IMO the more that money is involved in anything, the less actually voluntary it is, because we need money to live and plenty of people don’t have a lot of options for making money. With sex it’s really important for everything to be actually consensual, but paying for it makes that ambiguous, they can’t really know, so I see it as creepy and unethical.
Right, if you pay to have sex with a person that’s utterly destitute, completely desperate, and has no other options, is that REALLY consensual?
There are plenty of examples of sex workers that are NOT in that situation, but there are just as many (I would guess more) examples of people that ARE in that situation.
I’d be curious to see whether sex workers increase/decrease in a region that implements a universal basic income.
I’ve known people who are sex workers and they’re some of the most talented and intelligent people I’ve ever met. Replace sex-worker with marketing and that’s who they are. There’s nothing involuntary about what they do. Unless you consider that my work is non-consensual because I don’t want to do it if I could just survive without it.
Unless you consider that my work is non-consensual because I don’t want to do it if I could just survive without it.
Yeah, pretty much, it’s one of the worst things about our society and needs fixing in general. It’s just potentially extra bad when sex is involved because of its emotional, cultural, etc. significance. I don’t mean to suggest all sex workers are desperate victims, I’m sure some of them are well off, have options, and are doing it because they want to, but they all have a business incentive to try to appear that way, so someone looking to hire them can’t really be confident what they are doing isn’t ultimately exploitation.
Gross. How can you even enjoy sex when you essentially bought someone’s consent?
I understand the sentiment, but “buying consent” is a difficult line of thinking when you follow it all the way through.
CW: SA
There’s sex workers who are sexually assaulted by clients, some brothels have panic buttons in their rooms for this reason. So if you follow the “prostitution is legalized r*pe” line of thinking, what’s that then? Wasn’t the sex worker in question already violated when they entered the contract with the client? Is that a case of double sexual assault?
I don’t think that idea holds much water in all cases. It often does, but you cannot apply it universally to all sex work. That’s because you can’t just “buy consent”, a sex worker still has very specific conditons for giving you conditional consent that only extends to a select number of specified acts, to certain time frames, certain areas of their body and so on, and they can revoke that consent when things turn south because the john starts to behave badly. And ultimately, all consensual sexual acts are in some ways conditional, even if it’s the unspoken agreements in vanilla heteronormative relationships. It takes a massive level of trust and the knowledge that your partner will always intuitively accept your boundaries to allow them to do what they want with you and actually mean it. And when i look at it that way, i do not think that you can just override somebody’s ability to consent by giving them money. There is already some form of consent to these acts involved when somebody agrees to pick up that line of work. It’s difficult to say where that ends, moreso than in sexual realtions outside of sex work, i’d fully agree to that, and that’s highly problematic, but it’s not as clearcut as “all sex work is a form of SA because you bought consent the sex worker normally wouldn’t have given to you”.
(rest of the post is just general musings not directed at you, comrade, i’m only putting them here because i think this works better in one post).
That said, i’m very much not a fan of people buying sex work, and yes, that includes porn. Sorry guys, i know that most of you can’t nut on your own without this stuff, for reasons i’ve always failed to understand, but it’s how it is. The reason for my attitude isn’t that i disagree with sex work per se, my support actually always lies with the workers and puts their concerns first, which is why i DO NOT support failed approaches like the “Nordic Model”, which aims to only punish buying sex work, but effectively worsens risks for sex workers, increases deportations of sex workers without papers etc. My concern rather lies with the inherent coerciveness of all transactional relations under capitalism. When you listen to a typical socdem SWERF like German SPD member Leni Braimeyer (surprise, she’s also a massive terf), who is pushing for the “Nordic Model” instead of the legalized prostitution we see in Germany today, there is not only a total, ultra-patronizing lack of recognizing the agency of sex workers, there’s also a complete obliviousness to the economic conditions that determine how prostitution works in Germany, as yet another form of exploiting the economic imbalances in the EU and supplying German capital with a constant supply of workers who have to take increasingly awful deals out of pauiperization and desparation, as well as an increasingly precarious situation for the lower incomes among the German working class. It’s these conditions that give rise to prostitution as an area of mass exploitation, and ending capitalist relations is the only way to amend the problem that a majority of sex workers are in a lopsided economic situation that is the actual threat to their agency and their ability to fully consent.
bought someone’s consent
Interesting, I never thought about it like that…
I think the only excusable scenario would be independent service listings, where both parties establish limits and identify whether they’re both comfortable prior to engaging in sexual activities.
for one thing, there’s way more to sex work than intercourse.
Worked night shift at a hotel next to a night club that doubled as a brothel, could talk to the girls who were always taken to our hotel, heard how the dudes talked about the girls they had sex with, i say kill everyone who pays for sex.
And this was supposed to be a “good” place btw.
seriously, i feel like so much of the discourse surrounding the sex industry is now dictated by a small minority of relatively well off sex workers who, probably unwittingly, produce a distorted image of what it’s like to sell sex for a living. and through social media, these voices gets amplified both by libs, whose understanding of anything begins and ends with ‘listen to x-voices,’ and redditor-type men who have a vested interest in expanding prostitution and sanitizing its image, not because they care about sex workers, but because deep down they want to buy sex without having to feel bad about it
Support prostitutes by means other than being a John. Do a Holden Caulfield if you like and pay for their time to just hang out, idk. The John is instinsically in a position of power by using money to be entitled to sex, and is part of the social violence of coercing desperate people into dangerous and frequently traumatizing* labor.
*look up ptsd rates
Also don’t forget how many of these women are already struggling with mental health issues.
In the USA, if you are on disability, you are effectively barred from saving money.
I know of plenty of disabled women who turn to sex work to be able to pay the bills since their meager disability check is not enough to effectively live off. It is all under the table so they essentially just don’t report the earnings.
So many of these women really don’t need the added awfulness of being a sex worker in their lives, but do it out of necessity of a broken system.
Most of what I know is informed by stereotypes from various facets of American pop culture and not reality so my opinion is not valuable
I’d say share it anyway, could still be a really insightful or useful perspective
No, they’re a hexbear user.
She’s a hexbear user. We have pronoun tags for a reason. She doesn’t state they/them as her pronouns so please edit your post to not misgender her.
“They” is a more general word and does not specify gender. Personally I use that word when I want it to be clear I am not implying that gender is relevant to my statement. It isn’t inaccurate and people shouldn’t always have to include references to gender in everything they say.
Every. Single. Fucking. Time. I point out misgendering and some cissie has the fucking nerve to argue with me why blatantly degendering women, a common smear tactic among British terfs btw, isn’t a bad thing akshually. “oH i’M oNlY dOiG tHiS wHeN gEnDeR iSn’T rElEvAnT”, the fuck are you talking about, respecting trans people’s gender is ALWAYS relevant, you do not get to decide on this. This is our decision alone, to deny trans people the autonomy over their gendered self expresion and gender recognition is a textbook case of transphobia.
To make this perfectly clear: There is ONE, just ONE, correct response when somebody calls you out for misgendering somebody. It’s apologizing and correcting your mistake. That’s a tiny thing to do and takes a fraction of the time it takes to argue with me, and it will cause you one millionth of the distress you’re up for when you act transphobic in my presence. If she would be fine with being they / themed, she would have given they / them as a second set of pronouns. Why is that so hard to understand?
You write a wall of text an get all worked up just because someone used “they” just to be neutral. No one is going to check your profiles one by one just to know your pronouns. This is the real world, no whatever crazy wuerdo echo chamber is hexabear.
Maybe your suicide rates wouldn’t be so high if you didn’t get offended for basically nothing. Is not that you get discrimination against you, is that you can handle society as everyone else can.
I’m sharing my opinions about language, not being transphobic. What I said is not specific to trans women, I had no reason to think the woman replied to was transgender. If you think my disagreeing with you means I must secretly hate you because you’re trans, you’re wrong, but I hope the world treats you with more compassion and respect in the future.
“oH i’M oNlY dOiG tHiS wHeN gEnDeR iSn’T rElEvAnT”
That’s a distortion of what I said. My claim is not that the non-relevance of gender morally justifies using non-gendered language, I’m not trying to be defensive. It’s that a statement using gendered language and a statement not using gendered language is a different expression, the meaning is affected. Think about when singular ‘they’ was less well accepted, and it was more common in writing to use ‘he’ as a catch-all term. Yes, readers understood that it was possible the person being referred to was a woman despite the use of the word ‘he’, but that word still conveyed assumptions about the world. What if that isn’t your actual intent? Then you don’t use gendered words. That is a legitimate choice.
I hope the world treats you with more compassion and respect in the future.
Gee, thanks for your pity, but i don’t need that. Most of my friends are cis and i know what it’s like when cis people treat me with compassion and respect, as most people are actually capable of that. It’s not that hard. They listen when i voice my grievances and understand that i have a different, yet valid perspective on such things than them, and that they can learn something from that to be more inclusive in the future. Probably because they understand that calling out transphobia doesn’t mean calling somebody a transphobe. I would’ve used different language than that if my impression would have been malice instead of ignorance.
This is our decision alone
nobody is saying you can’t identify or specify whatever pronouns you want. But it laughable to say it’s your decision if other people use them in the name of “tolerance,” of all things
Your insistence on ordering trans people around and telling us if we´re allowed to find open misgenderings to be offensive would be laughable if it wouldn’t be so disgusting. Pronouns are not a polite request to pretty please tone down your transphobia out of the kindness of your heart, respecting our pronouns is the absolute bare minimum of respect you can show towards us.
Lmao : 🤣
I think they should be [REDACTED]
buying sex is disgusting, it has always been disgusting, and will always be disgusting—no matter what progressive ‘spin’ people try to put on it
I know you probably mean prostitutes or “escorts”, but aren’t porn actors also sex workers? I watch porn all the time, so do a lot of people. I feel sorry for the sad sacks who aren’t “allowed” to look at porn because their significant other is so goddamn insecure, the idea of their partner having their own private thoughts scares the shit out of them.
You are correct, but people treat “prostitute” like it’s a slur and thereby (wittingly or not) wildly obfuscate any conversation one attempts to have about them and their clientele, etc.
where, which sex workers, and which services? i think men who spend more money on onlyfans than they do on groceries are dumb, i think strip clubs are fucken weird, i think sex tourists probably deserve death, and i think most johns are walking into a minefield of exploitation.
I hold no prejudices. In general, I try not to judge anyone until I’ve got to know them, what their values are, etc.
I hired an escort once. It was awkward. First, I was paranoid about it being a sting or something. Then, I was worried about getting my wallet stolen. When “it” was over, I started getting up to leave, then the women was like “your time’s not up yet,” then laid beside me and started a conversation about q-anon type stuff. Lady had some mental issues, which made me feel kinda bad about the whole thing (and a little bit scared at the time, lol).
Anyways, I would never bring this up on a date or even to a partner (or friend). It is completely irrelevant to a relationship. If asked directly if I’ve ever hired a sex worker, I would lie. There’s a lot of stigma around sex workers and their clients, even with people who are generally more “accepting.” Someone could be a good potential partner, friend, or whatever, but have one weird hang-up about not dating someone who was a “john,” and I wouldn’t want to exclude them from being a potential partner/friend just because of that.
If you’re paying for sex in the west, then my opinions are more nuanced and less harsh since, economically speaking, workers here are generally in a better position to choose their profession, including sex work, without any coercion other than the standard coercion of capitalism.
However, if you’re a sexpat traveling to developing and underdeveloped countries, you deserve to be thrown into the pit. Sex workers here are more likely to be poorer, desperate, pimped out, and/or trafficked by the mafia. Not to mention many are underage. There is no choice for 99% of the sex workers, or any workers. I don’t care if the age of consent there is 12, you’re still going to into the pit.
I think you are underestimating the desperation of the very poor in austerity states like the US, but you are 100% right that sexpats are scum
I don’t believe I am underestimating. Im just saying that in the west, there is a higher chance (relative to third world countries) that you can decide to become a sex worker on your own volition. Obviously there are still pimps and poverty driving the scene, but you’re likely never going to find someone in say, Vietnam or Thailand, or who just got tired of office work and decided to become a pornstar or escort.
Though certainly in different proportions, I think courtesans exist in every country.
I agree with you. I also want you to know that I love the expression “you deserve to be thrown into the pit.” What is the pit? I don’t know, but I don’t want to be there. 😁
I think it’s in reference to the mass graves Tito threw dead nazi soldiers in
What is the pit? I don’t know, but I don’t want to be there. 😁
The problem is exploitation which can and does happen in every industry. Sex work is no exception to that rule. Nobody is saying amazon needs to be abolished because of how they treat their workers. But some people see one industry or another as being inherently exploitative.
Nobody is saying amazon needs to be abolished because of how they treat their workers
i am saying that
See, I thought you were heading a different direction, and Amazon most certainly should get into sex work.
It grosses me out, but as long as they’re not shitty to the sex worker and the sex worker isn’t being abused by a pimp, and everyone consents, it’s none of my damned business.
I think it should be considered rape.
Men who pay for sex are the driving force behind human trafficking.
I’m all for freedom, and I will acknowledge that there are probably women in the “sex trade” who were not trafficked or coerced into it, but that number pales in comparison to the number of girls who have been stolen and forced into a horrific life, having lost all control of their future. Freedom is among the most important qualities of human life, and the horror of human trafficking and the way it completely removes all freedom from the lives of its victims trumps the freedom of choosing to sell sex.
Most places, prostitution is illegal, enforced by going after the prostitute and slapping the wrists of the men who use them. I find it immoral and reprehensible that women would be criminalized for this.
Rather, men who make use of sex workers should be ostracized from society and imprisoned as rapists. And the women should be treated with compassion and care, as victims of abuse.
How do you believe women (and men, and NBs) who willingly go into this line of work should be treated?
Economic coercion don’t real.
Economic coercion is a problem in sex work, but it is one that cannot ever be adressed by any policy only targeting conditions around sex work, but exclusively by policies that directly remove the coercive conditions under the rule of capital. No anti-sex work law will remove the fact that people see no choice but entering survival sex work, or migrating from the periphery into the center to work as prostitutes. The only way to prevent that is to end poverty and i know i do not have to explain to you what that entails, we’re in agreement on that.
This comment is also not entirely directed at your reply, it’s more about the general line of thinking that started this comment chain. I’m not under the impression that most sex workers are abducted victims of human trafficking, that’s a line of thinking that is always brough tup by swerfs and never backed up with any evidence, i think that your remark towards economic coercion is much closer to the core problem at play here.
I’m not disagreeing with your take there. I have no policy ideas to offer myself.
My issue is with the agonizingly bad take of “buying breakfast at the cafe down the road is exactly as exploitative as soliciting (possibly) trafficked people for sex in the Phillipines.”
Keep in mind that buying breakfast is connected to exploitation as well.
Children as young as eight picked coffee beans on farms supplying Starbucks and Nespresso
That is true. It is nearly impossible to purchase anything under the current system without someone having been exploited unjustly along the way. That doesn’t mean that all such purchases are equally exploiting or that they all must be seen and treated exactly the same way (which under false equivalency arguments, tends to mean “do nothing at all, status quo is fine”).
We’re all victims of economic coercion. Very few would willingly work service or clerical jobs if they didn’t need to.
If that’s your rubrik, then whatever your opinion of Johns is, it should consistently be applied to anyone who ever buys any product or uses any service.
We all work because we need to get paid to survive. Knowing that, how do you believe those who choose for that work to be sex work should be treated?
someone being forced to work a till is not morally equivicable with being forced to have sex the later is far more intimate a violation
But it’s totally not a false equivalency because wall of Reddity sophistry here
false equivalency intensifies
Some things that are bad are worse than other things that are bad.
If that’s your rubrik
Fuck everything that came after that pretentious sentence starter. I’m not going to humor your dubiously-motivated sophistry.
EDIT:
then whatever your opinion of Johns is, it should consistently be applied to anyone who ever buys any product or uses any service
With that bewilderingly bad false equivalency, you sound like you may be trying to banish a guilty conscience, or if you lack even that, you may be trying to vindicate what you’ve already paid for regarding economically coerced company.
You’re being an asshole in response to a good faith discussion.
Believe that if you want, but “buying breakfast at the cafe down the road is exactly as exploitative as soliciting (possibly) trafficked people for sex in the Phillipines” is a horrible take and the pretentious Reddity format it was presented in did not seem good faith to me.
Guy who refuses to answer the first question asked continues to deflect because he knows there’s no logical position he can take that isn’t ‘I don’t like sex workers’.
Guy who refuses to answer the first question
Your “question” was garbage to begin with because you’re seriously arguing that all work is only equally harmful and exploitative.
no logical position
I don’t see why you need to stan so hard for unregulated sexpat adventures when you’re doing a fine job masturbating right there.
You deflected first by invoking economic coercion. Unless it’s your firm belief that there are zero people who would knowingly choose to fuck for money over taking a menial job.
Get better talking points than these sad little ad hominems, they aren’t helping you.
