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?

#341

Post by randomdata » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

gautamdivgi wrote: post #305

tablespoon wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP appears to be mostly talking about porn, but your points seem to be mostly addressing prostitution. Prostitution has long considered an disreputable and undesirable activity, and it along with other types of sex work are often tightly coupled with involuntary exploitation. A lot of the stuff that you're criticizing derives from attempts to continue to legally discourage prostitution while preventing the legal…

Isn’t prostitution essentially porn without the cameras? Why ostracize legal prostitution? If porn is allowed, prostitution should be too. Yes, there are issues of exploitation and licensing. They are at both places - maybe less for porn because it’s not as much in the shadows. Bring sex work out of the shadows. Just normalize it.

The camera provides a record of the transaction for tax purposes.

Prostituion is much harder to monitor, especially when the buyer also has incentive to pretend that the transaction didn't take place.

There are, perhaps, solutions that could be developed to deal the problem but if you are the lawmaker why would you go out of your way to make your job harder?

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

#342

Post by x86x87 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

bergenty wrote: post #191

It’s a little too easy to be nude on the internet and make money off it compared to being a prostitute irl. There needs to be some moral policing in my opinion so online pornography doesn’t become normalized. I’m all for completely legalized prostitution, but the balance is it still needs to be on the margins to have an upstanding society.

Too easy to be nude? Wtf are you talking about? A lot of tech we have today may not have existed or flourished if not for porn.

There needs to be moral policing? No. There is no need for this. Let the market decide. If people want porn give em porn (you need a reality check btw. Most internet traffic is porn. Even today). Also, puritan moralistic misguided people need to get with the program. You don't like it? Don't do it. You don't hold the absolute truth (in fact you are just recycling garbage that was created out of thin air millenniums ago and does not apply) and you don't get to decide how everyone lives their lives.

Upstanding society my ass. An upstanding society is one where you are free to do whatever you want to do and you are polite and tolerant of other people that don't fit your ideas. That's upstanding!

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

#343

Post by kodah » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #294

_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…

The OP appears to be mostly talking about porn, but your points seem to be mostly addressing prostitution. Prostitution has long considered an disreputable and undesirable activity, and it along with other types of sex work are often tightly coupled with involuntary exploitation. A lot of the stuff that you're criticizing derives from attempts to continue to legally discourage prostitution while preventing the legal…

The system failed to act as intended then, and I'd honestly not be remisced if I didn't mention it creating new victims. The people staring at that data and making laws know this; it's not like they're unaware and yet these systems are still staples. At some point you have to sit back and question whether they're actually trying to solve a problem at all.

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

#344

Post by walls » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:06 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.

Quoted post unavailable.

No post body was provided.

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

#345

Post by tablespoon » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

npteljes wrote: post #339

tablespoon wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

I think the contempt is there, because we're talking about someone's parent, and for some reason, all cultures (that I know of) picked the mother as the one being out of line. As in, when there's someone that's out of line, that has to be the woman. If this would be random, or balanced, we'd curse at others like your father is a deadbeat, or that your father's sperm is weak, and therefore you are weak, or things like…

> I think the contempt is there, because we're talking about someone's parent, and for some reason, all cultures (that I know of) picked the mother as the one being out of line. As in, when there's someone that's out of line, that has to be the woman.

There's definitely contempt there, but just for the person being insulted.

I think you're analyzing those kinds of insults using the wrong framework. It doesn't have much to do with women as a class, but rather with the relationship with the insulted person to his mother. Insulting someone's mother will probably get under someone's skin more than insulting their father, because (especially historically) they probably have a warmer/closer relationship with their mother due to gender roles around child-rearing.

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

#346

Post by x86x87 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #334

x86x87 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Maybe I should have been more specific: cyber-crime. Ransomware is a perfect use case for crypto.

Yes! CYBERcrime! Those criminals are so dumb that they cannot figure out how to ask for money any other way.

Let's cherrypick one thing and throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Also CC fraud that impacts all of us is done using crypto. Silly me.

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

#347

Post by feet » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

TremendousJudge wrote: post #256

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 thought they believed sex work is fundamentally sinful and that's why it should be banned. I guess we talked to different conservatives.

Freedom of religion was supposed to be a thing in the US. Sin is not a good reason to make a law that binds those who don't follow the same religion

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

#348

Post by LatteLazy » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #71

LatteLazy wrote: post #13

We're really seeing a counterrevolution around sex and sexuality. From Row vs Wade to crackdowns on pornography to this, America is getting back to its puritanical roots...

The French writer Houellebecq had a pretty compelling explanation for this. With religious norms ebbing away or being transformed (even among right-wingers), sexuality becomes another market parallel to the standard economic one. This was always the case, but the shifting norms speed up and formalize the process. All else being equal, in a scenario where sexuality exists but restrictive norms don't, the natural concl…

>One consequence of this is that people with little sexual capital will try to recreate norms anyway they can. Therefore we end up with a hodgepodge of ideas, religious or not, that have as their only link to one another the desire to enforce sexual restrictions and quell anxiety surrounding sexual prowess as much as possible.

I've never seen this logical jump but it makes perfect sense. Thanks!

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

#349

Post by npteljes » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #345

npteljes wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the contempt is there, because we're talking about someone's parent, and for some reason, all cultures (that I know of) picked the mother as the one being out of line. As in, when there's someone that's out of line, that has to be the woman. If this would be random, or balanced, we'd curse at others like your father is a deadbeat, or that your father's sperm is weak, and therefore you are weak, or things like…

> I think the contempt is there, because we're talking about someone's parent, and for some reason, all cultures (that I know of) picked the mother as the one being out of line. As in, when there's someone that's out of line, that has to be the woman. There's definitely contempt there, but just for the person being insulted. I think you're analyzing those kinds of insults using the wrong framework. It doesn't have mu…

That's a very interesting point! Thanks for bringing it up.

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

#350

Post by ashout33 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

throwaway4aday wrote: post #307

forgetfreeman wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is easily the most wildly inaccurate categorization of conservative positions on sex work I have ever, and am ever likely to, encounter. Conservatives (in the US anyway) view sex work as grossly amoral and sex workers as sub-human and a threat to the community. Collectively they don't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about sex worker safety, they just want it banned outright through any means necessary.

Opinions vary. Certainly many people, not just conservatives would think that sex work is immoral. I don't believe I've ever met someone that believes sex workers are subhuman, that reeks of hyperbole. The perception of sex work as a threat to community is probably wider spread still, in its current form it certainly isn't conducive to safety for anyone involved. Overall, you're simply setting up a strawman that poor…

Really well thought out reply. Thanks for taking the time to write this, it really helped me understand conservative positions on not legalizing prostitution