Sex Work Is Legitimate, But Needs Regulation

[Heyo]

I love how preposterous this statement is. Which hell? Christian hell or maybe Muslim hell. Hell would have to be demonstrated to exist first. Till then, I'm not worried about any religions hell. How do you know you're not going to a different religions hell? Catholic purgatory or reincarnation. How do you know anything happens after you die? Let me guess your holy book tells you. Well that solves the problem of life after death. Let's pack it up guys. @Shakeel beliefs are the right ones. Problem solved.

You have misinterpreted @Shakeel.

I strongly suggest considering more civility in posts.
If you read the rules, you'll find that we should discuss
the issues, & not make negative personal comments.

"You are going to hell" is the formal concession of believers that they have run out of arguments and accept defeat. When ever you read that comment (or similar like "you will know when you're dead but then it's too late") there is no need to kick an interlocutor who is already down.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Come back when your teenage daughter becomes a prostitute.

If I had a teenage daughter, assuming 18 years old, I'd be proud of her if she's happy and content with what she was doing.

I'd just remind her to be safe and as long as she's happy the best of luck and prosperity for her future endeavors.


You see it's important there are three main things if I had a teenage daughter. That she would be happy, prosperous, and able throughout her life and be safe as humanely possible.

 

[Meow Mix]

Yes, but to a far lesser degree. And only because it's an unnecessary service. Also, if it paid as it should, I suspect you wouldn't have minded so much.

As a reminder, this was in response to me saying, "I gave lap dances to men and I’m a lesbian. Still more fun and less uncomfortable than being fake nice to snotty restaurant-goers barely containing their annoying kids. Do you consider waiting tables exploitation?"

So, I want to note this about your response: it seems that you're saying I "wouldn't have minded so much" waiting tables if I got paid more doing it.

Do you not see how that's exactly why I didn't mind giving men lap dances as a lesbian? Sure, I'd have rather been reading a book. Or at least give women lap dances. But I "didn't mind so much" because it was worth my time to do. It was cost-benefit, just like any other job is. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't stand it (I still had fun). I've left jobs that I couldn't stand doing, just like any sex worker could do too. It is no different from any other service job.

So, this is really aimed at your argument that sex work is necessarily nonconsent: you keep making this argument that somebody is doing something "against their will." Yet you acknowledge in the case of waiting tables that maybe somebody could be paid enough that their cost-benefit analysis ends up net positive. Do you see how you're holding a double standard here?

Our society has many tasks that need to be done to keep everyone safe and cared for. And we all owe it to each other to do our share, like it or not. But greed has twisted and perverted our thinking to the point where we accept subjugation, abuse, starvation, humiliation, and even death in the almighty pursuit of money. And this sickness is destroying us. Prostitution is just another glaring example of this sickness. I am stunned that so few of us are even able to see it as sexual abuse simply because money gets paid. Like money just magically erases all criminality, all abuse and subjugation. All humiliation and emotional damage. Money makes it all acceptable.We can buy the right to abuse other humans.

Should we be allowed to murder someone if we can get them to agree to it for money? If not, then why is rape ok once we get that agreement for money? How about we make it legal to by other people's body parts? Where does the power of money to erase our humanity stop?

I am not promoting "subjugation, abuse, starvation, humiliation, and death," though, so I don't know where that is coming from.

Not all prostitution is sexual abuse, and any that is should absolutely be stamped out. I don't know what you're not getting about this. For instance, I gave you multiple examples of women responding to interviews about why they got into porn (which I'd say is pretty conceptually close to prostitution: transactional sex as a service), but you did not acknowledge them (which, I understand we have a lot of mini-threads floating around this same thread, so I'm not mad about it; but just saying).

Can you answer this question unequivocally and clearly for me: do you think all transactional sex is "humiliation" or causes "emotional" damage? If so, can you explain why I'm able to provide examples of women that did it for fun and had a good time, and certainly don't feel humiliated or damaged?

Though I haven't considered prostitution, I was still a sex worker: can you explain how it is that I was never humiliated, how I can anecdotally tell you I had a lot of fun the whole time? Do you really think the bachelor parties and the regulars and silly straight women even happily tipped me for entertaining them? Are you saying that literally 100% of all interactions was exploitation and humiliation and harm? Do you not see how bad-faith that sounds?

The only exploitation I ever felt was the business practice of considering dancers contractors, which meant I couldn't get benefits or unemployment if anything happened to me.

 

[Meow Mix]

I don't really see how we are going to discuss prostitution by eliminating the act of prostitution from the discussion.

I had said, "I’m most interested in this: your comments seem to indicate that you believe anyone seeking out sex workers means someone is being exploited: either the SW, or the patron. I want to understand this view.

In order to understand if, I have to understand what you think the salient difference is between a bachelor party coming in to tip me on stage for entertaining them and that same bachelor party ordering drinks at the bar, or tipping the DJ."

We're discussing sex work. You had said my stint as a dancer was the same kind of exploitation, so I figured we could start there and apply the same principles when we get to prostitution.

I'm still interested in your answer to this question I pasted above?

 

[Meow Mix]

Yeah, that's how it read to me.

It read that way to me at first too; but on a reread knew what he meant. Still, worth pointing out just so we're all cognizant and form words more carefully.

 

[Meow Mix]

Are you coming on to me? Lol

What's this in response to?

 

[Meow Mix]

Sorry, I don't know all the terms related to women selling themselves, but for sure your idea of good parenting is one that might take you and your children to hell.

I don't see what parenting has to do with anything here: sex work is for adults, not children.

 

[Meow Mix]

While this is tertiary to the OP, because OP is about any sex work and not specific to women: we have this implicit understanding through a lot of this post series that we're largely talking about women. Why is that?

Because sex work is one way for women to take advantage of the pervasive and ubiquitous objectification of our bodies that creates a market: normally we don't profit from this societal behavior, and when we do, we are demonized for it.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I gave lap dances to men and I’m a lesbian. Still more fun and less uncomfortable than being fake nice to snotty restaurant-goers barely containing their annoying kids. Do you consider waiting tables exploitation?

If anything, that says more about why there is a labor shortage in the food industry than anything about sex work.

Except that's BS. What happens in Vegas effects all of us. And we don't all agree to it. Which is why we're having this debate.

So, how has my gambling and playing poker effected you? Nothing abstract or hypothetical. I want concrete, real examples
And of course we don't all agree. We're human. If we all agreed then there is probably a problem somewhere going on. But your problems seem to be erecting straw men of wild assumptions every step along the way in the debate.

 

[MonkeyFire]

What's this in response to?

Batman symbol

 

[Meow Mix]

Batman symbol

Timba, his arms wide. Shaka, when the walls fell.

 

[Revoltingest]

While this is tertiary to the OP, because OP is about any sex work and not specific to women: we have this implicit understanding through a lot of this post series that we're largely talking about women. Why is that?

Because sex work is one way for women to take advantage of the pervasive and ubiquitous objectification of our bodies that creates a market: normally we don't profit from this societal behavior, and when we do, we are demonized for it.

I see a broad (no pun) picture....
Male, female, straight, otherwise workers & customers too.
It's not work without the customer.

 

[Mock Turtle]

But it isn't their right to do whatever they want with their body or their lives, and the exchange of money doesn't change that fact. We are a collective, cooperative species, living together in very close, coordinated cultural circumstances. What we do effects everyone around us. And that includes, to some degree, what we do with our own bodies. So these cries of selfishness as freedom are bogus. That's not the world we're living in.

So why not stop there and go for body modification? Plenty do that and where others might see it as being harmful. I'm sure to many of us it just smacks of a particular attitude to sex that is the issue, when it might not be so to others. Why limit their freedoms just based on your narrow views? My comments were more about how you were apparently objectifying females - not allowing them their rights as individuals and apparently classing them all as victims - than the rights or wrongs of legalising prostitution by the way. Of course it is their right to do whatever they want with their bodies as long as it doesn't harm others. You'd ban pornography too? Given that such is not so dissimilar and certainly on the same spectrum.

 

[Mock Turtle]

No one is entitled to or has a right to sex. If you can't have sex without having to pay for it, you have an issue and it's yours.

Being picky with your empathy? If there are mental health issues or a personality disorder involved would you still be so condemning? Prostitutes would in fact help some in such situations I would think - possibly might be advocated by any counselor or those involved with their care.

 

[Shakeel]

I don't see what parenting has to do with anything here: sex work is for adults, not children.

It has to do with the post I was replying to.

 

[Shakeel]

If I had a teenage daughter, assuming 18 years old, I'd be proud of her if she's happy and content with what she was doing.

I'd just remind her to be safe and as long as she's happy the best of luck and prosperity for her future endeavors.


You see it's important there are three main things if I had a teenage daughter. That she would be happy, prosperous, and able throughout her life and be safe as humanely possible.

Having sex with everyone like an animal is humane? Are monkeys humane too?

 

[Meow Mix]

Having sex with everyone like an animal is humane? Are monkeys humane too?

Judging the "everyone" part to be hyperbole -- why not? As long as folks are conscientious and safe, physically and emotionally.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Because sex work is one way for women to take advantage of the pervasive and ubiquitous objectification of our bodies that creates a market: normally we don't profit from this societal behavior, and when we do, we are demonized for it.

I've considered some means to take advantage. Keep it impersonal, nothing too big, if guys will pay for it, sure, why not? If I do this, selling my panties, it's even less laundry to do. Literally, guys would be paying me to have a lighter laundry load so they can sniff of whatever. Maybe feet work too, if there's a thing for webbed toes.
To me, it silly, easy money. And I forget how exactly, but the idea originally was spawned of the mind of @Revoltingest.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

No one is entitled to or has a right to sex. If you can't have sex without having to pay for it, you have an issue and it's yours.

Getting a third for a threesome?

 

[Meow Mix]

I've considered some means to take advantage. Keep it impersonal, nothing too big, if guys will pay for it, sure, why not? If I do this, selling my panties, it's even less laundry to do. Literally, guys would be paying me to have a lighter laundry load so they can sniff of whatever. Maybe feet work too, if there's a thing for webbed toes.
To me, it silly, easy money.

Yup. And this is the thing: @PureX isn't wrong about being conscious of exploitation, even if I think he's wrong about everything being exploitation. Obviously if someone had detectable mental problems that makes it seem like you should not do business of this kind with them, you wouldn't, right? (This is rhetorical, more just pointing this out to PureX). It would be an example of voluntary service to fulfill someone's entertainment or pleasure, just like any other service.