are her circumstances such that this is her only means of providing for herself? or is this something she chose to do? is this what is considered empowering? because it seems incredibly degrading and heartbreaking. stemming from this, isn’t there a push for things like sex work to be legal? given this, and aside from the health implications, is that a good idea? shouldn’t we do more to support these people so that they don’t feel that this is their only means of making a living?
It’s a bold assumption that someone would only do sex work because they feel they have to, BUT- let’s ignore that. Let’s take it for granted that it is true.
Has no one ever cried and been made to do horrible or degrading things at any other type of work they don’t want to do but have to?
The stories or emotional and mental abuse I’ve heard from retails workers, the way their companies don’t support them or even enable or tacitly encourage these types of abuses…
If we take a semi worse case, retail, sex work, you might dread going to work, you may only do it because you have to. You may go home feeling empty and used and exploited and wounded- but if I have to feel that way I’ll take $2500+ a weekend to “be someone’s fantasy” over minimum wage.
So 100 odd years ago things were WAY worse for workers. They didn’t have minimum wage and their wages could be deducted or withheld arbitrarily. Conditions were unsafe, benefits not guaranteed, and work and the environment were often brutal and demeaning- and they had almost no recourse. Which are conditions many modern sex workers face because we can’t regulate the illegal like that. A sex worker reporting a crime is as much a criminal as whoever they report. The law doesn’t offer a thief protection if a robber takes what he has stolen. As someone who has been friends with, dated, and worked with and around sex workers, sex work is no more empowering than being a trucker. It’s a skill set and a job. It can have dirty sides as much as clean sides. Some choose it and love the life and schedule and pay and others have no choice. It isn’t a job most of society considers an aspirational career.
Not every sex worker is a “self empowered” money making advocate of the work and not every sex worker is a drugged our slave or desperate for eyed victim with family issues. The memes about how blue collar jobs are high paying and valid work, the way elitists think of trades is how most think of sex work. Degrading, something only the desperate do. Is every welder making six figures and loving the life they chose or do some stitch mufflers in illegal conditions that will likely leave them crippled or sick later in life because they have bills and that was the thing they could do?
When it comes to making sex work legal- do you believe banning guns stops gun crime? If not, why would banking sex work stop the worlds oldest profession? The exploitation still happens, the sex work still happens. Often tones it happens where you work and shop- even away from the “big city” and most people just don’t know.
It’s real simple if we are honest. Most people don’t want their kids to be sex workers and most people don’t want sex work happening around them. Even many who are very “pro sex worker” wouldn’t be happy if a brothel or strip club opened up down the block. Most people might be unhappy if the house next door was rented out as a porno set. I’ll acknowledge and accept those feelings even if I don’t share them- but let’s not hurt the people doing these jobs because we are afraid of it is legalized we will have to see it, we might knowingly come close to “SEX!!!” And we might have to explain to our kids a few things we usually hope they figure out on their own or never find out at all.
The sex worker is who suffers when sex work is illegal, the same as when we didn’t offer basic working protections to laborers or builders or miners or shop workers. Most people reading this probably don’t want their sons or daughters or whatever out giving blowies for rent- but if your kid is gonna end up in that spot, do you want them to be able to go to the police when their John pays for a blowie and sodomizes them by force? Do you want them clapped out with STD’s and being fed junk through a needle and being hit and beat and stacked up with 8 others in a tiny apartment waiting for their rotation up and then working 14 hours and being not paid, or do you want them guaranteed minimum wage and a retirement. Don’t think about wether you’d want your kid to be a whore for pay- most kids doing it had parents that didn’t want that. Think about what you’d want IF that’s where they ended up.
And lastly, I am aware of the argument that legalization and regulation doesn’t end the crimes and trafficking. That’s pretty duh stuff. Has no retail worker ever been subjected to illegal treatment considered abusive or exploitive or unsafe? No tradesperson has ever had to do something that wasn’t by the book or felt pressured to do things wrong to keep a job they needed? Every single person waving a sign on the street or cleaning a toilet or harvesting crops or delivering morning papers etc. is doing a job that is totally legally above the board under legal work conditions and pay? If you think “yea.” You’ve never done those jobs long or much or don’t get out.
So yes. Even sweat shops. We DO have them in America. That’s without getting into the quasi legality of “gig work” and use of statuses like “exempt employee” or “contractor” etc. so yes, legalizing sex work won’t end exploitation. It won’t stop trafficking or abuse.
Legalizing sex work sure as hell won’t end people doing jobs that they hate and are psychologically and mentally and physically damaging and degrading to them. If sex work magically vanished to morrow you’d still have people punching in at the gas station or taking their shift on the dock or behind the wheel or at a desk who feel the same way. That’s its own separate discussion about culture and economics that extends beyond sex work. We live in a world- pretty much since cave man days- where every living organism does what it has to do to survive, even literally eat shit. That’s life. We can build a society where we mitigate that reality, offer opportunities and safety nets and basic support to people if we wanted to, so that no one has to suck a dick metaphorically or literally against their will just to have a place to live and food to eat and maybe some fun money or savings etc. that’s a bigger more complicated and different discussion.
The only ways one MIGHT end sex work are either through genitals and social manipulation to remove the human internet and drive towards sexual stimulation, or MAYBE through replacement of human sex workers with technology like computer generated imagery, AR, and/or robotics. Those seem far off and I’m sure some people would still want the “real thing” at least sometimes- and that’s called a market, and where there is a market with people paying, someone is going to try and get paid. Welcome to Earth. It’s great, just not all of it all the time. And lastly- if my kid said they didn’t want to go to college, I’d be a lot prouder of them for making their first million before thirty by licking assholes than if they were 30 in a dead end retail job they hated without prospects.
I always felt waiting tables felt as close to prostitution as you could get without risking STIs. It’s not all bad, but some folks feel the need to degrade you so you can eat tonight & some feel like you don’t deserve to eat tonight. I know plenty of waitresses that tolerated getting a butt pat, or told awful things, or crossing the line because if you make them angry, they won’t tip & if they don’t tip, you can’t make rent.
On the other hand, if someone assaults a waitress, they can take legal action. People who do sex work don’t have that protection. Whether they do the work because they enjoy it, or because it’s the best way for them to earn a living wage, or because they don’t feel like they have a choice, they are still people just trying to make a living. And they wouldn’t do it if there weren’t a market.
Let’s make the work safe for the workers. If you want to demonize someone, demonize the clients. And if you think it’s cool to dehumanize and torment someone that does work you think is beneath you—maybe reevaluate what makes you so damn important.
"They'll dance naked for the price of a hamburger and we'll call it female empowerment."
Has no one ever cried and been made to do horrible or degrading things at any other type of work they don’t want to do but have to?
The stories or emotional and mental abuse I’ve heard from retails workers, the way their companies don’t support them or even enable or tacitly encourage these types of abuses…
If we take a semi worse case, retail, sex work, you might dread going to work, you may only do it because you have to. You may go home feeling empty and used and exploited and wounded- but if I have to feel that way I’ll take $2500+ a weekend to “be someone’s fantasy” over minimum wage.
When it comes to making sex work legal- do you believe banning guns stops gun crime? If not, why would banking sex work stop the worlds oldest profession? The exploitation still happens, the sex work still happens. Often tones it happens where you work and shop- even away from the “big city” and most people just don’t know.
So yes. Even sweat shops. We DO have them in America. That’s without getting into the quasi legality of “gig work” and use of statuses like “exempt employee” or “contractor” etc. so yes, legalizing sex work won’t end exploitation. It won’t stop trafficking or abuse.
On the other hand, if someone assaults a waitress, they can take legal action. People who do sex work don’t have that protection. Whether they do the work because they enjoy it, or because it’s the best way for them to earn a living wage, or because they don’t feel like they have a choice, they are still people just trying to make a living. And they wouldn’t do it if there weren’t a market.