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?

#161

Post by teolandon » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:13 PM UTC

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…

Condoms exist. Marital sex also makes unwanted children, I don't see why you declare this a property of "free" sex.

The second paragraph is pseudoscientific bullshit that gets parrotted by conservatives. People have been and will continue to have casual sex, and society is, and will be doing fine.

Your last sentence reveals the real reason you're against casual sex.

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

#162

Post by NoraCodes » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

Stupulous wrote: post #149

socialismisok wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My point is not that society is bad because people hunger, but rather that we should structure our society such that they don't. Society itself is emergent and has no moral character. It's our leaders and to some extent ourselves that are at fault, at least in democracies.

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

#163

Post by fknorangesite » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

Bubble_Pop_22 wrote: post #64

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again with the denigrating of sex work. It's a pervasive and ancient part of human society, but it should not be studied, because? We study bookmaking and banking and families and art, but not this because, it's naughty? it's taboo? it makes some uncomfortable? All that is a clear sign to me, that we need more such scholars.

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

#164

Post by NoraCodes » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

zajio1am wrote: post #136

NoraCodes wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth does that mean? That it's biologically impossible to give other people food?

That means that someone have to work to make the food that is given to other people. So get food, someone has to work. If there is no food, someone starves. Society can just redirect who is working and who is starving.

It's not a zero sum game. We have the technology to ensure nobody starves, and not doing so seems transparently evil.

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

#165

Post by rglover » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

rippercushions wrote: post #148

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"?

Best guess: the AI interprets it as "war," "penis" and "clitoris" and pushes it into a moderation/flag queue.

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

#166

Post by lelanthran » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #103

Sakos wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society? You're painting an awfully broad brush. I absolutely think it should be regulated because of the reasons you name, but it's mainly particular demographics that want sex work banned, and generally these demographics don't actually care about the well-being of sex workers (re: provably negative consequences for sex workers in previous situations where such work was made illegal or otherwise deregulated and pun…

The “particular demographics” who want to ban prostitution include “the majority of women.” https://www.vox.com/2016/3/11/11203740/prostitution-legal-me... Women oppose legalized sex work at higher rates than men, because they’d be the ones who would encounter social pressure to do sex work in tough economic circumstances if it became normalized.

> Women oppose legalized sex work at higher rates than men, because they’d be the ones who would encounter social pressure to do sex work in tough economic circumstances if it became normalized.

I don't think that's the only reason; even a few sex providers can distort the (mostly balanced) market for sex.

IOW, if men don't feel the need to date just to get sex then there's fewer men in the market. This means that women have to pay a higher price[1] for the available men, while the available men pay a lower price[2] for any specific woman.

[1] Be nicer, be more willing to engage in sex, etc.

[2] Be less committed, less involved, etc.

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

#167

Post by lkslkdjfsl » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #120

lkslkdjfsl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but there are no shortage of people who also end up with psychological damage from their jobs outside of sex work Not to labour the point but: cf Soldiers. Men can take the emotional and physical toll but women can't? edit: just to expand on this, talk to people who have been on military tours about the horrors of draging dead bodies (that they might have killed) from the road side, the pain of loosing friends, bei…

I think you've missed the point here. The poster is saying that sex work is vulnerable to psychological damage, but isn't considered as legitimate as military-related careers which are also vulnerable to psychological damage. The poster is questioning society which determines sex work to be less legitimate as a career than military work or any other career.

Yes, I am agreeing with this position.

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

#168

Post by Workaccount2 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

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…

Ironically, the issues you list would be best solved with a professional prostitution industry and regulatory committee running the show.

As for the pair-bonding thing, it reads like it came out of a bible pamphlet. "This idea feels right, and is consistent with my ideology, so it must be right".

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

#169

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

a-user-you-like wrote: post #147

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.

You forgot the /s tag.

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

#170

Post by giantg2 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #101

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 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…

Similar to what somebody else said, there are some reasons it's amoral outside of the cultural rules, at least generally throughout civilized history.

Many older cultural or religious rules had some root in logic (obviously some didn't). In some cases modern understanding makes those rules unnecessary. For example, cooking was not as consistent, and germ theory was basically unknown, so eating pork and becoming sick meant that pigs were unclean and not to be eaten. Obviously we now know that we can eat pork if it's properly cooked.

It's debatable as to the status of many sex rules. Things like diseases can become resistant to treatment, evolve to be more problematic (or create a new problem altogether), etc. Condoms generally protect against most but not all. Then there's the reproduction issue, which pulls in a host of other issues such as who's paying for the kid, abortion, etc. Some of this is covered by contraceptives, but not fully. And perhaps the one not talked about, is how it can influence people similar to gambling or substances. This is also up for public debate on how rules should apply to these things.