My opinion is that sex work should be legal. It would enable involuntary virgins to get a good sex experience for payment; they will be guaranteed a good sex experience with a sex worker: no harassment, good education, and a fun time.
Sex work gets shamed by people puritans because of payment for sex and it’s “sinful”; yet these same persons puritans get and have sex for free out of “passion” or marriage; they also discriminate against minorities in sec.
EDIT: Apparently there is an implied difference between sex work and prostitution. I mean sex work.
EDIT 2: I messed up the writing of my post. My real opinion is located in this comment:
Oof. I didn’t realize there was way more exploitation than just sex traffickers. It totally makes sense though; sex trades are a product of capitalist exploitation and the existence of private property. (Naturally under communism, the prevalence of sex trades would be heavily reduced.)
It seems like I couldn’t communicate my ideas properly beforehand. I don’t want people in the sex trade to be criminalized; I want pimps and johns to be criminalized.
Only a few hours ago: I wanted to support a sex trade industry that didn’t involve rapes or rely on economic coercion. I just wanted disabled people, who keep getting discriminated out of sex,[1][2][3] to be able to feel better about their lives; a lack of sex can cause mental health issues in some people (even though this shouldn’t happen). (However, having sex probably won’t fix the issue, it will just hide the problems until later). Now I feel like shit…
Countries where sex work is legal and regulated (Holland, Germany, Canada, Australia…) all registered sensible drops in human traffic, venereal disease spreading and rapes.</br> People sell their bodies for food or money since the dawn of time and always will, like it or not. Keeping it illegal only favors criminal organizations and fodders a culture in which people are not allowed to do what they want with their own body, whether it is selling it, changing it or whatever. </br> Edit: added links to studies made by people smarter than me.
A long time ago someone shared a study with me that claimed that legalization of sex work leads to increase in trafficking. Sadly my reddit account is gone so I can’t find it anymore.
edit: thank you google scholar
Study: The challenges of fighting sex trafficking in the legalized prostitution market of the Netherlands
The main conclusion is that the screening of brothel owners and the monitoring of the compliance of licensing conditions do not create levels of transparency that enable sex trafficking to be exposed. The prostitution business retains many characteristics of an illegitimate market and the legalization and regulation of the prostitution sector has not driven out organized crime. On the contrary, fighting sex trafficking using the criminal justice system may even be harder in the legalized prostitution sector.
Study: Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?
This paper has investigated the impact of legalized prostitution on inflows of human trafficking. According to economic theory, there are two effects of unknown magnitude. The scale effect of legalizing prostitution leads to an expansion of the prostitution market and thus an increase in human trafficking, while the substitution effect reduces demand for trafficked prostitutes by favoring prostitutes who have legal residence in a country. Our quantitative empirical analysis for a cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect. On average, countries with legalized prostitution experience a larger degree of reported human trafficking inflows.
Plus the source you linked for human trafficking is not a primary source. A lot of sources it links are actually for decriminalization which drastically different from legalization. A bunch of other links like the NYT article are behind paywalls so I couldn’t read them.
@ksynwa There’s a problem with “human trafficking” aspect as well.
“Trafficking” problem is as engineered as “prostitution” or “drug” or “abortion” problem is. It’s borne of inablilty of some people to cross borders freely as they want. So they go to backalley traffickers.
Decriminalize human movement, and “traffickers” will lose their base.
fucked up that arguments being made here is for the buyer rather than the worker/slave.
elaborate?
I think the rest of the thread has good arguments on the topic, but the main idea is that regulations around sex work mostly impact sex workers and not the client. Even the criminalization of clients results in bad outcomes for the workers, so if you’d like to frame prostitution as a question of workers rights and public health, it’s important to center the debate around the experiences and problems of sex workers themselves.
To paraphrase someone else, as long as money exist there will be sex work. The question is what kind of labor conditions do we want for the sex workers?
Of course regulation comes to both ends: only allowing prostitution to be legal leads to situations like in Thailand or Madagascar, where child prostitution is rampant.</br> In European countries for example, brothels (I use this term for lack of an official one) have strict costumer rules about behaviour, health and hygene.</br>
if you’d like to frame prostitution as a question of workers rights and public health, it’s important to center the debate around the experiences and problems of sex workers themselves
totally agree: in fact when I say “health” I include psichological support.
My opinion is that sex work should be legal.
Yay.
It would enable involuntary virgins to get a good sex experience for payment;
Oh dear…
Locking this thread as result of the situation here from some users.
It’s no less moral than selling your labor in other ways, hell, it’s less harmful to the self than some other forms of labor.
Capitalism makes all labor morally grey to say the least, most of us work because we have to, engaged in jobs and environments we’d prefer not to be in.
My take is, for labor to be moral(I’m not taliking about personal morality, but systemic) our essentials need to be well covered regardless of our work, and the people need systemic assistance moving from one field to another, so that what ever labor one is engaged in doesn’t feel like their only choice of participation.
I don’t know where sex work fits into my utopia, but I do know I’d prefer, I’m general, that people are only engaged in what they want to engage in.
No one should get control over someone else’s body without true consent. Taking money as a bribe does not equal consent. Getting laid should take some effort. Putting money on the table doesn’t count as effort.
The thing is that mind and body can’t be divided, at least in the long run. Abuse to someone’s body is abuse to someone’s mind. There is always the risk that people abuse their “right” they “earned” with their dirty money.
It’s not the same as rape, but sex without sympathy is mentally unhealthy.
However, paying money to just talk to someone is more acceptable, albeit not necessary in an ideal world.
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Comparing sex work to any other form of work is a common error in thinking and indicates a lack of understanding for “the victim’s” point of view.
Sex work is just not the same, so it has to be treated special since it concerns a human’s (mainly woman’s) physical integrity & their most intimate parts. I can’t imagine that one can separate the body from the mind so clearly here, making the workers more vulnerable than in any other field of work. It’s all they have & they’re selling it. Please be more sensitive in that regard and show some respect for people’s private spheres.
I think sex is different than roofing a house
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Do you want to explain what in particular is different in a way that detracts from their point? There are a bunch of possible reasons and it’s not clear which you’re implying.
I found this in my notifs but I literally cannot find the context sorry
Your logic can be extended to all type of work. Destroying your health in a mine for a salary has similar conesequence. And for that reason sex work is just work and should be treated and legislated as such.
Btw, I don’t see why getting laid should requiere effort, seems like an unnecessary value judgment.
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I love that this forum is all about leftist this and that. But when the topic is about women bodies, comments goes full puritan & conservative.
90% of the incels I hear from are raging misogynists who vehemently hate women for their ability to withhold a “resource” for money. Combine that with the low social status of sex work (which is not fixable with legislation) and you are just offering these women up to be murdered (which is already the case).
There are a few things legalization of sex work does fix.
- once it’s much easier to access legal adult prostitutes, child prostitutes become significantly less desirable to those that might otherwise seek them out.
- you can try to weight things in the prostitute’s favor by enacting rules that make brothels and pimping a lot harder (although you still need to have a good way for them to hire their own security).
- It’s easier for prostitutes to seek justice from abusive johns if their side of things is perfectly legal.
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FOSTA-SESTA
what are these acts? I have not heard of them. And fuck whoever enacted them, if it causes the workers to put themselves into such danger for no reason then it is an immoral law.
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my god conservatives at it again at making the problem fucking worse by making sure they can pretend it isn’t there, when it is.
Don’t forget about the
SORMASUGMA (BALLS) act…
I mean this was kinda what I meant by weighting things in favor of the prostitutes. The whole theme of my comment in general was that they’re getting hurt one way or another, but they’re getting hurt way less overall if they’re at least allowed to do it on the public record in a lot of ways.
weird though, you’d think incels would like prostitutes, they aren’t going to get any sex otherwise
Right? lol
under capitalism, legalization and government protection combined with a workers co-op is probably the best they can do
A product of capitalism
So other systems didn’t have sex work? Feaudalism, theocracy, autocracy, none of them had sex work? This developed only once competitive businesses in the Victorian era began trading?
A more apt description would be a product of extreme needs scarcity
So you’re suggesting prostitution has mostly dried up since scarcity dried up in Europe? Or that prostitution used to be much more common back when people starved to death?
Ancient Romans had them too. Capitalism bad but it’s not always the cause, merely an antagonist in this case. Boogeymanning isn’t constructive.
Prostitution is rape.
"But this woman who wouldn’t be able to afford rent or food if it weren’t for the money I give her said she loves having sex with me! She couldn’t possibly be lying to protect herself and boost my ego!"
I was thinking of consensual sex work (sex work that is not done by neccessity, but by people who want to do sex work); but I agree with you that sex trafficking is rape.
There is nothing consensual about having to sell your body to make a living
People sell their bodies everyday to make excel spreadsheets for 10 hours straight under fluorescent lights in a cubicle that’s smaller than my bathroom or work in factories where they risk their safety because of old machineries, chemicals and hazardous environments in general. How all of this is considered better than having sex with someone in a controlled environment, where people get checked for deseases before going in, where security guards can keep you safe against violent clients and where you get to pay taxes and work for a pension?
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without that person’s consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent.
You have no problem understanding the lack of agency of the worker in their workplace. you just don’t want to call it rape because it makes you uncomfortable.
You know, I used to work for this big company that exploited me like a slave (making excel spreadsheets for 10 hours straight under fluorescent lights in a cubicle that’s smaller than my bathroom, as a matter of fact).</br> I called that job “rape” everyday for three years and when I quit I had no problem telling that straight to my employer’s face.</br> I’m doing the exact same job self-employed now, do I still call it “rape”? Of course not, because now I’m in control of how I do it and there’s no more exploitation…</br> And I think it should be the same for sex workers, but as long as there’s no legalization and regulation it cannot happen.
You can call your job whatever you want. But unlike prostitution it’s not literal rape. What makes your job exploitative is not the working conditions or the size of the company, it’s the necessity to sell your labor to get your means of subsistence. You had no choice but to keep working because you would starve and freeze to death if you didn’t. That’s why I quoted the literal definition of rape. Prostitution is literally rape.
So nothing we do, as a species, is consensual?
that still applies, nothing about any of this work is consensual, because they cannot change anything about their situation, even though it is horrible, and must keep doing it in order to live. You are right about it being legal under capitalism though.
I don’t like to put it in a socialist vs. capitalist context, I think it is stretching the topic a little bit. I prefer talking about the individual: I don’t think that every people has it’s “dream job”. Sure some people wish to be doctors, lawyers and other professions, but a lot of other people don’t. So in this latter cases, how is it that prostitution in a regulated environment is worse than anything else?
I see prostitution as it is a product of capitalism. Most of those people do want to become scientists, discovering new things, writers, or something more than basically the toy of the dollar. Many countries were able to eliminate prostitution entirely after eliminating the harmful requirements for people to use it. If it is still wanted post capitalism, then something can be worked out, or they can just have sex with random people like they would anyway if they were a prostitute.
Most of those people do want to become scientists, discovering new things, writers, or something more than basically the toy of the dollar
Of course, but the same principle can be applied to people that work retail or pull a lever in a production chain. Of course prostitution is a product of capitalism, but the same is true for every job. I agree with you that capitalism generates exploitment of people, but that’s the focal part I think we should focus on to make the discussion go further and not making it sterile in the end: TLDR is the exploitment of any kind of work wrong or just prostitution in particular? IMHO it’s the first one…
There is nothing consensual about having to sell your body to make a living
What if both parties (including the sex worker themself) agree and consent to sex? Is that not consensual?
no work is consensual under capitalism, especially sex work
Nobody gives a fuck.
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under capitalism yes, but should be outlawed under socialism. There is no need for it without a system that coerces women or men to sell their bodies to make payments.
(I’m playing a little devil’s advocate here, but I like interacting with people that have a point). I agree that in an idealistic state, no one should be forced to sell their body to pay rent, but let’s look at the argument the other way: what about people that their only way to get sex is to pay for it? You probably are a good looking and/or sociable person, and that’s why the problem never occurred to you, but there are many people out there for whom is really hard (if not completely impossible) to have sexual experiences, just because of how they look or because they have serious difficulties interacting with other human beings. What about them?
I have considered the social viewpoint a bit, and this is my response:
You probably are a good looking and/or sociable person, and that’s why the problem never occurred to you, but there are many people out there for whom is really hard (if not completely impossible) to have sexual experiences, just because of how they look or because they have serious difficulties interacting with other human beings. What about them?
I am flattered, but I am not that good looking or very sociable (although I find myself tugged into social situations quite frequently, but more of a kidnapped-mostly-introverted-person situation). Although I still generalized such problems as “improve yourself”. In a more collective society such interactions would be far more likely, an example of such occurrences would be things like this. setting aside all other aspects of the GDR (as the situations of such are nigh impossible to repeat), it was an example of a collective society, and had far more and better sex than that of hyper-individualist societies. Of course this does not solve the problem of all, it gives some assurance (I guess?).
But I don’t think prostitution would have to be an answer to such problems. Sex robots are far more ethical and accessible than prostitution (of course it would have to be some years from now most likely). Under Capitalism I guess they could use the service, but as any other, it would be unethical consumption.
Thats all I got for now.
Sex robots are far more ethical and accessible than prostitution
I strongly disagree, for three major reasons:
-
sex robots produce new forms of dehumanization: i have nothing against masturbation and/or employing ordinary objects to take pleasure, but giving human characteristics to a robot that’s supposed to be used as a passive object could (i don’t have the science on this topic sorry) make it easier to objectify other people as well ; this question is widely being debated in the topic of personal voice assistants (Siri, Cortana…) and how having a docile human-sounding could encourage verbal/emotional abuse
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sex robots are polluting: they’re electro-mechanical parts assembled from raw human suffering (in mines/factories) that help completely destroy the environment ; in that sense, prostitution (given some protection for sex workers) is an organic and eco-friendly alternative to sex robots
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parallel (but not equal) to point 1 is that from what i gather from my friends who do sex work on a regular basis, a lot of clients employ their services not just for sex but for emotional bonding/support, to escape their miserable daily lives or just to have someone to talk to (or practice weird kinks with) without judgement… this kind of capacity will never be provided by a robot
-
Sex robots are far more ethical and accessible than prostitution (of course it would have to be some years from now most likely).
As a technologist I feel obligated to point out that this is far more accessible than most people realize. When people think of sex robots they imagine blowup dolls and the evolution of that. There’s certainly sex androids and progress is being made in that avenue, however it is still probably like fucking a dead body for most people. The uncanny valley is too large.
However, if you mix VR with deep fakes and advanced dildonics you could create a very realistic and satisfying experience with current technology. Just sayin’…
You people should really respect sex.
huh?
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you are ignoring the coercion that places most of these people to turn to prostituting their bodies to be playthings. That’s what they are in that job, sexual servitors. Sex work could be freedom for some well off people , but frankly I don’t care about the well off ones. Painters and musicians create art, art that has been observed and created since the dawn of humankinds ability to create anything. Prostitution originated as a way for some to buy food for their families, not as a way to “have fun”. Whenever society is developing and exploding, you find rise in beautiful art and music, when the opposite happens, you find increases of prostitution. You cannot equate the two.
I am not trying to restrict guys, gals, and non-binary pals. Under capitalism it would be easier (and better) to get legislation to help these people by legalizing and protecting them, granting them some semblance of safety (rare in a capitalist system). Socialism will erase the need for selling one’s body at all, reducing them to random few that would also wither away, as society collectivizes enough for them to not have to do exchanges to be objectified. This is my analysis. please critique where you see fit, I want to develop it.
This 100%. Thank you thank you thank you. I’m a guy who used to do SW and I’ve met/befriended tons of women who do SW over the years-- after having countless conversations with them, I’m inclined to agree with your assessment. You actually get it, unlike so many people who I’d like to think are just misguided in their understanding of SW, or lack thereof.
I gotta ask, do you know any sex workers? Are you a man? I’m a guy but I used to do SW and in that process I met tons of women who are SWs and I think most of them would roll their eyes so hard at your comment and the sources you provided.
You’re sort of cherry-picking articles and are ignorant of the other side of SW-- the side most SWs would understandably feel far too uncomfortable explaining to the media, but far more comfortable explaining in a more private context.
I don’t have the energy right now to thoroughly explain why your view on this is so far off the mark but just… yeah. You really don’t understand it and by your logic, I could easily cherry pick articles where people claim they love working at Wal-Mart and how it allows them to express themselves.
I feel like there’s a LOT of privileged people on the left who can’t wrap their heads around the difference between a person selling their body to Amazon to pack boxes, versus a sex worker selling their body to (almost always) some guy. Go look up statistics on how common sexual assault is among women who do sex work, versus say women working at Amazon.
Don’t be one of those people who thinks the sex worker and Amazon worker are both selling their bodies, therefore there are no major difference between what each party has to deal with.
I really don’t want to talk about this topic anymore but yeah, I wish there was some fast-track way for me to help you understand why you’re wrong on this. I’ve met plenty of people who mistakenly but genuinely believe the average SW enjoys her job and it’s so far off the mark. If we were in a voice call I don’t think I’d mind taking more time to explain this but that being said, the topic and discussion does exhaust me because I’ve had this conversation with so many people in the past, although thankfully I’ve changed a decent amount of peoples’ opinions on this.
If you have to pay someone to have sex with you, they don’t actually want to have sex with you. If you’re still willing to take advantage, you’re a rapist. Simple as that.
If you have to pay someone to have sex with you, they don’t actually want to have sex with you. If you’re still willing to take advantage, you’re a rapist. Simple as that.
How is that different than say… if you have to pay someone to tar your roof, they don’t want to tar your roof, If you are willing to take advantage you are a slaver?
Now don’t get me wrong, sex work has much worse track record of abuse than manual labor, though I would also say it’s quite probable that is because of it’s underground nature… criminalized things attract criminals, same way that illegal marijuana results in drug dealing groups that commit horrible crimes and shootings defending their territories etc…
Slaves don’t get paid, so there’s that. I get what you’re saying though. But all work under capitalism is exploitative so I don’t think there’s a contradiction there.
And look, there is obviously a difference between paying a sex worker for their uh, services, and violently assaulting someone. But you know… Semantics. It’s still having sex with someone who doesn’t actually want to have sex with you.
Slaves don’t get paid,
Yes they do. Capitalism revolves around
workersslaves getting paid barely enough so that the bourgeois live comfortably.Uuuuuuugghhhhhhhh
Can’t say I disagree with you… slaves got paid… in the sense that they had their housing, food etc… covered for them. As wages are dropping to the point where they barely cover enough for, bare minimum housing, and enough food to stay alive… the only real difference is we get to have a different master quarter us than we have making us do the work, the net result is about the same.
See but there’s the point, Assuming the sex worker is, being paid fairly, and chosing to do it for the money, I can’t see it as drastically different than someone doing any other task for the purposes of collecting a paycheck.
Now with both there is the exploitive nature of systems in general. IE a boss, corporation or pimp that takes 90% of the income for the product of other peoples work. Exploitive systems that force people to work in situations which they get only a fraction of the value of their work to the person, under threats of starvation, deportation, homelessness etc…
I still fail to find the killer statement on why sex work is really that different from regular work. Again asside from higher frequency of blatant abusers, and human traffickers forcing people into sex slavery.
But the general idea, cutting out possible abusive bosses, captors etc… on both scenerios.
I fail to see a difference between.
A person, accepting an offer to have sex with someone, in pre-agreed upon ways, for a pre-agreed upon price, doing what she offered to do, and recieving the agreed upon payment on completion.
A person, agreeing to an offer to paint someone’s house, to an agreed upon standard, for an agreed upon price and recieving a payment on completion.
Both of these tasks carry risks, working on a house contains risks of injury from falling, toll on body due to repetitive stress injuries, possible chemical hazards from paint/thinner etc… which also can be factored into the price. As the sex worker has risks of diseases etc…
Now yes, in either situation if human trafficking is involved. If the person painting the house, or having sex is not actually free, is actually working under threat of death and the payment is going to some other person, that is a horrific situation.
But my point is the actual nature of transactionally “selling your body”. In which case, both of these situations are more or less doing the exact same thing. It’s effectively renting yourself, accepting the damage you are doing to your body in the process of this activity, giving up your time doing a task you probably are not enjoying in this context (though there’s nothing wrong with it if you do enjoy the task even in this context), in exchange for money.
You don’t see the difference between paying someone to fix your roof and paying someone to have sex with you?
Edit: Sorry, I’m not trying to be a dick. I just want you to elaborate. I agree that both sex work and… non-sex work is exploitative under capitalism, but I mean beyond that, don’t you agree that sex work is a hell of a lot more dehumanizing and risky than re-tiling a roof is?
Not saying sex work should be illegal btw. That just seems to make things worse.
It’s not something I would want (for me I wouldn’t enjoy sex in a transaction situation) , but no assuming consent, both parties being mentally able and un-coerced enough to decide whether the transaction is worth it to both of them. I do not see anything inherently different in those transactions. Now for some having sex is a high psychological toll… for some it is less of a toll, same could be said for painting, for some the physical toll of climbing and painting would totally wreck their bodies and cause serious injury, for some they would be more than able to.
Sex is just an action the human body can do. It comes with risks, it can be enjoyable to some, it can be degrading or painful to some in different situations. I see nothing wrong with anyone chosing to take those actions. There is of course something wrong with people being co-erced, forced to do things they don’t want to do, and not being compensated fairly for what they chose to do.
What an unhinged take. Have you ever even talked to a sex worker before?
Yes. Have you ever talked to a sex worker you weren’t paying?
Sex work is work. Not only should sex work be legal but sex workers need to build a strong union. By claiming that “paying for sex is rape” you are completely disregarding the needs and wants of sex workers. This mentality often leads to laws that often make sex work much less safe for the workers and their clients.
holy shit
This is the 7th most-commented post on lemmy.ml
What the heckorinos.
I started a war
Still more civil than mainstream media.
Yep. My dumbassery knows no bounds. This tends to happen when I try to write an opinion: I start writing; them think I properly communicated my opinion (when I actually haven’t). It usually takes me some hours to realize that.
Wait, is there a difference between sex work and prostitution?
Generally speaking, the term “prostitute” involves that the subject is exploited, while a “sex worker” is doing it by their own free will.
sorry, it slipped, edited :)
Oh. I should have used sex worker then. My ba.d
They can try. Don’t know if these involuntary virgins will get way to fuck even paying for it.
