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Under the skin of OnlyFans

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Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe that making sex work illegal and driving it back underground is not helping that conversation. I never indicated either of these would be solutions. I don't believe elevating sex work to a pedestal in the cultural consciousness is right or ethical. That is primarily what I am taking issue with. It can be lucrative but the toll on young women, often very young women, can be great. It's a damaging professio…

> I don't believe elevating sex work to a pedestal in the cultural consciousness is right or ethical. It's not being put on a pedestal. It's being pulled up from the gutters. > It's a damaging profession both to its consumers and to its creators. There are far more damaging professions that are well respected and accepted in the modern world. However, because the stigma attached to them is generally positive, they ge…

Have you read my original comment upstream? If not, please understand the position I'm coming from first.

My wife is a sex worker. She has been for five years, four of those together with me. Before I met her, I was a part of a community of sex workers I had known since I was in my twenties so add 5 years more of direct experience with the lives and minds of those workers. My friend who has worked as a domme for the last decade once called me "a friend to sex workers". I deeply care for the people who choose this profession. Ten years ago, five years ago I would say you were right. But I have seen the damage first, second, and third hand.

> It's not being put on a pedestal. It's being pulled up from the gutters.

There is nothing to "pull up". To touch it is to touch a viper that will bite and hold on until you let go. The vast network of clients, which I hear of every day objectifies, commits violence, and minimizes the humanity of the people engaged in sex work.

Yes, it is "by and large ugly and violent". Violent to the prostitutes who risk their lives every time they meet a client, violent to the peace and stability of the mind. Ugly to peel back the spectacled layer and discover the worst of ourselves: covetous, vain and brutal.

I do not make this observation as one uninitiated. I write with the weight of a decade of contact with these people I call my wife and friends.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#473

So our kids are getting older so I've been paying more attention to popular social networks and it's wild how many YouTubers, Twitch'ers, TikTok'ers, Instagram'ers have OF content directly linked from their non-porn bios. I don't like it, but I'm not sure what a good solution is. I mean, people are free to do what they'd like, but it's hard to police screen time 100% of the time and their peer group has a lot more ac…

Sex is certainly the most normal thing in the world so I'm not sure we should be fighting against normalizing it. I understand the difference is paid versus non-paid, but in a market-oriented society the realm of "non-paid" is generally very tiny and it's arguable that the two can't really be divided in our current socioeconomic orientation.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered the alternative that this is not an evil which you are unable to control but just another way of living / thinking of sexual content? There is nothing inherently evil about this stuff so why is it terrible that it is becoming more accepted/common? If in 30 years we live in a society where people post nudes like they do facebook posts, is there anything wrong about this? Could you describe the harm…

>> If in 30 years we live in a society where people post nudes like they do facebook posts.. ..then the calculus will be different. Current culture is what it is, and we live within it. Imagine a culture where prostitution is "no big deal." It's acceptable for parents to encourage college kids to take a summer job in a brothel and it affects their life in the same way as a summer job at a car wash. Just because you c…

"..then the calculus will be different."

We only get to "then" by challenging the norms we are faced with "now". The question is do we want to move forward to a more accepting world, or settle for the narrow, judgmental mess we've inherited.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so much true. It's almost like swearing in English is not swearing at all, even in semi-formal context. You can tell the worst swear in English you can think of, and it just sounds harmless compared to swearing in local language.

I'd posit English doesn't have swear words anymore. I'm a native English speaker and I've noticed that swearing no longer feels like a big deal. Our media and online discourse are saturated with the worst swears our language has to bear, to the point none of it hits with gravity. I also think some of it has to do with changing generational attitudes. Millennials and Gen Z use swearing as friendly banter. You can call…

It does, it just depends on your register, and they also change regularly.

Shit and damn used to be taboo, but they haven't been now for a while. However (in the American dialect, I think) "cunt" is pretty taboo, as well as the various racial terms, and "fuck" can be taboo depending on the context (i.e. you wouldn't use it to address your server at a restaurant).

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd posit English doesn't have swear words anymore. I'm a native English speaker and I've noticed that swearing no longer feels like a big deal. Our media and online discourse are saturated with the worst swears our language has to bear, to the point none of it hits with gravity. I also think some of it has to do with changing generational attitudes. Millennials and Gen Z use swearing as friendly banter. You can call…

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/what-georg... > In medieval Bristol, one casually referred to a glade called Fuckinggrove, while up in Chester, one could proudly sport a name like Roger Fuckbythenavel. Only later did fuck become a word so dirty that generations of lexicographers pretended that it didn’t exist. And just as a word can attain the power of profane status, it can lose it.... > More broad…

> She seems so old-fashioned today, but how many of us would be up for watching a hot new comedian on Netflix gabbing cockily about how we need to get over n*** and f***?

If you are using symbols indicating quotations, then you don't do unmarked editorial alterations. The quote from the article is “...get over nigger and faggot?”

By making the changes without marking them as editorial alterations (e.g., “...n[*****] and f[*****]”) you are misattributing your prudishness to the source article.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the cycle of stigmatization begins again… Almost as if there is a purpose to it. Is stigmatization always an objectively bad thing? I suppose it depends on your frame of reference. I don’t think any person should be stigmatized for what they do, but certain activities may well deserve it. I suppose that’s also a recurrent theme in the New Testament. One thing I think ought to be stigmatized more is video gam…

> One thing I think ought to be stigmatized more is video game usage. I know many people (mostly men) my age (late adolescence) whose lives have been/were destroyed by chronic video game addiction. Why stigmatize something instead of the addiction itself? I knew someone who poured themselves into music production and fantasy to the detriment of everything else. Would you stigmatize music? Perhaps if something is almo…

Yes, fair point re: video games, I agree.

That said, perhaps there are some activities which are not addictions which are still destructive and should be stigmatized mainly to protect the person performing the activity (such becoming an "OnlyFans creator").

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two anecdote from different sides of the spectrum and you feel the one you disagree with is dangerous. Just because normal jobs suck, doesn’t mean sex work is good.

> Just because normal jobs suck, doesn’t mean sex work is good. Just because sex work sucks doesn't mean that you improve sex workers conditions by criminalizing their work while creating no legal opportunity. Criminalizing sex work just makes it suck more , and the reduces the best case for people for whom it was their best available option (whether or not it still is.)

This logic could apply to any illegal trade.

Why do we make killers lives worse with criminalization of murder?

Because there are negative effects to individuals and societies at large.

Sex work is not the only way for people to support themselves, anymore than professional killers who can also find other means of work.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#479
post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be 18 to sign up. It's like saying the military is a mechanized process turning young men into troops. Some people sign up for the military before they graduate high school, and gladly. There has to be some arbitrary age where a boys and girls become an adult, when they can and must accept responsibility.

That is low quality comparison. Whether or not you agree with the high goals of the (US?) military; for a great many people it is a solid career, a role model they never had, and possibly a stepping stone out of an awful life. Also a very small percentage of these are actually fighting in infantry risking their lives. This is much different than saying "Ooh youre 18 now, look how much money these 3 people make sellin…

Getting naked on camera vs killing people in foreign countries - I know which one I'd like my children to pick.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always surprised at how surprised people are that there is a market for porn. Almost no one would not be satisfied with a generic porn channel that showed random content of random ages, random body types, random genders, etc. Everyone has some criteria when it comes to porn they consume. Some people just have more specific criteria than others.

I'm a little confused by your comment: doesn't everyone get the exact porn they want by searching specifically? I don't just hit random on pornhub until I get what I want, I search for "gay twinks". Maybe straight guys don't have to learn this "skill"? :)

Some people's preferences are more ...refined =)

What if your specific kink was red-headed twinks with a scottish accent and freckles? Can you easily google up some of that?

Or maybe if you found one on OnlyFans, would you cough up the $10 a month for that exact content?

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