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I did not make a comment on the issue of legality, and if you read my comment with an ounce of good faith reason and logic, you would never have put the words y

I did not make a comment on the issue of legality, and if you read my comment with an ounce of good faith reason and logic, you would never have put the words you just did into my mouth, and instead focus on what I actually said. I was commenting on the casualness and callousness with which he uses "consenting adults" without regard to the power imbalance as well as the statistics with regard to sex workers and their "freedom". Look at the attitude in the other replies: > At least a woman can take the easy way out and become a prostitute. A man has no such "luxury". Society does not pity weak men the way it pities weak women. > what you described applies to every single person in the world with a job. > We all do stuff we'd rather not do for money. And then there's the guy comparing strangers putting their penises into your mouth and vagina, always in fear of sexual assault, disease, degradation to "attending Scrum meetings and fixing CSS bugs." Even you, with "but blame their johns", ignoring any notion of exploitation of the desperate and vulnerable.

strken 5y ago
My biggest problem here is that pretty much all working class labour has deep power imbalances and rampant systemic exploitation, but none of the discussion around it robs the labourer of quite as much agency as the discussion around prostitution. Very few people point to Amazon warehouse pickers and say the nature of the work is so obviously non-consensual it should be illegal, even if they're forced into it by impending homelessness or addiction. It irritates me when people who are making the best of the hand they're dealt get talked down to like they haven't made a choice, and thrown in jail because they're trying to put food on the table. Yeah, vulnerable people are prostituting themselves because the alternative is worse, but how does making prostitution illegal fix the problem? It's a dumb knee-jerk reaction that makes everything worse - prostitution is driven underground, governments can't ask about working conditions or prosecute bad johns, and vulnerable people end up in jail.
naasking 5y ago
> I was commenting on the casualness and callousness with which he uses "consenting adults" without regard to the power imbalance as well as the statistics with regard to sex workers and their "freedom". It's interesting that this stricter form of consent doesn't extend to working shitty jobs at Walmart, McDonald's or cleaning toilets to pay the rent or buy your drugs. Why is work involving sex specifically the problem here? Is it something intrinsic to the work, or is it really the social stigma? And if it's the latter, isn't decriminalizing really the first step to solving that problem without removing women's agency and their ability to earn more money than working traditional menial job?

strken 5y ago

My biggest problem here is that pretty much all working class labour has deep power imbalances and rampant systemic exploitation, but none of the discussion around it robs the labourer of quite as much agency as the discussion around prostitution. Very few people point to Amazon warehouse pickers and say the nature of the work is so obviously non-consensual it should be illegal, even if they're forced into it by impending homelessness or addiction. It irritates me when people who are making the best of the hand they're dealt get talked down to like they haven't made a choice, and thrown in jail because they're trying to put food on the table. Yeah, vulnerable people are prostituting themselves because the alternative is worse, but how does making prostitution illegal fix the problem? It's a dumb knee-jerk reaction that makes everything worse - prostitution is driven underground, governments can't ask about working conditions or prosecute bad johns, and vulnerable people end up in jail.

naasking 5y ago

> I was commenting on the casualness and callousness with which he uses "consenting adults" without regard to the power imbalance as well as the statistics with regard to sex workers and their "freedom". It's interesting that this stricter form of consent doesn't extend to working shitty jobs at Walmart, McDonald's or cleaning toilets to pay the rent or buy your drugs. Why is work involving sex specifically the problem here? Is it something intrinsic to the work, or is it really the social stigma? And if it's the latter, isn't decriminalizing really the first step to solving that problem without removing women's agency and their ability to earn more money than working traditional menial job?