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

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

#141

Post by arcticfox »

giantg2 wrote: post #109
dylan604 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On one hand, I think that the free market would create payment processors willing to work with the groups rejected by others. These already exist and are sometimes known as "high risk" processors. They charge a lot more for the privilege of accepting payments for what industry has deem high risk transactions due to larger rates of chargebacks. Typical examples are paid subscription to a porn site, but then the card…

"They charge a lot more for the privilege of accepting payments for what industry has deem high risk transactions due to larger rates of chargebacks." If they're doing lower volume and dealing with higher costs related to chargebacks, then it seems it would make sense they charge more. What is it, like 3% vs 6% or worse?

Like 3% vs 12%

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

#142

Post by mikotodomo »

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…

This. Prostitution needs to be carefully regulated or else lots of non consenting situations become possible and incentivized. Prostitution should be legal as it violates basic rights not for it to be, but at the same time there should be safeguards.

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

#143

Post by LinuxBender »

roenxi wrote: post #3

Crypto is an option here. Seems like a pretty good fit for what the sex workers need.

An immutable record of who paid what sex workers sounds like it has the potential for machine learning to map who did what and with whom. Could this information be abused?

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

#144

Post by nkohari »

aliqot wrote: post #114
Workaccount2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think where the ship runs aground is that sexual things are treated as intrinsically amoral, because people feel its amoral. However, that feeling is no more legitimate than "green is the best color" (because my brain tells me it's the best). Edit: Just want to add - Homosexuality has the same illogical hurdle. It feels immoral to many people, so therefore it must be immoral. People are largely unable to separate t…

Because free sex makes disease and unwanted children, disease and unwanted children cause/suffer-from problems, disease and problems hurt society. This isn't just moral puritanism, it's for good. Promiscuous sex and many partners irreversibly negatively influences a person's pair-bonding ability at a chemical level, this destroys the family unit and does not benefit the empowered singles and divorced 'pair-couples' w…

I'm sorry, but all of your points are demonstrably false.

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

#145

Post by kobalsky »

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…

> On one hand, I think that the free market would create payment processors willing to work with the groups rejected by others.

how open is the payment network willing to accept a new player when a site like onlyfans with billions of dollars in revenue would rather go down in flames only to be saved by public backlash rather than implementing their own payment processing service?

it's obviously not that simple.

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

#146

Post by formerly_proven »

fknorangesite wrote: post #135
marcus_holmes wrote: post #128

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 ba…

> it almost forces sex workers onto the street or into brothels (which often take a huge chunk of each transaction) Exactly. It makes sex work more dangerous, not less.

Cake-eating-and-having exercise.

To progressives: "See how progressive we are, not criminalizing sex work!"

To conservatives: "See how conservative we are, endangering sex workers and making life hard for them!"

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

#147

Post by a-user-you-like »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #128

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 ba…

Yes, it needs to be made permanently illegal and the activity driven underground. This would solve the problem you are mentioning.

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

#148

Post by rippercushions »

JTbane wrote: post #116

Content creators are also self-censoring to avoid automatic moderation (YouTube demonetization and TikTok shadowbanning). Things like "sex" and "death" are euphemized or not said (see things like "unalive" instead of "dead", "heckmet" instead of "helmet".

What's wrong with "helmet"?

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

#149

Post by Stupulous »

socialismisok wrote: post #113
zajio1am wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's how society operates: work or starve It is more like how biology operates.

I mean, that's false on its face. Plenty of folks don't work and don't starve. My 8 year old isn't working, but somehow manages to not starve. We absolutely could structure society to prevent starvation without forcing labor.

I think you're making the same point. While biology would require your 8-year-old to work to survive, the social structure of your family (followed by your broader social network and eventually the state) is such that that's not the case. Blaming society for hunger is similar to blaming charity for poverty. X is probably not the problem if the solution is more X.

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

#150

Post by chki »

wallscratch wrote: post #132
marcus_holmes wrote: post #128

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 ba…

I’m confused — why can’t the sex workers just claim to be independent masseuses or something else innocuous like that?

Why can't drug dealers claim to sell recreational tea products?
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