Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#121

Post by confidantlake » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

hackeraccount wrote: post #56

There's a libertarian ethos that says anything between two consenting adults is the their business. I'm more and more skeptical not just of that principle but the self awareness of the people who purport to support it. I know that the choices I think are correct may not be - either for myself, for everyone or for any particular person. For that reason I don't think that anyone should run my life or that I should be t…

I think that is friends/family/social pressure is for. We don't forbid it, but people will look at you sideways if you drink beer at 9 am on a weekday.

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#122

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

mellosouls wrote: post #117

In other words, a world in which payment processors and content platforms rule unchallenged is a problem not just for porn creators and consumers. It also establishes a precedent, allowing private companies to set opaque, moralizing, and arbitrary censorship terms without oversight They've only just noticed this after years of WrongThinkers being deplatformed?

[deleted]

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#123

Post by giantg2 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #107

Why doesn't the argument "private companies can do whatever they want, so if you don't like being arbitrarily banned by the incumbents, then start your own bank and payment processor" apply here?

The only thing I can think of is that most of the centralized systems are highly regulated at the national and international level. Without those systems, a company would not be competitive. Even entire countries have tried to create their own systems with limited success (look at Russia trying to replace Swift recently).

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#124

Post by potatototoo99 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

j_m_b wrote: post #44

horsestaple wrote: post #39

Quoted post unavailable.

>We also know that the vast majority of people who work in the "industry" are either coerced by others or forced into it by life circumstances. Citation needed. Porn stars are coerced into it? Are cam models forced into it? The fact that the oldest profession is illegal leads to exploitation. "You think I sell my body, I merely sell my time" -NOFX

Porn STARS probably not. Cam "models" yes absolutely are the majority forced into it.

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#125

Post by NoraCodes » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:59 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #96

NoraCodes wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We also know that the vast majority of people who work in the "industry" are either coerced by others or forced into it by life circumstances. Most people are forced into work by life circumstances. That's how society operates: work or starve. Sex trafficking is a genuine issue, but it's not at all the majority of the industry. I don't see what makes consensual sex work uniquely coercive or evil when compared to ot…

And civilized society routinely sets a floor for that “work or starve” dynamic, ensuring that there isn’t a race to the bottom and desperate people aren’t forced to take certain kinds of jobs. That’s because we understand that the legality of certain kinds of jobs creates social pressure on people in tough circumstances to do those jobs. Such regulation inherently requires society to make decisions about what sort of…

I'm a woman, and a socialist, so no, I don't think anyone should be forced into sex work. I don't think anyone should be forced into any kind of work.

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#126

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:00 PM UTC

hackeraccount wrote: post #56

There's a libertarian ethos that says anything between two consenting adults is the their business. I'm more and more skeptical not just of that principle but the self awareness of the people who purport to support it. I know that the choices I think are correct may not be - either for myself, for everyone or for any particular person. For that reason I don't think that anyone should run my life or that I should be t…

[deleted]

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#127

Post by giantg2 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

hackeraccount wrote: post #56

There's a libertarian ethos that says anything between two consenting adults is the their business. I'm more and more skeptical not just of that principle but the self awareness of the people who purport to support it. I know that the choices I think are correct may not be - either for myself, for everyone or for any particular person. For that reason I don't think that anyone should run my life or that I should be t…

I don't think libertarians are against sharing their opinions or questioning someone's actions. They're mostly just against forcefully applying it.

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#128

Post by marcus_holmes » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

I investigated this a few years ago in Australia. Sex work is legal in Australia, kinda. It is legal to exchange sexual services for money, but supporting and assisting such a transaction is illegal. So a landlord who rents a property to a sex worker is breaking the law. A payment processor who processes the card transaction is breaking the law, and so on. There are some clauses around managing establishments that basically make brothels just, barely, within the law.

It's a ridiculous position in that it almost forces sex workers onto the street or into brothels (which often take a huge chunk of each transaction). There was no way of getting my client (I was freelancing for a sex worker to try and solve some of their tech issues) any reasonable ability to process credit cards. Or do a wide range of things that we'd consider normal for a small business (like set up a Stripe account, or even a business bank account, or rent an office).

This needs to change.

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#129

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

hackeraccount wrote: post #56

There's a libertarian ethos that says anything between two consenting adults is the their business. I'm more and more skeptical not just of that principle but the self awareness of the people who purport to support it. I know that the choices I think are correct may not be - either for myself, for everyone or for any particular person. For that reason I don't think that anyone should run my life or that I should be t…

[deleted]

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#130

Post by aliqot » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #77

giantg2 wrote: post #42

"It also establishes a precedent, allowing private companies to set opaque, moralizing, and arbitrary censorship terms without oversight." Yes, this is done with other things as well. On one hand, I think that the free market would create payment processors willing to work with the groups rejected by others. On the other hand, it seems that many financial things are set by international organizations, which the proce…

Having built a neobank. It’s fact that pornography is intertwined with sex trafficking, organized crime, revenge porn and other illegal activities. Regulators crack down on financial institutions if they are caught providing services for illegal activities.

HSBC wants you to think that but anybody with wikipedia can tell you it's not true in practice. It's not that they don't want your business, it's that the end users in these cause problems. They're happy to keep cartel money, one-to-many is easier than many-to-one, it's simple math.