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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?

#271

Post by echelon »

vorpalhex wrote: post #225
formerly_proven wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!"

I don't think conservatives are attempting to endanger sex workers - they believe sex work is fundamentally risky and leads to abuse. There is no safe way to do sex work that doesn't result in problems. Therefore they believe it should be discouraged and made illegal, the same way many progressives believe firearms should be illegal since they are dangerous. Tribal groups are alive and well, and even if you dislike y…

Many religious conservatives aren't worried about the safety of sex workers. They believe the act is sin and shouldn't be tolerated in any context. Nevermind the fact that many religious historical figures were themselves prostitutes.

Many conservatives, regardless of religion, believe sex work damages the traditional nuclear family structure. This is similar to the Roman decadence argument.

Many liberals believe sex work is degrading to women. Nevermind the fact that legalizing it would empower workers, make it safer, and decrease trafficking. Nevermind the entire LGBT spectrum.

There is entrenched opposition from all points on the spectrum. It's maddening that "vices" like sex and drugs that don't hurt anyone are so denigrated.

The time is overdue for moving past these taboos.

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

#272

Post by _ktx2 »

The most troubling thing, that is somewhat observable in today's threads, is that ostracizing sex work is almost entirely normalized. People favor legal structures analogous to Don't Ask Don't Tell. This tees up a system of cascading effects:

- Sex workers must now navigate a very fluid monetary system. Sex workers must be paid in cash, Bitcoin, etc. Then they have to somehow represent this money to the federal government to pay their taxes.

- Everyone around sex workers are considered criminals. Unknowingly rent a property to a sex worker? You're a criminal. Date a sex worker? Suspected to be a criminal. Lend money to a sex worker? Criminal. Use sex work services? Definitely a criminal.

This system shoves sex workers into an intentional class system that prohibits them from owning property, prohibits their use of public services, prohibits their utilization of our monetary system. All of these things, when used, don't just benefit the sex workers - they benefit you.

One of the uncomfortable conversations that many people don't want to have is that sex work is heavily used by society and yet neglected constantly, thereby making it dangerous for both sex workers and the users, even making it more dangerous at times.

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

#273

Post by UncleMeat »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #247
kodah wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ostracizing sex work has become fully normalized, so unfortunately people read this and immediately think, "Why not pretend to be someone else?", "Why not just do other illegal things (like tax evasion)?"

> has become fully normalized I don’t think this is a new phenomenon at all. I would guess it’s the norm through much of history.

In early modern venice, the state operated and promoted a special place for prostitutes to work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_delle_Tette - "Titty Bridge") because they were afraid that men not getting enough sex would turn them gay!

The history of sex work is fascinating and wildly diverse.

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

#274

Post by dymk »

ceejayoz wrote: post #266
dymk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or groceries

There are a couple debit cards that'll let you spend out of crypto holdings. I do suspect they've still got a KYC process involved, though.

Guaranteed that if they're interacting with a bank or card network, there's KYC involved (in the US and most western countries). So that defeats the whole "fully anonymous" bit.

I still don't understand the "anon" value prop of crypto. We've had anonymous payments for goods (like groceries) for a long time - cash.

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

#275

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

Kiro wrote: post #66

Among Swedish feminists and the left, sex work is completely unacceptable and prostitution is pretty much equated with rape. Is this not true for other countries?

There was a small era of intense debate over this called the Feminist Sex Wars, that basically split the movement and ended the second wave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_sex_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_views_on_pornography

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

#276

Post by BurningFrog »

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…

When desperate people aren’t allowed to take the kind of jobs they would have chosen, they end up even more desperate.

Such rules are not made for the benefit of these powerless people.

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

#278

Post by dbingham »

floor2 wrote: post #227
dbingham wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to point out that this is a natural consequence of a market system, and it's exacerbated by allowing capital to rule those markets. Until we recognize that, we're not going to be able to fix it. One can't just declare that "If only the market were truly free, it wouldn't be like this." We've seen this play out on the freest market that has ever existed (the early internet) and we ended up in the exact…

This statement is fundamentally flawed on two different core aspects. First, the phenomenon you're referring to is "natural monopolies" which is a well understood situation which appears in every freshman-level Economics 101 class, but that only applies to certain industries. For instance, utilities are natural monopolies because it's far more efficient to run one set of wires to every house rather than try to have 1…

> First, the phenomenon you're referring to is "natural monopolies" which is a well understood situation which appears in every freshman-level Economics 101 class, but that only applies to certain industries. For instance, utilities are natural monopolies because it's far more efficient to run one set of wires to every house rather than try to have 10 competing companies all run their own power lines. But most products & services don't fall into this category.

I'm not referring to natural monopolies. While I concede many of the cases people would immediately think of in my description of the early internet (Google, Facebook, et al) could readily be classified as natural monopolies, we've seen plenty of consolidation in areas that most economists wouldn't classify as such - Amazon for instance, a bookstore or e-commerce site is not a natural monopoly. And we've seen the same consolidation off the internet everywhere. There are few significant verticals, at this point, that aren't dominated by a handful of giant consolidated players. Independent of how much regulation there is or isn't in that vertical.

> Second, "free market" is a specific economic term which means markets which are free from governmental intervention in terms of price controls or subsidies, but are also free from monopolies, cartels or other anti-competitive behavior by any participant. Using the government to break up a monopoly or cartel moves the system towards a "free market". Having zero regulation which allows one or two participants to distort the market moves the system away from a "free market".

And this is where economists trip over their own feet and fall face first into the mud of religion. This is a self-referential, recursive definition that allows you to pretend a major consequence of a system is not, in fact, an issue.

You realize that you just defined a "free market" to be a market that is free of regulation, but requires regulation to maintain its state as a free market?

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

#279

Post by giraffe_lady »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #247
kodah wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ostracizing sex work has become fully normalized, so unfortunately people read this and immediately think, "Why not pretend to be someone else?", "Why not just do other illegal things (like tax evasion)?"

> has become fully normalized I don’t think this is a new phenomenon at all. I would guess it’s the norm through much of history.

You would guess wrong then.

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

#280

Post by naasking »

rayiner wrote: post #260
naasking wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. No, not certain kinds of jobs, that's absolutely the wrong way to think about it. People shouldn't be forced into certain kind of working conditions . That's an entirely different perspective. If impersonal sex doesn't bother…

You overlook the inherently collective nature of labor regulation. Labor regulation seeks to prevent individual choices from creating market-wide pressures and a societal race to the bottom. It doesn't matter if being asked to pitch in on weekends without extra pay "doesn't bother you." We ban you from even voluntarily agreeing to do that because we don't want to be pressured to do that too. Individual choices are re…

> From that perspective, any difference between "type of work" and "working conditions" is wholly artificial.

It only looks artificial because you cited an example of working conditions, not type of work. The right to refuse certain kinds of work is a perfectly cogent concept and does not require artificially restricting other people's choices.

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