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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?

#321

Post by tablespoon »

staticassertion wrote: post #310
tablespoon wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 100%. One of the universal curses people throw at each other is implying that someone's mother is a prostitute, or that they are a product of extramarital sex, implying the promiscuity of the mother. This all is hand-in-hand with the implied comtempt towards women of course. How so? Not all women are prostitutes.

Because no one's throwing around "your father is a prostitute" as an insult.

> Because no one's throwing around "your father is a prostitute" as an insult.

There's all kinds of things that people insult men/fathers for that they wouldn't use for women/mothers (e.g. strength, financial success, etc). It's just gender roles, not generalized contempt for women (and going that far is probably just politically motivated exaggeration).

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

#322

Post by s_ting765 »

_ktx2 wrote: post #272

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 gover…

> 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.

I have heard this familiar argument made for the legalization of narcotics.

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

#323

Post by zmgsabst »

UncleMeat wrote: post #283
vorpalhex wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure it is this. Instead, I think it is that conservatives think that sex work is fundamentally immoral and that therefore it cannot be accepted by society, regardless of any harm or benefit created by this policy. It isn't "hey we believe that sex workers fundamentally cannot be protected from abuse" like something like child labor but is instead "sex work is moral degeneracy and must be stopped."

You’re not following their logic through:

“Moral degeneracy” is a problem (in their view) because of the associated harms — which we’ve learned over time and encoded into our traditions. That things they call “moral degeneracy” fundamentally are harmful to a healthy society and to the people involved.

That is, they think sex work is harmful to the people who participate and those nearby (eg, children of sex workers).

Morality isn’t merely arbitrary and capricious rules, but an evolved code of conduct which tries to avoid things that are harmful. (Or at least, were — eg, prohibitions on pork.)

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

#324

Post by yakireev »

jeromegv wrote: post #189
wallscratch wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lying to your payment processor about what you really sell typically always ends up in the same way. They catch up with you and your account is terminated. Ask all those CBDs sellers that pretended they were selling "supplements", takes a while but eventually.. all shut down.

Meanwhile, there are places in the world where CBD oil can be found in a supermarket, among other supplements.

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

#325

Post by mind-blight »

dbingham wrote: post #218
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's late stage capitalism. It's how all 'free markets' end up eventually. The biggest players gobbling up all of the competition and essentially having a monopoly. All you have to do is drive through middle america to see the Ruby Tuesday/Strip Mall-ification effect on most of the United States. I love capitalism when it's functioning it's the greatest system ever invented. When it's just a market full of monopolies…

I am of the opinion that the solution is Free Market Socialism: a market economy where the businesses are governed by their workers. Capital is allowed a reasonable, regulated return on its investment (which takes the form of loans, not equity) and further financing can happen through crowd funding (since this system would naturally result in a much more even distribution of capital, an order of magnitude more people…

> Unions become completely unnecessary in this system.

I don't think that's true. Unions exist to negotiate working conditions with management. Management doesn't disappear in the system that you're describing.

Some of the incentives for poor working conditions disappear, but not all of them. There are non-profits that have unionized due to worker abuses. Ironically, I've worked in VC-backed startups most of my career, and I've experienced much less abuse than friends who work at non-profits

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

#326

Post by x86x87 »

ethotool wrote: post #212
roenxi wrote: post #3

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

Crypto has been such a proven failure yet people still say these things on the regular.

Here is one thing you can do with crypto that you cannot do with a credit card: use your money how you would like. There is no payment processor to decide that you are not allowed to send or receive money.

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

#327

Post by micromacrofoot »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #291
micromacrofoot wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard to argue that sex is a necessity. There are physical mechanisms that create a desire for sex in most humans. I'm sure just about any therapist would attest to the impact of sex on mental health (both positive and negative impacts). Being gay used to be taboo and shameful too, it still is in many places... but this is changing. Sex work is already a little less taboo in places where it's regulated. Socie…

Sex isn't a necessity the same way geopolitically showing you'll fight back the moment someone decides to invite your country is. Laws and mandatory drafts reflect this. Despite being recognized as a necessity in many countries (mine included), you won't get subsidy or sexual assistance as an otherwise capable individual. For obvious reasons, this affects guys the most (the problems for women come after, generally).…

Honestly I think this weird binary comparison of a country's need for a military to an individual's need for sex (and/or other intimacy) has run its course... this isn't really making sense to me anymore, and it's off course from the original context.

To try to bring things back from this extreme tangent; my point was that on an individual level, trauma from sex work is no worse than trauma people face on the front lines, yet one is acceptable and one's not. That's a somewhat arbitrary construct.

As individuals both sex (and/or some adjacent intimacy) and safety are very low on the hierarchy of needs.

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

#328

Post by [deleted] »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #291
micromacrofoot wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard to argue that sex is a necessity. There are physical mechanisms that create a desire for sex in most humans. I'm sure just about any therapist would attest to the impact of sex on mental health (both positive and negative impacts). Being gay used to be taboo and shameful too, it still is in many places... but this is changing. Sex work is already a little less taboo in places where it's regulated. Socie…

Sex isn't a necessity the same way geopolitically showing you'll fight back the moment someone decides to invite your country is. Laws and mandatory drafts reflect this. Despite being recognized as a necessity in many countries (mine included), you won't get subsidy or sexual assistance as an otherwise capable individual. For obvious reasons, this affects guys the most (the problems for women come after, generally).…

[deleted]

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

#329

Post by bckr »

jjk166 wrote: post #299
charles_f wrote: post #201

> Despite a user base of over 130 million, OnlyFans has failed to attract venture capital I don't get why that's a problem? They already built their platform, it works, they're the gold standard and they have a massive paying userbase! Why do they need VC money? Why would you want to dilute your stock rather than just build with your already existing, sizeable revenue stream?

It's not a problem now, but in a strictly rational economy a company that was so obviously going to acquire a massive paying userbase should have had no issue finding investors back when it would have been useful. Adult content hosting sites face some unique (read expensive) challenges relating to both scale and content moderation. It's not like you can just run videos through a nudity detector to stop your servers f…

Just a point of pedantry, "child sex abuse material" (CSAM) is a new, more descriptive and accurate term.

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

#330

Post by x86x87 »

thehappypm wrote: post #94
kingkawn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto is not a good option for anything, as it’s lack of irl uses other than Ponzi schemes make clear.

It’s really good for crime.

You know what is also good for crime? Dollars! Everyone takes then. Even worse they are harder to trace. Do you see anyone wanting to ban the dollar or claim that it's good for crime?
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