with any men other than their
husbands, but there´s a market for them because they’re affectionate, they know
how to get men off and they’re up for the job... A puta who doesn’t like sex is
like an anorexic food critic.”
Borrell
considers that a professional prostitute should be emotionally intelligent and develop
empathy with the male sex buyers in order to improve client retention; “We putas are clever, we know that we don’t
make money with our vaginas – all women have a vagina - but by using our heads. Listening to the
client is fundamental. You should pay attention to them like they're the
most important person in the world and memorise all the information they give
you.”
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| APROSEX's “Give me the blowjob of your life” course description |
In 2016 APROSEX also offered a men-only course entitled “Give me the blowjob of your life”. Enrolment
on the 90-minute workshop cost €60 and was advertised on their website with the
following description:
“Many of you complain that saintly women, and
even some putas, don’t know how to suck it properly. We believe the problem isn’t
that they don’t know how to use their tongue and mouth, but that you don’t know
how to direct them. You let yourself get carried away by your own pleasure, but
don’t really understand that you also produce an extraordinary delight in the
woman. This workshop, like the others we organise, is practical. That means the
blowjobs will be real. No dildos, bananas or cucumbers. They’re fine for
nibbling, but sucking a fully erect penis is always preferable...”
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| APROSEX's "How To Strip Yourself and a Man" course |
Other
workshops offered on the website include ‘The Art Of Fellatio’ taught by Anna
Alba Escort, and ‘How To Strip Yourself and a Man’ by Martina de la Terra
Escort.
You may be asking
yourself whether this isn’t just standard prostitution presented in the form of a
‘course’? What’s the difference? Where would you draw the line? The APROSEX collective have not responded to questions, limiting themselves to accusing their critics of “whorephobia”. When I posted screenshotsof the course description and documents on Twitter which revealed the local government funding they received, the group’s founder responded by claiming this
was “a hate campaign, ran by privileged people who are not stigmatised.”
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| The Eulalia Roig escort agency promoted by APROSEX |
The APROSEX homepage features a link to a forum called Geishas VIP which is hosted from the
same IP address as the main APROSEX site and Conxa Borrell’s personal website. Geishas
VIP has an ‘agencies’ subforum where they officially recommend one such
business in particular, Eulalia Roig, which offers on its website “an exquisite
selection of the most select escorts that can be found in Barcelona. Get in
contact to arrange an unforgettable date.”
How much do
the women and girls have to pay to this agency and what is its relationship to
Aprosex? Are the women and girls who attend their Introduction to Prostitution
course also introduced to Eulalia Roig? Aprosex have declined to comment.