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.
Why do you get to have an opinion on something between two strangers that otherwise doesn’t affect you
I have an opinion because it affects anyone sexually active that is not in an exclusive relationship. Legalized sex work would increase sex worker healthcare, directly reducing national STD numbers.
Legalized and well regulated*👌
Yeah, libertine social values historically died off through STD epidemics. Puritanic cultural strictures were ultimately survival mechanisms in societies that didn’t have safe sex practices and technology.
Sure, Im not directly affected, but feel bad for people needing to work for it.
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And if they find sucking some dick less repulsive than sitting in a call center 10 hours a day?
Do you know they need to do it?
Ok yeah im not aware of those people tbh
My point is money should not be the purpose.
Take this and apply it literally every aspect of western culture. It seems like you personally have strong feelings about how you think sex should be, but there are many, many people who disagree. We live in a society, I say mind your own business if someone’s doing something you don’t like that also doesn’t affect you
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Baybeh
Out of curiosity, why does sex need a purpose? Why should it be or not be for anything in particular? What makes it any different from, say, juggling?
Sex work isn’t just prostitution, by the way. It’s anyone making a living off of sexual content. If you’re shooting porn or are a cam girl, you’re a sex worker as well.
Prostitution is problematic in that currently, because it’s an illegal service, it’s largely being performed by people who don’t have a choice in the matter. Human trafficking is a huge problem. If prostitution were legalized and regulated, if the societal “we” changed our collective attitudes towards it, life would improve for a lot of people. I struggle to phrase this next bit in a tactful way. If you’re against improving the lives of so many people because it doesn’t align with your view of sex should be for, that’s pretty shitty of you. Not saying that’s the case, I don’t live inside your head, but that’s how I see it.
In places where prostitution is legal, the amount of human trafficking goes way down, because the brothels in these places are usually inspected pretty regularly. They have to follow regulations or else they will be forcefully shutdown, and the employees being there willingly is usually one of those regulations.
out here you need a license for it as well. Which, from what I’ve heard, is not easy to get
I’m not against it if they think it will improve their lives. As i said on my other replies, im opening my mind to this topic. I just feel bad for people who gets life ruined because of it. They are not forced to do it, but some need to go hardcore (no pun intended) because that’s their only way to survive during these hard times.
Office workers also sell their bodies.
Builders sell their bodies too.
Sex work is no different than any other line of work.
Yes but those jobs require at least an apprenticeship. There’s no training to being a whore.
Adults have the abillity to engage in free enterprise, as long as all parties involved consent I see no issue.
Regarding sex, the only times you get to have oppinions about another persons sex life is…
…when you are part of it.
…when it involves underage people.
Why should money be a taboo reason to have sex? You don’t get to pick and choose what motivation other people have for sex.
You don’t have to engage with this type of enterprise if you don’t want to, so leave other’s alone.
In general, prostitution will allways happen, you can try whatever laws you want, but you can’t stop it. The only thing prohibition acomplishes is to deny sex workers the protections they need to stay safe.
Or if it’s not consensual, we should care about that too.
You generally implied this but it’s worth repeating.
Very true!
Thank you for bringing that to light.
I also condiser passive participants to be part of the activity and get to have a say.
Stuff like exhibitionism, don’t have sex in public view since that forces everyone in view to take part in your activity, even if only passively.
Outlawing prostitution is the same as outlawing drugs, it doesn’t fix the problem, it just makes it unregulated…
While I agree with your argument that prohibition has seldom made anything better, the problem with prostitution is that it often does not happen voluntarily. While the transaction itself might still appear to be, in the background there are dire lives and more often than not human trafficking and extortion.
Germany has tried establishing sex work as “real” and regulated work for voluntary self-employed persons, including healthcare and consulting services. In the end this lead mostly to a steep increase in effectively illegal prostitution, as pimps used cover-constructs. Consequently forced prostitution esp. from eastern Europe flooded the marked with dirt-cheap offerings.
There is no easy solution for this. I believe that as with everything that happens within isolated milieus the only way to effectively tackle this problem is to reach out directly to the affected persons on a broad basis. But this is laborious and costly…
You raise some very good points, I don’t want to pretend to have all answers.
Sex work is vulnerable work, and much depends on all parties involved earnestly waning to make and keep it safe.
As I was typing this, I thought that since we can’t trust the private sector with this, what about forming a government agency to deal with licensing and care of sex workers.
But I quickly realized that the organizational issues are just part of the issues, there have been many, many examples of administrators abusing their position.
There is no quick fix for this, the one thing I can think of is a cultural shift to raise the status of the work, then it could be a way forward, but this takes time.
While I generally agree with your way of thinking, one problem I see is that higher status sex work (i.e. escort services) are not the issue but are already very expensive. The issues get more severe the closer you get to the lower end of the spectrum. And there it gets difficult in judging or controlling what really is voluntary and equal exchange of values.
More governmental control might be a solution worth exploring. This could also be realised by legalising sex work exclusively in controlled establishments. However that again leads to higher cost on all ends.
Sweden has banned buying sex but not offering it, so only the Johns are punished if caught. But that is no real solution imo and I am keen on seeing the long term effects of this.
This is the right answer.
Regulate it, keep the workers safe, ensure they’re well compensated and tested. Basically, treat is like every other profession.
If two consenting adults want to exchange money for sexual favors, who cares? If the worker chooses to sell their body for money via sexual acts, why is that inherently worse than someone who does construction selling their body for a living?
I think if it doesn’t affect other people, and nobody is being exploited/everyone is participating willingly, then it’s none of my business what others choose to do.
I’m actually trying to help sex workers, particularly porn Creators, use the fediverse to take control of their social media. I want to help them keep control of their own destiny - https://xxxiver.se
This is where a good ol’ “hate the game, not the player” applies.
I have no judgement of the people who do it to make money. Any issue I have is with the economy and culture that drives some to do it to survive when they wouldn’t otherwise choose to.
Your point about money shouldn’t be the purpose… but some people, especially women, are stuck where sex work is their best paying option. It’s not their fault.
In a perfect world where no one is forced to do any particular labor to survive, when consent is given 100% of the time, and everyone’s safe, I have zero issue with sex work from any angle. In this imperfect world, my issue is with the system and not the individuals working in the industry.
Yes. All the issues with sex work come from cultural and systemical issues. For example that it’s very opaque for people outside of the industry, the stereotypes you have to deal with, people judging you constantly or it’s not illegal everywhere.
And not to say there’s not some fucked up shit happening in the industry.
I think the argument should be the same like with drugs: it’s generally good, but it can be a problem and just for the transparency and oversight we need to make it legal everywhere but well regulated. That’s my opinion.
There are two main “career paths” here:
- Those that willingly choose sex work.
- Those that are pressured into sex work.
Imo, the former is perfectly fine (because everyone involved is consenting). The latter is problematic and the actual problem we need to solve.
So many people conflate the two and assume that all sex work is exploitation. All mixed in with the implicit sexism that says women shouldn’t have any autonomy over their own body and sexuality.
It’s a pretty high percentage.
But it’s a pretty high percentage for similar reasons to illegal pot sales funding terrorists or gangs/cartels. The legal status puts it way more in the purview of organized crime.
I mean, is it a high percentage? Feels like the kind of thing that you could fudge figures either way.
And yeah, we need to empower sex workers and give them legal and health support.
In the context of women being literal sex slaves, even 5 or 10% would constitute a high percentage that gave regular purchasers a reasonably high chance of encountering one. (I wasn’t intending to play that semantics game, but it’s worth noting regardless.)
I think it’s pretty high. There are legal places that have some safeguards in place, but in most of the world there’s just nowhere for a woman to say “I’d like to try sex work” and get an opportunity to do so. It’s inherently the people on the fringes of society, the runaways with nowhere to go who end up reliant on a predator, the people addicted to drugs that have no way to get their next fix, the people trafficked. Even the “high class” stuff, because there isn’t any legitimate entry point, is relying on tactics like calling it a modeling gig and then propositioning the models, and there’s an inherent element of coercion* to that as well.
*Coercion isn’t the perfect word choice but I’m blanking on a better one. Even if the intent isn’t explicitly to manipulate the women, the result is a lot of wild emotional swings, then a pitch when you’re still under their influence. And we’ve seen examples of people taken overseas and having their passports taken away, even by an NFL team. It definitely happens at a far more frequent level than we should be comfortable with.
I also know that male prostitution is a thing, and “women” isn’t comprehensive. But it’s mostly women.
I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said. I’ve just seen “it’s a high percentage” to be a dogwhistle for “all sex work is inherently exploitation so we should ban it.”, so apologies for assuming.
5-10% is far too high, yes. I don’t know if I’d agree with that figure (it really depends on what you consider sex work, tbh), but exploitation is a serious problem that needs fixing.
Sex trafficking or impoverished/addicted people turning to sex work, no. Society has failed them and we need to fix the underlying problems.
Sex work as a concept I take no issue with. I think it solves a lot of problems interpersonally. Dating would improve with less need for people to hide their motives. People too busy or uninterested in relationships would have an outlet, and disabled people who otherwise can’t attract a partner benefit greatly as well.
Migrants and vulnerable populations already take dangerous jobs, like roofing, and many will refuse to take really dangerous jobs if they don’t feel comfortable.
Classifying sex work as some higher tier of danger is a bit silly imo. also it will happen whether or not it’s regulated so by not having some kind of legal protection around it, people with no other option will end up doing sex work anyway, but with fewer protection from abusive pimps.
Those are also problematic examples, I didn’t say it was a higher tier of danger than other high risk jobs.
I don’t judge at all. Not all sex work is sex for money, but even in that case, I think it’s fine. There’s nothing magical about sex. And there can be lots of reasons a person might not get all their needs met within a relationship.
I do worry it can be a trap for some, but I think it’s a valid choice. Idk. I’m specialized (trapped) in IT work and whore myself out to corporations for money. Ultimately there probably isn’t that much of a difference.
I like looking at pictures of naked people, so I’m grateful to those naked people.
If sex is the question, I think yes (or thank you) is really the only appropriate answer…
Eh, sometimes “No, thank you” is also appropriate.
This is true. 😊
Neutral. Everything depends on the people involved and the context. A lot of jobs don’t seem nice and money shouldn’t be the purpose. That’s more a criticism of the economy than of sex work.
Sure it’d be great if basic needs like food, shelter, healthcare and yes, sex, weren’t commoditized, but until we get
SexicaidSexicare for All, I’m fine with people making money from sex and paying for it. Legalize and regulate it for the safety of the workers and the customers.^Someone please come up with a better name than Sexicaid^Sexycare, or maybe sexicare?
omg I’m an idiot I was trying to riff off Medicare for All and used Medicaid instead, Sexicare definitely works
Totally fine with sex work. Just keep it safe and be nice.
