Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 457 posts

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#411

Post by rendall »

denton-scratch wrote: post #145
rendall wrote: post #94

I've never heard a good argument against prostitution. The arguments that I hear are against trafficking, rape, child molestation; which are all non-sequiturs: true and valid statements that do not support the argument itself. Can anyone here argue against prostitution per se? I'll listen.

It's said to objectify women. More specifically, the Johns are treating women's bodies as something that can be traded commercially. The more that is normalised, the more it damages all women - not just prostitutes. If you don't think objectifying women harms them, then that's not a "good" argument, I guess. FTR, I'm against laws controlling consensual sex. Not all harmful behaviour should be criminalised.

> It's said to objectify women... The more that is normalised, the more it damages all women. If you don't think objectifying women harms them, then that's not a "good" argument, I guess.

To accept the argument at all is to agree with the original premise. Which I don't, even assuming we could come up with a definition of objectification we could both accept. But... let's give it a go.

Let's posit there is a thing that happens called objectification. Whatever it is, it causes men to treat women badly, specifically, causes unwanted advances and sexual harassment.

A man somehow catches this because he can pay a woman to give him an orgasm. He doesn't even have to actually do it. Just knowing this is something he can do is enough. Then he goes out and... what? Expects to be able to pay every woman for orgasms? He won't treat his woman boss with respect? I'm trying to understand the mechanism here.

Does this same phenomena happen in any other arena of life? Is it a kind of bigotry? Does bigotry operate a similar way?

> ...the Johns are treating women's bodies as something that can be traded commercially. The more that is normalised, the more it damages all women - not just prostitutes.

Sex workers are "selling their bodies" no more than your local bartender or barista does. Sex workers provide a service no more magical than they do either. If you were to expand on this "selling their bodies", I think you will find that it is meaningless.

So, no, I don't think it's a good argument at all until we can demonstrate that "objectifying all women" is something that happens when prostitution is legal.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#412

Post by johnnyanmac »

hume_annoyed wrote: post #337
thomastjeffery wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard plenty of good arguments against using heroin. It's extremely (and immediately) addictive. Recovering from that addiction is nearly impossible for most people. Even if a person safely uses it, and can safely and legally maintain their addiction, heroin is inherently harmful to that person. Is sex work (prostitution) inherently harmful? I don't think so. Sure, there are plenty of closely related things that…

You act as if heroin and sexwork are in two different universes. They are in the same universe and they overlap quite a lot. You can be pro-sex without being a Pollyanna about it across the board. Things happen in both domains that don't fit either the happy model or the doomful one. Edit: you say recovering from heroin addiction and second-order effects are all negative as if sexwork has no impact on, for example, h…

>They are in the same universe and they overlap quite a lot.

not really. 95+% of the population will experience some sexual activity at some point in their life. It is argued as a basic biological need in some psychologies, and a basic pscyological/social need for the rest that may not want to compare it to food/water/shelter. 95% of the population will never do heroin. I argue over half will never even see heroin tools.

That's what makes the controlling of sex more contentious than a very addictive drug. It's a normal (but private) activity that the vast majority of society participates in. It's legal to do it for free, it's legal to pay for content that has people having sex in it. What makes the barrier of paying to do it yourself different?

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#413

Post by johnnyanmac »

cblconfederate wrote: post #124
rendall wrote: post #94

I've never heard a good argument against prostitution. The arguments that I hear are against trafficking, rape, child molestation; which are all non-sequiturs: true and valid statements that do not support the argument itself. Can anyone here argue against prostitution per se? I'll listen.

how is onlyfans prostitution?

Part of the arguments in the tweet is based on reports that caught some accounts offering live sex to paying participants. That's apparently part of what lead to the story of OF removing sexual content.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#414

Post by johnnyanmac »

Chris2048 wrote: post #380
nybble41 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too broad. "If selling jewelry is legal, it's possibly for a fence to pose as legitimate; whereas if selling jewelry is not legal, any appearance of selling jewelry can warrant scrutiny." Some people offer things for sale which they don't have any right to sell. That doesn't imply that those who do have that right should be prevented from exercising it just to make things easier for law enforcement. You do more direc…

But you can require jewelry sellers to keep records to prove their items are not stolen. How do you prove your prostitutes are no coerced? Further, stealing is usually considered less severe than rape. At least people can take measures to prevent theft.

>How do you prove your prostitutes are no coerced?

I don't know. How do you prove that any paying job between a paying company and their employees aren't coerced and that the company isn't abusing their employees? As seen with some recent lawsuits, you don't for years until something eventually prompts investigation.

I imagine it's the same here. If it's illegal then the workers have no legal resource and are trapped until someone discovers the company (if ever. Many times these "companies" are just private individuals. i.e. pimps). If it's legal there's at least some chance the worker than defend themself against abuse if contracts are breeched.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#415

Post by rendall »

slippery_bridge wrote: post #347
neolog wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bodies are used commercially all the time, such as in manual labor, physical therapy, disability care, security, policing, military service, athletics, dancing, commercial modeling, ... The problem that's particular to sex work is legal systems that fail to prevent coercion. This is exacerbated by religious advocacy groups that try to make sex work harder without making it safer.

Paying somebody to do something physical and paying somebody to physically use their body are two completely different things

> Paying somebody to do something physical and paying somebody to physically use their body are two completely different things

I think if we were to explore and expand on this we would find the distinction to be non-existent. How and in what way are they different at all?

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#416

Post by [deleted] »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #413
cblconfederate wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is onlyfans prostitution?

Part of the arguments in the tweet is based on reports that caught some accounts offering live sex to paying participants. That's apparently part of what lead to the story of OF removing sexual content.

[deleted]

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#417

Post by johnnyanmac »

_bfhp wrote: post #369
neolog wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think enjoying the product of all coerced labor is wrong, or only sexual coerced labor?

"Do you think all violence is wrong, or only murder?" Of course there are degrees. I don't really see the gotcha here -- if you found out your favorite anime or Pixar movie was animated by slaves, would you still be able to enjoy it?

>Of course there are degrees.

that you don't give to sex work because "you just don't know".

We never know, but odds are the best way to know is by encouraging workers to report abuse. Something the tech industry has institutionally failed upon over the deacdes to do despite being shown as "honest, intellectual work".

>if you found out your favorite anime or Pixar movie was animated by slaves

There are degrees, apparently.

But for the sake of reducto ad absurdum: If there was an entire sweatshop of talented slave labor making Toy Story, I'd be impressed first, and then mortified. But I guess my brain just ticks differently in that regard. Maybe I've just seen/heard enough evil that these "revelations" are surprising but not taking me completely off guard.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#418

Post by johnnyanmac »

kjgkjhfkjf wrote: post #13

The world really needs an alternative to these tweet serials. They're extremely annoying to read.

Literally any other website. Even a Youtube comment would be easier to read.

But Twitter gets you views, so we're stuck with this.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#419

Post by johnnyanmac »

zozbot234 wrote: post #36

The concern that various kinds of legal sex work might be a de-facto haven for human trafficking is at least many decades old, does not solely or even mainly originate from people identifying as Christians, and seems to have a pretty solid factual basis - at the very least, there is a consensus on the broad argument if not the details. The Twitter thread does not even attempt to fairly acknowledge these facts. Very s…

Society is always a factor, but not the focus on this specific site making a specific action on a specific date.

We could literally spend our entire lifetimes arguing about sex and society's view on it over history. This twitter thread was already annoying enough to read without that context.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#420

Post by johnnyanmac »

pcbro141 wrote: post #237
giantrobot wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a girl goes from Instagram to OnlyFans willingly and is getting paid...why should anyone judge her or care? How is that any different from her making videos about video games or revising books and making money?

You are asking the difference if my 18 year old daughter posts pics of her butthole that will be on the internet for life, versus making videos about video games? I think she is more likely to potentially regret the butthole pics vs the video game videos being out there on the web for life.

I mean, I'm sure half of us have stupid actions at 18 that we regret.

I wouldn't necessarily want to make those things illegal/more regulated tho. As I've seen and experienced, that doesn't stop 18 year olds from being stupid. It may even enbolden some.

Post reply on HN