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

theguardian.com

201–210 of 225 posts

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

#201
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation? Is this proven to be true or speculation?

A good place to start is this document: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Backpage%20Report... You don't have to believe anything in this document. You can follow the links this documents gives to the court cases, and the court cases contain what Backpage themselves were saying.

Very informative, thank you! Yeah, it sounds like some very unethical behavior on the part of the company.

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

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest the book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Almost all early religious entities, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, condemned the concept of using money to make money as immoral. The belief was that money was meant to exchange debt, not make people wealthy off that debt. Today Islam still holds this as a majority view in many places (not universally). I'm simplifying it a lot, so I really recommend the book. There is…

I thought that Judaism had some sort of exception that allowed usury in the case of lending to non-Jewish people. This was why many banks back then were run by them.

My understanding is that a lot of banking was jewish simply because of their legal system. You could reasonably expect a jewish bank to obey a jewish court decision, even if that court was on another continent. This lent an otherwise unheard of level of credibility, and allowed jewish banks to network like no other.

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

#203
post #158
post #148

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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.

It's not as if there were any absolute moral values. And if everybody involved can give informed consent, why should that not be enough?

Self-control and empathy are absolute moral values, there are many but these two form the core of the civilizing process. A society where these two are absent is a society of anarchy and self-destruction.

To imply that all social norms and taboos are moot in the face of individuality is to imply that the individual is the core atom of humanity and it clearly is not -- it is the family.

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

#204
post #25

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it's also just an absurd restriction from a perspective that values individual liberty. "my body, my choice" "consenting adults" -- all that goes out the window when it's sex for cash? it makes no sense.

Yep, that's the absolute BS about it. That somehow government should intervene in your personal life choices that affect no one other than consenting adults. However, I would hope no one has to resort to unwanted sex work to afford life and liberty--just for a simple roof over their head, for food and basic healthcare. That's what I fear with legalizing prostitution... I just personally think the idea of knowing peop…

An interesting consideration there. Prostitution is legal (or decriminalized?) in The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Countries with well-developed social protections & healthcare. This would seem to indicate the two are not mutually exclusive.

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

#205
I've wondered if a solutions is to allow prostitution 'brothels' as legitimate businesses by those prosituting like Amsterdam or in a legalized Red Light District or even operate as semi government owned and taxed like they do weed (still in the works) and alcohol in ontario canada.

It would take out all of the danger and illegality as for example one doesnt go into shady corners or connections to buy cigarettes or alcohol like weed because its legalized and policed correctly.

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

#206
post #73
post #62

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How is prostitution different from rape, where sexual autonomy is removed by economic force rather than physical force?

How is having a job different from slavery, where personal autonomy is removed by economic force rather than physical force?

Abolish the wage system!

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only true for the middle class. Once your social status is sufficiently high it doesn't matter. Case in point, the current POTUS is known for banging hookers.

Sure, but those people aren't harmed by banging illegal hookers already, so legalization of sex work is irrelevant to them anyway.

To them, yes, but not to the prostitutes they use.

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

#208
post #188
post #92

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>makes all of them worse This seems like a pretty outrageous claim. It seems obvious that: 1) There are moral hazards surrounding prostitution 2) The legal status of prostitution has a negative effect on the number of people participating in it. So while legalizing prostitution certainly could (and anecdotally would ) negate some of the hazards, to say that it would negate all of them seems foolish, or at the very le…

All you need to do is provide a example of a moral hazard that would not be negated by legalization.

Incentivizing bringing either physical, emotional, or social harm to yourself.

For instance: we don't allow people to work for less than minimum wage. We have things like OSHA which set minimum safe working requirements for dangerous jobs, etc.

You may claim "yes, that's why we want sex-work regulated".

Sex work already is regulated. Pornography is legal, stripping is legal, "cam" work is legal, burlesque is legal, etc. etc.

The classic example is: suppose a drug addict who has a moral opposition to selling their body for sex, but is being coerced into doing so by their drug addiction. We have protective regulations around that which strongly disincentive it.

Selling penetrative sex for money is where we as a society have drawn a line and said "everything up to this point is okay."

Just like we drawn a line for dangerous working conditions and said "everything up to this point is okay". We're not saying that there are no risks to dangerous physical work (sex work included), we're saying that anything beyond the line is intolerable.

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Just to be clear: I'm not making some claim that strongly supports any side of this argument. I'm just annoyed by the claim that there is no discussion to be had here, and that the only reason that prostitution is illegal in most of the US is "Christians".

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

#209
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary: A couple moderators on a small site have no problem being able to say they don't willfully permit their site to be used for criminal activity. It's only "planet-scale" companies that seem to indicate they can't afford to moderate and review content reasonably. "AI" is not the answer. AI is not adequate or comparable to human moderators which small businesses employ. AI is a "solution" for providing l…

"A couple moderators" aka goodbye user generated content that isn't generating at least six figure income.

Those generating six figure income can get more moderators. :)

Of course, they don't, because thanks to Section 230 immunity, they have no obligation to.

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

#210

I hate to use the argument but it's really sad that in 2018 we're still trying to make voluntary sex work illegal when every studies show that it 1) doesn't work and 2) makes everything worse for everyone involved. Also, the fact that the very president is known to have used prostitutes and that Washington politicians are well known to be big customers makes this hypocrisy really infuriating.

US too concerned with feeling good rather than doing good.
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