cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18475086
I’m not against those who work for sex, but the idea to earn for a living doesn’t seem nice. IMO, sex should be for 2 people (or more for others who prefer polyamory) who wants to be intimate/romantic with each other. My point is money should not be the purpose.
I personally don’t see anything wrong with it, unless it’s forced, which is unfortunately common here.
Sex work is work. Therefore, yes, I support it.
It have side effect on the people who do it: yes, I give a flying fuck about it: no
I’m of the opinion that if you don’t want people performing sex work, you should be enacting measures to improve people’s quality of life to where that’s not their only option. The workers themselves should have legal protections and be permitted to perform their job like any other worker is.
I suspect some people would prefer that as a regulated option anyway, and they should be defended in their choice to do so. Sex work is work.
Moreover, if you don’t want people doing sex work, then you probably especially don’t want people to be forced into doing sex work. But that’s precisely what happens when you criminalize it: you make it so that the only way the demand can be satisfied is through a shady black market where trafficking is orders of magnitude more likely to take place, and you make it orders of magnitude more difficult for victims and witnesses to go to the authorities to report it.
I generally agree with you, but it is so complicated. I read a piece in The Nation a few years ago (written 2019) and whenever I see a question like this I have to dig it up. Sex workers in Spain applied to become a union (OTRAS, for short, full name basically means “the other women") and were approved in August 2018. Here are a few snippets:
After OTRAS was legalized, its two dozen or so members—who include women and men, both trans and cisgender—quickly found themselves engulfed in a national controversy. Prominent activists, academics, and media personalities swarmed social media under the hashtag #SoyAbolicionista (“I’m an Abolitionist”) to denounce what they saw as basic exploitation masquerading as the service economy. The union’s opponents argue that in a patriarchal society, women can’t be consenting parties in a paid sexual act born of financial necessity. They liken sex work to slavery, hence their name: “abolitionists.”
OTRAS calls this abolitionist opposition “the industry.” “They live really well off of their discussions, books, workshops, conferences, without ever including sex workers,” Necro says. “We’re not allowed to attend the feminist conventions.” OTRAS accuses “the industry” and the government—the two loudest arms of the abolitionist camp—of racism and classism, and is irked by their claims to feminism. “A government that refuses to guarantee the rights of the most vulnerable, poorest women with the highest number of immigrants? How is that feminist?” Borrell bristles. “We’re the feminists, the ones fighting for their rights.”
While advocates for legalization argue that it will make sex work safer, abolitionists counter that it could instead endanger women who, unlike the members of OTRAS, did not choose to enter the profession on their own. Abolitionists frame their anti-prostitution stance around the issue of human trafficking, specifically for prostitution. They argue that regulating sex work will simply allow traffickers to exploit women under legal cover.
“The trafficked women have no papers, so if police raid a club, the women have no choice but to say they’re there because they want to be,” says Rocío Nieto […] Once law enforcement is out of earshot, Nieto says, “none of the women tell you they want to be there. None of them tell you they want to do that work.”
A handful of smaller radical-left parties also back OTRAS, as well as one unlikely ally: the right-wing Ciudadanos party, known for its harsh anti-immigration stance, among other more traditionally conservative postures. “Experience shows us that when the State refuses to regulate, the mafias make the rules,” the party’s press corps wrote me in an e-mail.
Sex work is work.
The people that do it deserve respect, and all the social and legal protections that attach to any other kind of work.
Your own preferred attitude to sex isn’t the point.
But should it be work?
Should we really have a society where selling your body is an opportunity to make money.
For instance, it imply that some poor women are gonna take it regardless the consequence, just because it’s the best alternative to pay the bills.
I can barely tolerate the physical straining we put on some workers. Sex work’s consequences are unacceptable to me in that same sens, sometimes worse.
So sure, no matter your opinion we should respect them, and not incriminate them!
And of course not all sex work is the same… to be acceptable it just requires better conditions. It can’t be something you choose out of need.
selling your body
i hate that phrasing to describe sex work. no one is “selling their body”, as they are still in control of it. sex workers provide a service, same as a masseuse or hair stylist (except their service involves genitals) and it should be treated as such.
Otherwise one could argue that all (physical) labour is “selling your body”
I think the “body” in that expression is quite specifically referring to genitals, or the selling of your intimacy.
Because that’s what’s different from any other physical labour, the part of your body involved. That’s the specific problem of sex work no?
It is a high risk job along the lines of coal mining and such, since it will result in an increase in transmitted disease risk. It’s important to acknowledge that, but I am on the side of it being work. I just think we need strong protections in place and regulations to handle it akin to other dangerous jobs. Like, a sex work branch of OSHA.
It’s not even an argument really, it’s the undeniable logical conclusion that trading your labor and/or time for compensation is work, period.
It seems to me like joining the military is arguably more deserving of the phrase “selling your body”; you’re basically signing up to get injured or killed.
For instance, it imply that some poor women are gonna take it regardless the consequence, just because it’s the best alternative to pay the bills.
How is this principally different from a poor person taking any shitty job to pay the bills? Like garbage collector or similarly unpleasant/disrespected jobs. The system always forces poor people to settle for shitty jobs. Sex work is not the issue there, the system is.
It’s different in nature. No other jobs infringe on your intimacy in this way.
I do agree the system is the problem, i also would advocate for better conditions for any difficult jobs.
Therapist, hospice, nursing , sports medicine, massage… a lot of jobs require some level of physical or mental intimacy.
Therapist is another topic, with problems of mental intimacy indeed.
The rest is the patient’s intimacy that you have to deal with. It is a vastly different intimate experience to wash a genitalia and be penetrated. And so, vastly different consequences for your well being.
Regulations would help, but create their own hurdles.
True and tested.
The best help is probably indirectly having better social policies overall. Although never perfect, the best we are the lesser the problem.
yes. why? because regardless of my opinion, when you make it illegal you make things worse for everyone. that goes for drugs, for people moving about on the earth, and all other such things.
Legalize and regulate.
This view also applies to many other issues our society faces.
I don’t believe that my approval or anyone else’s is at all relevant.
My position is that there’s only one person who has the right to decide that they wish to trade sex for money, and that’s the person entering into the trade. Assuming that all other contractual requirements are met - they’re of legal age and acting of their own free will and so on - it’s just as much their right to trade sex for money as to trade ditch digging or code writing or coffee brewing or meeting taking for money.
Work is Work an it should be safe for everyone. Can you imagine the good they could do if that field expanded to Sex Therapy/Counseling. Where they could really help people with sexual disfunction and self esteem.
No, I don’t approve of any work. All work should be abolished, including sex work.
If you want the benefits of society you must contribute. Put your money where your mouth is and go start a hippy commune somewhere.
Work as much or as little as you like! Benefit from the fruits of your own labor! Don’t ask for a steel ax or nylon tent though. Such goods require an industrial society.
Yes, all work should be crime. Thanks dad
im a believer in victimless crimes legalization but I do think it should come with big regulation and not just to collect taxes. Advertising should be restricted to the adult establishments (in other words they should all only be able to advertise at their own places so no billboards on the road but walk into a liquor store and it will be all over once your inside). health and safety should be paramount (both johns and hookers should be regularly tested. hookers monthly and doctors should be able to give one a card to say they show no stds after testing on such and such a date you can get once a year). There should be regulation that establishments cannot have over a 20% and can’t charge anything additional if they do take a cut.
Sure, I don’t see why they should be treated any different than anyone else. I think the problem is the stigma around sex in general, and for that I blame religion.
Absolutely, as long as there is safety and security for all parties involved. Consent must be obeyed by clients and both the clients and employees should be required to supply current STD screens as well as having a safe location for the work.
Sex work is a more respectable career than debt collector, or CEO.
Exactly. Perfect example of labor owning the means of production.
Or president
Yes, but ideally there should be regulation to prevent pimping, predation, trafficking, and STI spread. At the very least, decriminalization protects sex workers from fear of prosecution preventing them from seeking healthcare, legal help, etc.
Trafficking is heinous, but it also gets irreverantly thrown around as a whataboutism by people who are against it for personal instead of rational reasons.
The root of the problems with sex work, as always, is tying means of survival to productivity, which I am against both personally and rationally :P
Agreed. If they decriminalise and regulate it, sex work is much safer for all involved. People gotta pay bills and if sex work is their chosen profession, good for them.
