Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die' • Hacker News Board

Re: Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die'

#161

Post by lovich » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 8:53 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #133

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am male and expressed an opinion that prostitution should be legal. But I have no desire to ever actually use such a service personally. My opinion is based largely on the fact that there are plenty of women who want to do this, or particularly enjoy it, as well as the unfortunate cases of people who feel they have no other choice. In either of those cases, punishing the people who are in this industry is wrong.

Punishment is a legitimate disincentive. Are there going to be fewer prostitutes when it is safe and easy? If the field is inherently injurious to women, why should we incentivize women to become prostitutes in any way?

You want to protect women from injury by actively injuring them?

It sounds like you just have a problem with sex in general and protecting women is about as much a goal of yours as when politicians cry "think of the children"

Re: Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die'

#162

Post by orthecreedence » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 8:54 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #154

yters wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are people more likely to do something that is safe or is dangerous? We can make similar arguments for all illegal activities. Why don't we make murder safer for the murderers? They're going to murder anyways, so we might as well keep one of the parties alive and healthy. Why don't we just give thieves all the free money they want? They are going to steal anyways, so we might as well make it more convenient for them.…

Why is willingness the magic that makes it alright? Many actions are engaged in willingly that are not good. Suicide is the primary one that comes to mind.

I think someone should be able to kill themself if they want.

Re: Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die'

#163

Post by esarbe » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 8:55 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #151

bradjohnson wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adult women are not helpless children and I believe that any societal pressure that they might feel to pursue a damaging lifestyle can be dealt with before any punishment for exercising bodily autonomy should ever be considered.

Perhaps, but making it easier for them to make bad choices is not the way to go.

I don't agree that prostitution is a bad choice. It's a legitimate choice, a legal choice in some countries. The only problems it causes are from the illegality hat the women (and men) performing it are driven into.

They are not protected by regulations, they don't receive pensions and they don't pay taxes.

There are a lot of jobs that might not be the best life choices. But that's no reason to make it illegal and force the people performing these jobs underground.

Re: Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die'

#164

Post by yters » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 8:55 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #147

yters wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The body is an especially intimate part of one's being. To denigrate it to be another's tool is no different than slavery, even if one receives financial recompense.

E.g. actor, singer, laborer, masseuse... as a matter of degree, each is a 'slave' to their client(s)? I think that's exaggerating the case.

None of these jobs involve subjecting oneself to multiple disease vectors every day and arbitrary acts of violence. Plus, as the 'my body my choice' crowd recognizes, our bodies are one of the most important sources of our identity. To have others treat our bodies as disposable commodities essentially communicates to us that we ourselves are disposable.

Re: Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die'

#165

Post by cornholio » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 8:55 PM UTC

nfoz wrote: post #80

cornholio wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, people faced with economic hardships that are choosing prostitution do so at the expense of some other choice that, to them, is even more horrible - otherwise they wouldn't do it. It's hard to argue that prostitution is always a damaging choice that should always be forbidden like selling your organs, selling yourself into slavery, highly dangerous drugs etc. This is why I think the economic constr…

I think the law will always encapsulate some idea of morality. You've already suggested some places where US law restricts contracts that might seem to be between consenting adults. It's a moral choice for the law to restrict you from "selling your organs, selling yourself into slavery, highly dangerous drugs etc." I think there's good reason for the law to be protective, because merely allowing some contracts to be…

> Whether prostitution falls into this category is a question of culture/morality.

The law is an expression of the social contract, so it's a truism to say it will be shaped by cultural norms.

However, some cultural norms are so universal and beyond debate that we can move to an utilitarian perspective to see how well those universal values are protected by various policy choices. For example, if we posit human life as a right, there is no moral question on whether, say, a market of hit men should exist.

Back to our regulation choices, I wanted to underline how banning a dangerous substance is a clear cut, less moral and more objective issue, because it objectively threatens life. Whereas banning prostitution is squarely into the subjective end of the scale, since there is no shared moral value that is objectively infringed.

That's not to say that tough choices don't exist (recreational drugs, handguns, certain pornography) where the law must espouse moral choices, but that prostitution shouldn't be such a case. It is only treated as such as a political appeasement to the minority of voters for whom it's a major moral issue.

Re: Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die'

#166

Post by yters » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #148

yters wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. Lust makes one person dehumanize another person and use them as a tool for their own pleasure. Anytime we dehumanize each other it is bad, regardless of the negative consequences, of which there are many (broken families, STDs, domestic violence, child abuse, etc.)

Consent is not a magic wand that makes all actions moral. And yes, brokeness will be with us for all time. So, your solution is to just allow things to get worse? Sometimes you have to take a hard stand on things to help people not destroy themselves.

There are clearly objective moral values. A society that denigrates sex to entertainment and cannot reproduce will cease to exist.

Re: Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die'

#167

Post by esarbe » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #157

Freestyler_3 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What isn't good for them? How do you get from sex to suicide? And how far can society go when dictating what a person can or can not do? People are allowed to smoke and drink. People have sex without payments happening too.

To be a sex worker, a woman is having multiple sex partners per day . Her exposure to STDs, and abuse in general, is increased exponentially. That is essentially suicide.

So is working in a coal mine. I agree that I would rather have no-one working in such conditions, but that's the economical reality we live in.

As long as we force people to do unpleasant and potentially harmful jobs for a living, I don't see any reason to differentiate between oil-rig workers and prostitutes.

By making it legal, prostitutes enjoy legal protection, health and social benefits. What's not to like?

Re: Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die'

#168

Post by yters » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 8:57 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #151

bradjohnson wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adult women are not helpless children and I believe that any societal pressure that they might feel to pursue a damaging lifestyle can be dealt with before any punishment for exercising bodily autonomy should ever be considered.

Perhaps, but making it easier for them to make bad choices is not the way to go.

Well, read my many other replies around here. Prostitution is in no way a good life for women.

Re: Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die'

#169

Post by makomk » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 8:58 PM UTC

sudosteph wrote: post #67

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prostitution is abhorrent to the women's rights movement -- it is another tool of oppression. One of the core tenets of feminism is that women have a right to do what they please with their own bodies. A lot of bad things come out of prostitution. That needs to be addressed and policed. Jailing the women practicing it to survive fixes nothing .

Jailing the women who practice is not the only option here. The nordic model advocates that it's only the buyers who are penalized. Women are then given services that provide a path towards a different means of earning income. The idea is that by making it riskier for the buyer, the average John won't bother with looking for that type of service. The aim is to reduce demand for prostitution in general, which in turn…

For some context, while Sweden doesn't criminalize women who sell sex, it does criminalize everyone around them - including landlords who knowingly rent to them, with the main defence being that they evicted their tenant as soon as legally possible after finding out. So sex workers in Sweden have gone to the police about being raped by clients, only to have the police tell their landlords to evict them. They don't report rape to the police anymore. (I think the other Nordic countries that adopted this model have the same issue.)

A few years ago, Amnesty International found out about this and took a strong position against the Nordic model because of it. The response amongst feminist supporters of the Nordic model was not to disown this part of the Nordic model or try and change the law in Sweden; instead they launched a campaign against Amnesty International to try and shut them up. Its proponents might try and spin it as something that protects women in the industry and only affects johns, but pretty much all of them are fighting hard to strip those women of any police protection against rape and violence. Occasionally, you'll even find someone who openly admits that they want those women to be more at risk of rape because they hope it'll encourage them to give up a trade that they think is hurting other women, and no-one else in the supposedly feminist anti-sex-work movement seems to have a problem with this from what I've seen.

Re: Sex workers fear violence as US cracks down on online ads: 'Girls will die'

#170

Post by yters » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 8:58 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #157

Freestyler_3 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What isn't good for them? How do you get from sex to suicide? And how far can society go when dictating what a person can or can not do? People are allowed to smoke and drink. People have sex without payments happening too.

To be a sex worker, a woman is having multiple sex partners per day . Her exposure to STDs, and abuse in general, is increased exponentially. That is essentially suicide.

Coal miners, oil rig workers, soldiers, policemen, firemen, doctors. These are all necessary jobs to make our society run.

Prostitution is both unnecessary and destructive to all parties involved.

Clear difference between the two categories.