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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?

#421

Post by dymk »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #353
slfnflctd wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What you're doing is crazy. Why would you do that to yourself? Why would you let someone do that to you? Why would you do that to another person?" People who want to amputate perfectly healthy limbs and/or submit themselves to cannibalism are some of the first things that come to my mind here. Most of us would probably agree there should be a line somewhere , especially considering the potential of undiagnosed men…

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

#422

Post by rendang »

feet wrote: post #417
rendang wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We fought a whole war to end chattel slavery because a movement largely composed of pious Christians believed it to be sinful.

There was also a large amount of Christians who thought slavery was permitted by the Bible so I don't think that argument has a leg to stand on

What argument? The point is that everybody votes based on their particular opinions of what is moral or immoral, often related to their religious beliefs, this is not a new phenomenon, and it is not at odds with freedom of religion.

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

#423

Post by xiphias2 »

bombcar wrote: post #268
socialismisok wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the far left in the States it's considered work, and something that should be well regulated and safe. The center left/centrist (Democrats) position is more split. Some folks think it's a bodily autonomy issue and others think it's degrading. Feminist opinion is likewise split. But most feminists I know tend to fall in the, "if it's consensual, it should be protected and regulated work. You shouldn't fear going to…

Where "it's just work" often breaks down is when you get to the question "if someone can take a sex work job but chooses not do, can they get unemployment".

There's a much more important case: when a boss asks his assistent to bring coffee or run some private errands for him, she can just say no, but if a boss asks his assistent to perform sex work for him, it's considered harassment and the boss can be considered a criminal depending the circumstances.

I believe this is a good thing, but prostitution is clearly not ,,just work'' just because it's trendy to call it sex work.

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

#424

Post by Volundr »

a-user-you-like wrote: post #410
Volundr wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the first amendment guarantees freedom of religion and none of these 13 colonies banned prostitution, so it seems your assumption is incorrect.

The first Amendment guarantees that Congress will not establish a religion. The states already had them established. And adultery was a capital crime, read between the lines. Look, if your daughters came to you and said “we want to be whores for a living”, you’ve got bigger issues than arguing on this website.

> And adultery was a capital crime, read between the lines.

Uhhh... No, no it was not.

> Look, if your daughters came to you and said “we want to be whores for a living”, you’ve got bigger issues than arguing on this website.

Better throw them in prison then. That'll solve the problem.

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

#425

Post by UncleMeat »

zmgsabst wrote: post #323
UncleMeat wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).…

Not so. Consider gay sex. Conservatives consider this to be "moral degeneracy" and seek to ban things like gay marriage or even gay sex altogether. Occasionally, conservatives will claim this is about protecting gay people from disease but this is obviously a lie because

1. they never exclude gay women

2. they don't actually follow through on other policies to prevent STDs in the gay community and even frequently consider things like HIV to be divine judgement

It becomes clear that the concern about "moral degeneracy" is not at all related to a desire to keep gay people from experiencing harm.

Similarly, the concern about "moral degeneracy" related to sex work is not at all related to a desire to keep sex workers from experiencing harm. Instead it is about "protecting" society from what they perceive to be evil harlots.

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

#426

Post by inglor_cz »

a-user-you-like wrote: post #410
Volundr wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the first amendment guarantees freedom of religion and none of these 13 colonies banned prostitution, so it seems your assumption is incorrect.

The first Amendment guarantees that Congress will not establish a religion. The states already had them established. And adultery was a capital crime, read between the lines. Look, if your daughters came to you and said “we want to be whores for a living”, you’ve got bigger issues than arguing on this website.

"And adultery was a capital crime"

Are you confusing Islam with Christianity? Adultery is a capital crime in traditional Islamic jurisprudence.

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

#427

Post by Brian_K_White »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #352
Brian_K_White wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like none of my or your business. Neither of us has any legitimate interest in them other than do they rob anyone? Do they burn down houses? Do they perform at some job and pay taxes? If they spend all their money on prostitutes, it's no more your business than if they spend it all on video games or cars or rare stamps.

I don't agree. A society where prostitution is welcomed and celebrated is very different than one where it's not, and it's entirely reasonable for me to say I'd like to live in the second kind of society. You mention cars, so I'd point to muffler mandates as a good analogy - an un-muffled car won't rob anyone or burn down your house, but because they're loud and annoying they've been prohibited.

I garantee without even knowing you ahead of time, that I could find 10 things about your life that you value, that I could make an argument that society would benefit if you weren't allowed those things.

I don't have to know anything about you ahead of time because this applies equally to every human on the planet.

Thus your argument is invalid.

Worse than that that, it's not merely in error which anyone can be wrong about anything, it's an ugly offensive personality trait to even want to try to make that sort of argument and rationalization in the first place.

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

#428

Post by colpabar »

rendang wrote: post #413
colpabar wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you kill someone I care about, I will want to see you punished. So many people agree with this that we have laws saying you can't kill people or else you'll be punished. But if you pay someone to have sex with them, so what? If both parties consent to everything, then who is harmed? Some people get mad because they think it's immoral, but not everyone.

> who is harmed This is begging the question (assuming morality must be based on harm or consent). Not everyone agrees on the morality of all sorts of things. Human sacrifice has been licit in various times and places. Lending someone a high-interest payday loan is a consensual transaction but morally suspect according to many, and so on.

> Not everyone agrees on the morality of all sorts of things.

Well yeah, of course. My point is that the overwhelming majority of people agree that murder is bad and should be illegal. That's not the case with sex work, which is why people argue about it online all the time. When I asked who is harmed by sex work, I didn't mean to imply that no one is harmed, I just meant that the answer to that question varies a lot more than the answer to who is harmed by murder.

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

#429

Post by Brian_K_White »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #407
Volundr wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone out there is actively advocating to be able to have sex with a prostitute next to you in a restraunt then I see your point. Otherwise prostitution is already not part of public life.

There are people out there ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/09/sex-work-... ) advocating for prostitution as a reasonable career path which should be discussed openly with women who feel undervalued or unfulfilled in their current career. I don't think people are gonna start plowing each other in public, but I think there's a very real possibility that in a decade or two it could be considered strang…

What if they did? In what way does this harm you?

At one time they said the same thing about exposing any skin at all even at the beach.

Every human, yes including children gasp has a body with body parts, so mere exposure to the sight of them and knowledge of their existance is not harmful. Sight of the act of sex is merely more of the same. Kids on farms see it every day from birth.

At worst it's perhaps distasteful or lacks appropriate decorum in some contexts. I find practically everyone to lack taste or decorum in most WalMarts. It's not a valid argument.

It's only worth about as much legal consequence as defecating in the wrong place. In fact defecating is worth more since it at least carries an actual public health consequence to others beyond "I don't want to see that"

"I don't want to see that" is an utterly invalid demand, since anyone can say that about anyone for any reason. They used to be able to say it about merely being a mixed race couple in public, or hell a lot of people still do say it about gay couples or trans individuals merely existing in the room. It is ever so slowly being recognized that in order to try to claim any kind of say over anyone else like that, you have to show harm, and no one can show any harm from a person merely existing as gay or trans or black or female etc. Anything you can say about how obviously depraved and harmful it would be to see naked people or sex acts in public, used to be said about all kinds of ordinary harmless things. People were imprisoned or killed over nothing but "I don't want to see that" and "I don't like it that that exists" without any actual harm to justify it.

Talking this way about sex work and evidense of sex work being visible in public, is exactly the same.

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

#430

Post by pstuart »

a-user-you-like wrote: post #359
pjc50 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that the "war on drugs" approach is pretty ineffective while at the same time inflicting significant collateral damage. It already is underground, and it already is almost illegal in most jurisdictions. (Actually criminalizing the exchange of valuable consideration for sex hits the problem that things that look suspiciously like it are endemic in hetero dating and "giving money to your tinder date for a t…

You’re skipping the moral problem. The road to hell is paved with utilitarians.

What happens between 2 consenting adults isn't my business, nor is it yours.

Is sex outside of marriage immoral? Are you citing biblical proof to justify your claim?

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