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So the argument here is that without backpage she would not have been able to efficiently prostitute herself to support her abusive heroin junkie pimp? I'm fair
by sky_rw 9y ago
So the argument here is that without backpage she would not have been able to efficiently prostitute herself to support her abusive heroin junkie pimp? I'm fairly certain that the argument "backpage is super effective" is the exact argument used to take it down.
- samschooler 9y agoNo, the key point is: She was in a situation where whether Backpage existed or not, she would still be doing sex work. With Backpage, she could screen her clients instead of approaching strangers at a gas station not knowing if she would live to see the next morning.
- yters 9y agoWhy does anyone have to do 'sex work'? The argument "I'm going to do it anyways, so you might as well make it safe and convenient for me" doesn't sound very persuasive to me, especially if we generalize this principle.
- darawk 9y agoSome people choose to do sex work. Making that more dangerous for them when their choice of work isn't harming anyone else seems fairly petty.
- relics443 9y agoI wouldn't be so quick to say it doesn't harm anyone else. It's not so far fetched to imagine a married family man acting on an impulse to hire a prostitute. It's a situation where if one wasn't so easily available, he wouldn't have done it. Not such a stretch of the imagination to imagine this person getting found out by family. Bam! Instant harm to multiple innocent people.
- darawk 9y agoYou're right, the availability of sex and sexuality is too much for men to handle. We should criminalize prostitution - and while we're at it, why not criminalize yoga pants? I know those are pretty tempting to me.
- relics443 9y agoI think the question you mean to ask is why criminalize anything, and IMO that's out of the scope of this forum. But once you receive the answer to your real question, the reason why prostitution is criminal, while yoga pants are not should be self evident.
- darawk 9y agoUm, no. Things like murder are criminalized because they involve the infringement upon the rights of others against their will. Prostitution does not infringe upon anyone's rights against their will.
- relics443 9y ago"Things like murder are criminalized because they involve the infringement upon the rights of others against their will." Correct, that's why murder is criminalized, and not the reason why prostitution is criminalized.
- yters 9y agoNo one is making it more dangerous. Backpage may or may not make it less dangerous.
- darawk 9y agoThe claim by the woman on Twitter is that it made it less dangerous for her. The general claim made by most people who look at this is that it makes it less dangerous. I've not studied it personally, but I see no reason to doubt those claims.
- DanBC 9y agoIt's probably true for prostitution ads in general, but Backpage in particular did make things more dangerous. They applied filters to ads which made it harder for law enforcement to search for and find trafficed women; those filters were instant and permanent and so evidence was destroyed. Backpage themselves claimed (in many of the lawsuits brought against them) that they were unable to take any action on ads for children who were being solf for sex because of the Communications Decency Act. And people seem a bit confused by the offer: street work is obviously terribly risky. But small ad sex work is still very dangerous. The vast majority of people who sell sex do so to feed an addiction, or because they're being coercively controlled. This is not a willing exchange of a good for money.
- darawk 9y ago> The vast majority of people who sell sex do so to feed an addiction, or because they're being coercively controlled. That may be true for the vast majority of sex work in general. But I think it's pretty unlikely to be true for the vast majority of sex work advertised online, particularly in places like this. This is an empirical question, of course, but the sexworkers subreddit is some decent evidence in this camp.
- yters 9y agoWhy is prostitution something worth promoting anyways? It is harmful to the person selling themselves, and the people buying. Capitalism doesn't magically make all 'products' morally good. Nor should we allow immoral products merely because 'capitalism'.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Why does anyone have to do 'sex work'? The same reason people need to do any kind of work; because we are living in a society where he economic system requires most people to sell labor of whatever kind they can that is valued by others in the marketplace in order to survive. EDIT: And for some people, given that requirement, sex work is the option where the undesirability of doing the work combined with the pay for doing it leaves it the rational choice. In some cases, it's also the least socially objectionable option practically open.
- sky_rw 9y agoYour definition of survival includes supporting an abusive pimp's $3,000/month heroin addiction?
- dragonwriter 9y agoYes, that's the reality of survival for people who don't have better things to sell, in part due to the illegality of prostitution.
- manicdee 9y agoDo you have a better option for the people in this situation?
- derangedHorse 9y agoYes, to be smart enough not to work for Barn Cat and to only work for herself if sex work is the only type of work she wanted to do. Besides that, I'm sure she could've found a variety of other jobs if she really wanted (although potentially a lot less profitable).
- sky_rw 9y agoYes, I appreciate that it enables more effective sex work and likely makes her specific case slightly safer. This argument could be used for a multitude of illegal acts, e.g. steroids, heroin, digital piracy, etc. It doesn't change the reality that society has agreed that this act is illegal and should not be enabled.