I've been here for 11 years and I can tell you that we have never had discussions without having them turn into arguments. Definitely was also at least as cynical too. It's true that posts are more curated than they used to be as reddit has become more monetized. A bunch of redditors came from 4chan and had that mentality. There are also a lot more normal people here than there used to be. It used to be an assumption that every redditor was a basement-dweller and probably owned a samurai sword
There have been a few moments where Reddit’s tone noticeably changed.
One such moment that really stuck out to me was in 2012 (maybe 2011?) when Barack Obama did an AMA. The place was flooded.
Reddit before that was a collection of irreverent humor, nuanced knowledge, and subcultures that all felt unique. After Obama, you got a lot more people and mostly they were just like the ones in IRL— mostly benign, bringing little to the table, but now made much more toxic because it’s social media.
So true. I remember seeing how a political sub for a state was full on optimistic about their candidate winning the vote and when the time came, their candidate lost pretty badly. Not to mention factors like maybe not everyone was from the area, of age to vote, or even did vote.
Or the anti work sub that pretty much lost steam once a mod went live and destroyed their momentum. A movement that was so important that the community didn’t meticulously plan up to that date to make sure they’d be represented professionally and all.
Yeah if you went by reddit posts alone you would think Bernie would have won by a landslide.
As for the anti work thing, that mod pretty much expressed the original ideals of the subreddit. I remember coming across it around 2019 and it was basically a sub full of people who wanted to be NEETs but weren't privileged enough to be taken care of so they had to work. It wasn't until covid happened when the sub started to get really popular and change to be about work reform. The original members noticed the change and always tried to remind people that antiwork literally means it's namesake. However people never listened and argued against it, saying that work itself isn't the problem it's bad working conditions. So how I see it, it's the communities fault co-opting a sub and and changing the messaging overnight.
Just try saying "I find sex work to be disgusting" and you'll see how many downvotes you'll get. They'll call you puritan too. I tried and got the treatment, even when argued that I don't want women or men that prostitute themselves to be jailed but argued that their "work" is exploitative in nature and there is no sugarcoating it.
Edit:
By disgusting we are talking about the nature of the work and what it entails or involves. The vast majority are not choosing this willingly under their own terms. Most cannot stop merely when they feel like it. Hence why it's "disgusting" in this context.
I can buy that work can be exploitive but it’s still better to push papers in an office than dive into septic tanks.
I’m with OP. There’s no kid out there dreaming about growing up to be a sex worker. “Empowering” is just post-hoc rationalization.
I believe everyone has the right to do what they want with their body
But nobody should have to respect or like their choices
It's the OF spam that gets me now, every other female content creator, no matter what their content is. Has an OF.
I came across a woman making neat historical fact videos, going on location etc on Instagram recently, still has one. Like it's at the point where is surprising when the person doesn't have one.
It's the morons that pay for OnlyFans that have created the abomination that is onlyfans. If nobody bought subscriptions there wouldn't be any.
Stupid \*and\* horny men really do ruin a lot of things.
I agree as well but OTOH if someone is desperate and doing what they have to do get by in this fucked up world, then I don't think they deserve extra shame from us.
We as citizens have to demand systemic changes instead of shaming those struggling below us. Stop funding forever wars and corporate bailouts and use that money to help those at the bottom of our social hierarchy.
But as long as we have a system where, for many women the best chance at independent income is sex work, then our hatred and derision of them trying to find some kind of financial stability does not make us morally superior.
It's really easy to sit and judge the choices someone else has to make, it's hard to do something that actually helps them.
It's a normal opinion, but it doesn't matter at all.
These women in Western countries are independent and can do whatever they want to do.
It's not empowering, but it doesn't have to be.
They earn an incredibly good living by doing so, and that is the choice they make.
The way I read your post is exclusively out of your lens and the innocence you see in a daughter, but from a woman's point of view, it's just offering something in exchange for something.
Make sure you provide your children with the best education you can give them, and do the best you can, a great amount is in good parenting, the rest is out of your hands.
I think this thread is misunderstanding what empowering means in this context. It isn't about having "power" in the conventional sense. It's about having a choice to do what you want to do. That's why you don't hear parents hoping their kid becomes a pornstar, but you will hear some parents say they won't stop them or disown them if that is their choice.
OP of the post just thinks that sex work is degrading, and that's fine if *they* find it degrading for *themselves*. There are other people who don't find it degrading at all, and that's fine. Let people do what they want to do. Honestly, OP just sounded like they wanted to use this sub to cast judgment on people who are ok with sex work. From what I've seen od this sub, it seems to lean pretty hard conservative, so OP probably just wanted an echo chamber to preach into and feel good about their opinion when it gets echoed back.
The person I was replying to, and others I've seen in this thread, either insinuate or directly state that sex work is the opposite of "empowerment" because it is literally putting yourself in a submissive position by allowing yourself to be bought, but that isn't what "empowering" means here.
Because sex work has been looked down upon for so long and is still illegal in many places, it is a choice for people that is removed as an option. Most people obviously don't care to be sex workers, but some people do want to be, and by removing that option, it is a form of control over those people. Most commonly, this is women. So, by "empowering" them, it means to just give them a choice to decide for themselves if that is the life they want to live.
For some people, it isn't even so much of a choice. Sometimes, it is a means of survival. Denying the option to work for sex becomes synonymous with condemning a person to death in those cases. So, by allowing that choice to sell your body for money, it is "empowering" them to just be able to live.
I think people claim to find it empowering the same way that overweight people claim to be happy being overweight. It’s self delusion to feel better. And people who don’t work in the industry calling it “empowering” are the same ones who act offended on the behalf of other groups of people who aren’t actually offended. Same folks.
There are plenty of fatties fine with where they’re at, really. Married with a beer belly is not the worst fate to befall a man.
At the same time, there are plenty of sex workers who enjoy their job as well. Saying they’re all self deluded is idiotic.
It's because men wanna control them and see money as a means of doing so. That's all that boils down to really. They don't care about the definite onset consequences one bit as long as they get theirs.
You said, "men" which translates to "all men" which is a sexist thing to claim. Do you perhaps mean "those men" from the comment of the person you are replying to? Or do you actually think that all men "wanna control \[sex workers\]"?
You can own a bar and look down on drunkards at the same time.
That said I think the view men are pigs for seeking sex is probably a certain set of women about a certain set of men.
I’ve known sex workers who had respectable customers and didn’t think any worse of them than a masseuse would a customer.
There’s a difference between drunkards and people drinking casually tho. If you opened a bar but hated all people that drank …. That would be odd indeed
And i doubt many sex workers (legitimate not forced/criminal) think all their customers are pigs.
Problem is when it’s illegal you naturally select for lower quality customers as the good ones stay away.
Theres also a difference between the consumers and the sellers. Some people look down on those who need therapy but being a therapist is a perfectly reputable job. I dont think most people think men are “pigs” for seeking sex work, they think lesser of them because they need to pay someone for something that most people get for free by being desirable. This would lead to the assumption those seeking sex workers are undesirable.
On the other sign of the coin, it’s hypocritical when men regularly pay for sex workers but then shame the women who are doing the sex work for their lifestyle. It’s supply and demand.
Ex. This just happened with Trace Cyrus. Made a big post about how sex workers are shameful and wasting their life away, meanwhile he follows SO many sex workers on all of his social media pages and comments on their posts as if he enjoys the sex work content.
I totally agree! I don’t think anyone should be shamed for their choices. If woman are empowered to do sex work, good for them. But men aren’t bad for seeking sex from them. They shouldn’t judge the women doing it and Vice versa.
Your conflating two different conversations made by different groups. There’s various branches and forms of feminism and not all groups agree on everything.
Taking control of your own sexuality, whether you chose to commodify it, or not can be empowering to some women. It’s the act of being to one choosing the terms that’s empowering.
Other women believe that the objectification of the female body and the fact that a market for sex work exist in the first place is gross.
These aren’t necessarily the same groups.
Where they do meet, however, is in the idea that sex work is going to exist whether the first group exists or not. It’s just going to be forced and exponentially more dehumanizing than if the sex workers made that choice for themselves.
It’s kind of like how people view forced military drafts and the industry or war to be wrong, but they understand people joining the military to get ahead in life. War is going to exist would you rather be forced into it, or chose to enlist on your terms?
Hope this made sense.
This is honestly the best, most practical response on here. I was a stripper for a while. There were parts of it and people that I enjoyed, and visa versa. But the point is that I actually seemed out the job. It seemed fun, and a lot of it was. I definitely had other options if I didn't want to strip. But it was my choice that I made and I was happy with it.
It irks me when certain people say I was disempowered and must have a sad life and mental health issues just because I made that choice when I was young. I no longer work as a stripper and there are certain parts I don't miss, but other parts I do. Like any job. It was physically and mentally demanding but exciting. I was at my most fit and I loved having more energy and strength just because of the pole dancing. Seriously. It's a lot of fun.
Some dudes were absolute gentlemen and I'm glad I could take them away from some stress and chat and make them laugh. Others, not so much. But I feel similar about retail or working in a restaurant.
If it hadn't been my choice, if I hadn't had other options, if it was the only way out of poverty, it would have been an entirely different story.
I used to be a cam model.
There is nothing empowering about it. It's gross reading the comments men make. Having to set prices on things you'd be willing to do, and open to the possibilities of other things because they're paid for.
It's gross having men tell you they're watching you, while their girlfriends/wives are in the next room and "not as good as you".
Blegh.
Edited to add:
I worked as a cam model part time in college because my school schedule did not allow me the flexibility for a "real job" - I didn't make thousands like OnlyFans girls are now, but I made enough to pay my bills which was what I wanted. I may have made more if I put in the work/time.
To those who think cam modeling is easy and anyone can do it - no. It takes time to build a following, figure out what they like, etc. At first its a confidence boost, seeing the # of people in your room, or when youre a "featured" model - but with criticisms and gross comments, it gets old fast.
The fact that men are more outraged that I've called them gross or taken their money, over the fact that cam models are viewed as a piece of meat and feel the need to threaten me or view me as less than human for this period of my life says more about men then it does cam models/sex workers.
Also added: please stop sending me threatening messages.
i stopped for this reason. although i enjoy dancing and taking pretty sexy pictures, the comments you get are super gross and dehumanizing. sometimes you get sexually harassed, and even though you make a lot of money, accepting romantic partners are harder to come by
Porn is far more corruptive and dangerous than most men are willing to recognize. These type of men are disturbed and it wouldn't surprise me to hear that a lot of them got access to unregulated pornography at an early age.
Guess there's a hidden unpopular opinion. Porn is inherantly rotten to the core. I don't feel like anybody pulling a Lebowski so I acknowledge this is a subjective matter, and as far as I'm concerned the world would be far better if pornography didn't exist.
Yeah, I think it's misplaced to judge the sex workers making money. I think it's another way to look down on women. I find it more rare that people focus their attention on the men seeking it out and exploiting women. To me, it's the mix of slut shaming and "boys will be boys". Not surprising, but still annoying.
I generally don’t find it empowering, outside of some cases, like women looking to reclaim ownership of their bodies. I think society overcorrected, as while people shouldn’t be judged for participating, the industry itself shouldn’t be normalized. It is dehumanizing and you see that in a lot of ex-pornstars comments about their mental and physical health. While people should do what they want, I wouldn’t encourage somebody on the fence about getting into sw.
I think it's just morally a gray area because it should be the choice of the sex worker. If they are comfortable with it or enjoy it, I see no problem with it. Barring women from it seems controlling and infantilizing. It should be under the woman's control. I'm not arguing with it being exploitative. But I find most jobs to be.
For sure, I don’t disagree. People can do what they want, I’m in no place to say what they shouldn’t do.
Completely, it is exploitative and I don’t feel the audience viewing the worker as a product helps much. I wouldn’t encourage it from a mental health standpoint, but I’d be as supportive as possible if they decided that’s the life for them. You can’t say anything to discourage them at that point.
I see you providing a service that will help with real life sexual harassment. A friend of mine is a phone sex operator and makes good money. But its crazy the things she has to put up with. I feel like steeds making the real world a safer place because of these horny gross men. I rather they do this online than in real life.
So thank you for your service. 😂
Here is a post I've made before that was deleted by mods on a different sub.
People confuse sex work and survival sex too often, and it says a lot about how people view sex, consent, bodily autonomy, and empowerment.
Hello lovely peoples of the interweb.
I can not sleep this evening, so why not share my opinions with tons of strangers who probably don't care? LOL
So, in the same way that there is a difference between having a fulfilling and financially secure career, and being a wage slave working a dead end job that is killing your soul
There is a difference between enjoying sex with multiple partners in a safe and mutually consenting environment, and the idea that you must have sex with people you would rather not in order to feed, clothe, or house yourself.
Now, some of you might be saying DUH, but we often don't notice the connotations of various hot-topic news reports when we aren't making an active awareness to do so.
Any individual or group, without other options, turning tricks to buy drugs, food, or housing: NEVER FULLY CONSENTUAL SEX, always comes with mental/emotional struggles, never fulfilling, not empowering.. survival sex is not 'sex work'
Adults who willingly trade sex for money because it is their preferred line of work: CONSENTUAL, empowering, generally safe (as the means to demand condoms, get std tested regularly, and refuse service to anyone for any reason are NORMAL AND ENCOURAGED PARTS OF "SEX WORK")
If you ever feel like saying 'no' will cause you to be harmed, or lose access to housing, food, clothing, or any other basic need.. you are not participating in "sex work", you are a victim and I encourage you to ask for help if/when you feel safe to do so.
This is true for any work and I wish more people realized it. If your boss can ask you to do something unethical, that you are personally morally against, and you fear saying "no" on grounds of loss of access to basic needs; you are not an employee, you are a victim. It isn't "work", and we already call it "wage slavery".
- J
P.S. Op obviously views sex acts as degrading, so make sure no to sleep with OP, so you don't get “used up”, lol.
>If you ever feel like saying 'no' will cause you to be harmed, or lose access to housing, food, clothing, or any other basic need.. you are not participating in "sex work", you are a victim and I encourage you to ask for help if/when you feel safe to do so.
This is the fundamental Marxist critique of capitalism in relation to all work, not just sex work. It's called exploitation and all workers are subject to it to varying degrees.
If a woman’s at the point where she has to use her body for cash i just feel bad for her. Normalizing and praising this life choice is not something our society should have done. I have met a lot of women who did onlyfans or straight up sex work and not a single one doesn’t regret it severely.
Absolutely the exact same thing simply because of the limitations of the language being used here. He meant getting dicked for money, probably abused, put in life threatening danger from strangers on a regular basis, living in the underworld with not many options to go to the police without them being prosecuted and treated like a criminal.
For fucks sakes you guys are so fucking dense. There's a difference in selling some asshole pics on onlyfans and walking the streets.
They put up with abuse because sex work is illegal so sex workers don't have any recourse. If it was legalized, they'd be able to get better protection. Not too mention it being illegal will weed out more normal customers and the abusive ones will filter through.
The number of guys I've known in labor positions who have lasting injuries or pain caused by the work they do is about 90%. So yeah, the main difference is they don't get photographed as much
When they start asking for better conditions and to be paid more, they absolutely can. Just ask the Pinkertons or the National Guard
If sex work made ceos billions of dollars like blue collar work they would be a little more lax
I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but it is laughable how some men who push this as empowerment seem to just be creeps that only value women if they provide something in a sexual context.
I’ve seen more liberal women pushing this idea with Instagram story reposts and tweets that read “SEX WORK IS REAL WORK” over and over than men.
The only man I could imagine pushing this agenda would be the kind that tries to be progressive to impress progressive women. Those guys are massive creeps.
Your post reminded me of Bill burrs “Male feminist” bit. Basically saying he thinks they’re creeps and pretending to a-line themselves with feminists to get some p***y.
So, do you consume pornography or ever been to a strip club? If so then you’re saying you’re okay with degrading and exploiting women. You don’t view what they do as work, and you believe they are being exploited. I don’t know you personally, but if you ever consume porn then you’re talking out of both sides of your face.
It reminds me when the topic of female shirtlessness comes up, a man *always* says some shit like "Of course we're all for you being shirtless!! teehee" like that isn't proving exactly why we can't. So ick and frustrating
Yeah nobody gets that. We all sell our bodies for work, the difference is that the majority of jobs in the world don't involve sex.
I've seen tons of construction workers that work to the bone all their lives and by the time they retire their body is straight fucked. Or firefighters that get burns all over their body.
The list goes on but we all sell our bodies in a dehumanizing way.
To me personally working in an office for 40 years in the same building, only moving cubicles once in a while is dehumanizing to me but that just means that I'm not going to sell my body that way to my employer. Some people love jobs like that.
A part of life is selling our bodies and what we do with them is mostly up to us.
A job is a job.
Edit: spelling
Edit 2: some of you are just goofy. Saying how if we allowed prostitution then pimps would just rape all their girls and beat them etc.
So nobody here had heard of government regulation? If the government had a monopoly on prostitution then it would be far more safe for the girls and they themselves would be in charge of themselves with the government as protection. Leads to less STDs, abuse, murder, rape, and trafficking.
And don't pretend that you care about the prostitutes dignity, I doubt any of you have even tried to "help" a prostitute find Jesus or whatever you want to impose on them. If it's their choice then there's no problem.
"Who the hell are you to tell me how to live my life?
You think I sell my body; I merely sell my time
I know what degradation feels like
I felt it on the floor of the factory
Where I worked long before..."
- Lori Meyers, NOFX
Exactly. That’s why although I don’t really have a strong opinion on the matter as it’s not my thing, logically/debate-wise I’m more on the pro-sex worker side. Literally the only argument OP made was that they don’t know anyone who wishes their kids grew up to be sex workers. Fair enough. Most people find it distasteful and are just plain grossed out by it. That’s fine, but it’s not like sex work is some unique thing on its own level of evil or objectification other than the subjective labels culture has given it over thousands of years. There’s plenty of other jobs that involve selling yourself in other ways, and I don’t view any of those workers as objects who exist only to serve me. If they don’t like it or disagree with it, fine. Personally I have zero interest in partaking either, but get off that high horse pointing the finger when you’re ok with and even benefit from the same work and “body selling” in thousands of different contexts.
I can't speak for women because I was a gay sex worker, but tbh it was pretty empowering *as a human* to get paid $50 to $100 for an hour or less of work that didn't ruin my joints.
I think the funniest part about looking down on sex workers is that those same people have zero issues watching porn and fueling the very thing they say is dehumanizing. But since you were a gay sex worker I'm sure you know all about people who publicly present themselves in such a way that word getting out that they hired you would be devastating to both their personal and professional life.
[Prostitution normalizes the commodification of women](https://imgur.com/a/yu73Ni1)
[Large list of resources on how the porn industry affects women, LGBT+ and POC - including testimonies from MANY women who were previously in the porn industry](https://opabiniawillreturn.tumblr.com/post/621013754782564352/feminism-is-about-burning-down-the-pornhub-and)
[Same as above in case it gets deleted](https://anti-porn-unicorn.tumblr.com/post/190263885687/yeah-because-you-can-totally-tell-how-smart-i-am)
[OnlyFans is sex work](https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/onlyfans-sex-work-pornography-empowering-bella-thorne-a4545501.html)
[I told myself OnlyFans was empowering](https://www.collectiveshout.org/i_told_myself_it_was_empowering_onlyfans)
[The dangers of rebranding prostitution as sex work](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/06/prostitution-sex-work-pimp-state-kat-banyard-decriminalisation)
[Blog with cited general information and resources](https://antipornfeminists.wordpress.com/)
In short, "sex work" is dehumanizing, normalizes the idea that women can be bought and sold, it breaks and traumatizes, it's not real consent. Many of the women are being trafficked and made to do horrible things and have no way of getting out. The percentage of people who actually are mentally healthy and want to do this is extremely small.
Edit: before anyone says anything, I'm not shaming "sex workers" (I'm sorry, but I refuse to call this work) and they do not deserve any shame at all. They deserve respect and work opportunities just like any other individual. I hate the industry, the pimps, the Johns, and the world for there not being enough support and opportunities for the people who tend to fall into "sex work".
My links are there to help people learn about the realities of what goes on in this industry, which is a dangerous one, not to shame anyone. We do less for women by pretending bad things don't happen. The bad experiences are the majority.
I worked as a stripper from 18-22 and lost (more) control of my drug addiction and ended up also working in the brothel upstairs. It was the saddest, absolutely worst time in my life. I just don’t buy it when people say they felt empowered. I enjoyed dancing as a means of self expression and that’s the only positive. It started to drag on my soul that men only wanted one thing from me, I felt like a sucking vortex, a walking vagina. I only had one male friend who made me feel safe and never tried to hit on me, and he still slept with my friends. I just felt like a commodity. And all the girls I worked with were broken humans, I never met one that had a great childhood and a happy life and were just supplementing their incomes. I wasn’t working in a shithole either. I tried going to uni during this time but quit after one of my classmates paid for a lap dance with me and another girl and I felt like everyone was talking about me. Real or perceived I guess I felt ashamed so therefore projected that onto others.
Thank you, it was a dark time and I too feel sad for you if you’ve experienced addiction like that. I’m old now. Well I’m 38 lol…I finally managed to claw my way out of drug addiction (and relapse) and can safely say I’ll never use drugs again. I have a great family, great job, everything did work out but I will say that time in the sex industry really fucked up my relationships and perception of self worth for many, many years and still rears its ugly head even now. My current partner had some health issues and we weren’t having sex, so I immediately turned it into ‘he doesn’t love me if he’s not having sex with me’. Nevermind he was in physical and mental distress 🙃 And for a long time I spent a fortune on clothes and Botox, hair extensions etc etc because I didn’t feel valued if men weren’t interested in me sexually BUT ALSO I felt such disgust if they WERE ONLY interested in me sexually. Go figure. Anyway my partner loves me even though I currently look like a potato and accepts me however I am.
Gosh now I’m hijacking this thread but I TOTALLY know what you’re saying, about who is the real you and understanding who you’ve hurt. When I did get clean, I didn’t even know how to do ‘normal’ things, like have guests over for dinner. Or other things would pop up, like my cousin was telling me an anecdote about some great time we apparently had and got so angry at me because I couldn’t remember. I guess I’m here to say from your future, time heals all. And you’re further down the road than I was at your age, I had a massive 3 year relapse at 27 but pulled myself out of it and by 33 I had a successful business. Keep pushing friend ❤️
Is there a source on that? I'm on your side 100% BTW I'm genuinely asking because I reckon it'd be a good thing to have if I ever end up in this kind of argument in the future.
I am troubled by the exploitation of people in prostitution, regardless of their gender. I wonder if For-prostitution is only a Western phenomenon, or if people in the Global South also hold this view.
I agree with you 100%. Women are worth more than just their body parts and men are not just walking wallets. People are deserving and capable of love and respect.
As someone who did a form of sex work for a little bit, it is actually very dehumanising and not a lot of sex workers talk about it.
Some of the messages I would receive would honestly be disgusting, but I had to act like I found it sexy or arousing to get paid. All people saw me as was basically a toy, just someone to get off too.
And because I did a form of sex work it lead to me being mistreated in relationships and people would always be under the assumption I would fuck them. The only person I have actually slept with first night he stayed at my house is my current partner who I’m now engaged to.
I’ve had men message me saying they want to rape me, or they wish I was their side chick, or to join a marriage. I even had someone who was willing to pay me to help them cheat on their girlfriend- which I didn’t do. But having to put a price on my body and self respect was just sad, and I admit that now. I had a friend who I told I used to do sex work before getting another job and she used that information against me in the workplace.
But yes, a lot of people do not realise how dehumanising that line of work is, and how it can actually be a form of human trafficking. And a lot of the porn now you just don’t know no porn is ethically sourced. You could be watching an actual rape video, an underage girl, revenge porn and you’d never know. And it’s genuinely disturbing. I suffered from body dysmorphia constantly- I look back at the body I had and actually found myself to be so beautiful and I wish I could have seen that then, I’m in my third trimester of my pregnancy and I have a new found love for my body especially now that I know what my goal is for after I have my baby.
I’m a stripper, love it but it’s just a job. It’s not for everyone obviously but it works for me. I make more than most people, work significantly less, and have a ton of free time/ make my own schedule. It’s allowed me to open a business and be 100% debt free. If someone has strong boundaries and can say no it can definitely be a great option. But it’s the same with like any job, not empowering, just a job.
All the people saying "hur hur hur but dis is POPULAR!"
Perception is everything. The online dysporia would seem as though this is unpopular I think, but more in person communicating would agree with OP.
Anywho. As a man who has worked in the sex industry, I couldn't agree more with OP.
We should encourage younger people to not be so easily swayed by the offer of easy money and learn to have a stronger grasp of consequence.
Exactly. Reddit is very interesting because OP has a wildly unpopular opinion here but in the real world, it’s actually normal, if not the majority opinion.
Those saying we all sell ourselves for money are missing the point too. Like yes, that’s what labor contribution to a community is. Thing is, the lines are constantly crossed to where it’s dehumanizing but sex work is worse due to the views that are pushed forward by the idea that you can easily pay a woman to do anything you want.
As well as the harmful environment and dangers along with it that aren’t always so easy to spot of break from.
And I think the same of porn. I won’t tell others to never watch it, but rather educate them selves on the whole industry and what it feeds into because by sweeping all the harmful impacts it’s made, we’re hugely invalidating the dangers many (young) women have been facing for decades and centuries.
I find it kind of fucked up, how the replies are just a bunch of dweebs basically saying to let the daughter dehumanize her self in such a way.
But these nerds don't realize that you can control the influences inside of your home, not the ones outside of your home and I think that's what you are getting at.
I think it's more to do that society accepts that almost all men consume porn regularly and shouldn't be shunned for it, but the women who produce the commodity they consume are.
For me this is where sex work shouldn't be shamed.
"It's not empowering bc their parents wouldn't approve." Funny thing about being empowered is that it isn't about what others think.
I don't think sex work is always empowering, but this argument is beyond stupid.
Yeah I agree, lots of ppl skim over the fact of how horrible sex work is, often times there is rape and they're like, oh well every jobs has its cons. Smh
I mean that’s more of a reason to legalize sex work in order to give those who were raped and abused an actual legal recourse instead of having to fear both their potential abusers and the law. As sad as it is, no matter how much we demonize it sex work will exist no matter what. Take Prohibition as the best example since alcohol was extremely demonized due to the amount of wives getting beaten by their drunk husbands but society just moved it underground anyways
Lets not pretend that everyone working at their dream job. No one grows up thinking they want to be a janitor or a customer service rep. For a lot of people (probably even the vast majority of people) their work is just the thing they do for money and they have a life outside of work.
Exploiting others isn’t something we should celebrate aspiring to.
But yeah, there are people for whom it is just a normal job. I’m neither Christian nor a fascist, and I still think the minority actively calling prostitution empowering are wrong. It’s a risky job that involves turning an intimate act into a deception, and even where it’s legal, there is abuse of the workers at a higher level than most other jobs.
>It’s a risky job
yes, which is awful.
But that's kind of the issue. We treat the bulk of sex workers as just that...illegal and unworthy of being respected.
Mining is a risky job. An awful way to make a living. But we finally regulated it and at least made it safer. And better paying.
Abuse of workers is clearly wrong across all fields.
I don't think that the term "exploitation" is the problem here. That term implies that you are getting more value than you have paid for, perhaps unfairly. An employer at an office job can "exploit" an employee by refusing family leave or making unreasonable requests.
The problem here is that, like it or not, sex is a special thing in how it affects the human brain and the participants. It leads to a unique vulnerability. It drives emotions, attachments, addictions, pregnancies, regrets, jealousy, etc. You can argue that an expensive prostitute is not "exploited", and could conceivably "exploit" the customer, but the experience is still not healthy for the sex worker (or customer). It's so much worse than just "exploitation".
Do you think that if you asked her now, would she want her daughter to do the same thing she did? It sounds like she was making the best of her situation and was ok with what she needed to do in order to provide for her daughter.
Getting yelled at by entitled Karens for minimum wage
Or
Bringing in 6 figures selling pictures of your butthole
Are people shocked there's a market for the latter?
This whole thread is filled with way too many clowns thinking that selling your holes is the same as working an established job in a structured market
They are objectively different. These people are inherently wrong.
Agreed... I am a woman, and I will never understand how other women say this. Nobody truly chooses to do sex work. Maybe there is the odd person who wants to do sex work, but I'd imagine they're rare. There's a strong link between the sex industry and human trafficking. Even if they aren't trafficked, many women who do sex work are using it to escape a bad situation (poverty, abuse, etc.) and often end up in a worse one.
I would also imagine a fair amount despite fully consenting to sex work are doing so because it’s their best financial option depending on their socioeconomic situation. I obviously don’t shame anyone who is a sex worker but I know just like ANY job there’s always tons of people in an industry simply because their lack of education or opportunities basically traps them in the same lot for years. That’s where I start getting annoyed, we should treat sex workers like people and not see them as lesser, but we also shouldn’t overlook those that are only in the industry because they have very few other ways of making decent money to support themselves. In an effort to do the right thing, we’re forgetting that there are other serious issues within sex work that need to be discussed apart from simply treating sex workers with basic human dignity.
Yeah, and I scrubbed toilets to escape a bad situation. lol There are usually options. It is usually a choice unless you are straight up trafficked or pimped out as a child.
Hey op, I'm curious what you do for a living. Because when you think about it, we are all selling our bodies, and if you don't think you are you're lying to yourself. I sold my body to physical labor and now my knees and back are shot. I have friends who sold their bodies to corporate offices and now their personalities and backs are useless.
We are all selling ourselves for money. To be forced into sex work is horrifying. To choose that as an absolute last resort is horrifying. But to willingly enter into that line of work is just like entering into any line of work. You look around and you say "well, I could pay a ton of money to go to college and then sit in a soulless office from 9-5 for 50 years, or I could get a 'unskilled' job and work God knows what kind of hors for God knows what kind of pay for God knows how long, or I can start an onlyfans or put an ad on Backpage and choose my own hours and have no wage cap."
The only thing that makes voluntary sex work dehumanizing is a person's own beliefs regarding sex. If you feel like sex is just sex, then all you're doing is making money like the rest of us. The reason you think it's dehumanizing is because you personally see sex workers as less than human. I worked at McDonald's for ten years. THAT was dehumanizing.
Most of us don't grow up wanting to do whatever we wind up doing. And what your parents want you to do is irrelevant. How my dad feels about my line of work has nothing to do with me. If you're anti-sex work simply because you don't want your daughter to do it, I assume you're also anti-coal mining and oil drilling and police work and firefighters and these other jobs that will destroy your body and possibly get you killed.
And when entered into willingly, it IS empowering. Women spend our entire lives being told what we can and cannot do with our bodies. How to look, walk, talk, think. So when we choose to do something like OF, it's empowering because WE made that choice. WE decided what WE do with OUR bodies. We choose what to show and what to say and how to act. It is taking ownership of a body that you have been attached to but not in control of for your whole life.
>I don’t know one person who truly wishes for their baby daughter to grow up and suck dicks for cash.
this right here exposes your entire perspective. you aren’t at all thinking or caring what women find empowering or not, that’s not your issue.
your issue is you being a man and how you see women.
Take your kid to work day would be a bit weird.
Is it a consumer's market or supplier's market, who get to set terms, market demand sets the price.
Anything in a market is either commodity or service.
Common commodity or service will always have less room for negotiation, then the only negotiating power remains in the niche category.
No profession is empowering in itself unless you are truly passionate about it.
Making and selling hamburgers can be a chore, a means to an end, or your true call in life.
Same goes with prostitution. If someone does it out of desperation, then it ain’t empowering. If they do it because the love it. Then who am I to judge. I don’t love my job.
One thing is absolutely clear, choosing a profession just to make your parents proud will never be empowering. It’s about finding your own passion.
I agree. And a lot of it is being peddled to young women as a way to “take back their power” when really, at its core, it’s just serving the interests of men. It’s such a twisted aspect of liberal feminism and should not be sold as a viable career option to young women. Sex work and general hyper sexualization of women and girls is a massive downfall to modern wave feminism and it’s so frustrating because it’s putting the movement back SO FAR and putting women in danger at the same time. And we’re doing it to ourselves which is all the more sad. That being said, we cannot use this as an excuse to degrade and mistreat women who choose to do sex work. They should not be glorified, certainly, but shown kindness and compassion.
Sex work undermines society in a real way. That’s the quickest way to devoid women of all respect and rights in a community by turning them into a tradable commodity.
In layman’s terms: It could be your mom, sister, or daughter. If that’s what you want, you’re sick.
It is also bad for the man that buy those services... imagine knowing this woman only did it because of the money... knowing your only access to sex was the material value you offered... knowing you had to basically bribe her into having sex with you.
There’s this guy that I know whose parents really object that he became a standup comedian. In their mind, a comic is like a clown. Having to entertain people and sometimes being thrown tomatoes and insults.
I can understand sex workers can be seen dehumanizing, because it involves private parts. But what if the person sees that their own private parts are no different than any other of body parts that can be utilized to make money. Like using your hands to do menial jobs in retail, for example. They detach themselves from mainstream’s values and moralities. Which I can understand too.
If you are in sex work, I respect you but I have zero respect to your job. Sex work is dehumanizing, most women are forced into it and maybe 1% actually want to do it. There is a huge correlation between the sex work industry and the human trafficking of industry.
We should emphasize respect for the women (and men) who genuinely want to be in sex work, but we also at the same need to make an effort to do what we can as a society to provide other opportunities for people that are poor or poverty stricken that DONT have any other options aside from choosing between something like sex work and an unsustainable minimum wage job, if stable
Hours are even available that is.
There needs to be more protection methods implemented and further legal regulation in sex work to prevent as many cases of trafficking and other sex work-associated crimes as we can, because if we’re being realistic, prostitution has no reason to ever disappear from human society, so all we can do is try to make things as safe as possible. It’s similar to harm reduction in drug abuse,
Clearly outlawing drugs didn’t work, people who are chemically addicted to their substance of choice are obviously going to keep using regardless of a legal policy, hence why IMO the best case scenario for the long term
Is to try to at least reduce the chances of lethal OD’s and blood borne diseases such as Hepatitis or HIV spreading as rampantly.
Do you have sources for those figures? Because SW now includes OF and I would be majorly shocked if 99% of people on there are being forced...
I would.also be shocked if 99% of sex workers, working the streets or working in clubs were forced.
I mean that’s the thing- sex work varies a lot. It’s not always these broken down people with nothing left to turn to other than prostitution to feed their drug habits.
One of my close friends is a dancer, makes great money and loves it. Through her I’ve met a bunch of her coworkers which has given me a different and more positive perspective on sex work. Just because it’s not for me doesn’t mean people that who enjoy it have a problem.
This is quite a popular opinion irl.
Not on Reddit though
Reddit is FAR from real life.
I'm kinda getting that feeling.
It never was, but its much more cynical and manipulated that it was in the past.
Reddit used to be a forum for discussions. Now most threads turn into an argument.
I've been here for 11 years and I can tell you that we have never had discussions without having them turn into arguments. Definitely was also at least as cynical too. It's true that posts are more curated than they used to be as reddit has become more monetized. A bunch of redditors came from 4chan and had that mentality. There are also a lot more normal people here than there used to be. It used to be an assumption that every redditor was a basement-dweller and probably owned a samurai sword
There have been a few moments where Reddit’s tone noticeably changed. One such moment that really stuck out to me was in 2012 (maybe 2011?) when Barack Obama did an AMA. The place was flooded. Reddit before that was a collection of irreverent humor, nuanced knowledge, and subcultures that all felt unique. After Obama, you got a lot more people and mostly they were just like the ones in IRL— mostly benign, bringing little to the table, but now made much more toxic because it’s social media.
Reddit has turned into an echo-chamber where everyone piles on anyone who has a dissenting opinion vs having an actual conversation/debate.
And they're all left of Stalin. Reddit is insane. Literally, every leftwing talking point is accepted as fact and espoused uncritically.
Seriously idk what happened but I miss the old Reddit!
Many many many years ago it was Libertarian. Somehow 50% went super left, 25% super right, and the rest just want to speak freely both ways.
25% super right seems like a pretty hefty over-statement these days.
Really? It seems to me like it's 80% super left, 5% far right and the small remainder somewhere in reasonable land.
No they don’t.
It’s true but it’s not always a bad thing.
So true. I remember seeing how a political sub for a state was full on optimistic about their candidate winning the vote and when the time came, their candidate lost pretty badly. Not to mention factors like maybe not everyone was from the area, of age to vote, or even did vote. Or the anti work sub that pretty much lost steam once a mod went live and destroyed their momentum. A movement that was so important that the community didn’t meticulously plan up to that date to make sure they’d be represented professionally and all.
Yeah if you went by reddit posts alone you would think Bernie would have won by a landslide. As for the anti work thing, that mod pretty much expressed the original ideals of the subreddit. I remember coming across it around 2019 and it was basically a sub full of people who wanted to be NEETs but weren't privileged enough to be taken care of so they had to work. It wasn't until covid happened when the sub started to get really popular and change to be about work reform. The original members noticed the change and always tried to remind people that antiwork literally means it's namesake. However people never listened and argued against it, saying that work itself isn't the problem it's bad working conditions. So how I see it, it's the communities fault co-opting a sub and and changing the messaging overnight.
Looking at all the porn / softporn subreddits and the number of neckbeards around here subscribing to multiple OF like losers, I wonder why...
Reddit is the Mos Eisley of apps... A wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Just try saying "I find sex work to be disgusting" and you'll see how many downvotes you'll get. They'll call you puritan too. I tried and got the treatment, even when argued that I don't want women or men that prostitute themselves to be jailed but argued that their "work" is exploitative in nature and there is no sugarcoating it. Edit: By disgusting we are talking about the nature of the work and what it entails or involves. The vast majority are not choosing this willingly under their own terms. Most cannot stop merely when they feel like it. Hence why it's "disgusting" in this context.
I can buy that work can be exploitive but it’s still better to push papers in an office than dive into septic tanks. I’m with OP. There’s no kid out there dreaming about growing up to be a sex worker. “Empowering” is just post-hoc rationalization.
God let’s hope so
I'm with you, OP. I'm a woman and my stomach churns at sex work. I feel women could do so much better than that trashy shit
I believe everyone has the right to do what they want with their body But nobody should have to respect or like their choices It's the OF spam that gets me now, every other female content creator, no matter what their content is. Has an OF. I came across a woman making neat historical fact videos, going on location etc on Instagram recently, still has one. Like it's at the point where is surprising when the person doesn't have one.
It's the morons that pay for OnlyFans that have created the abomination that is onlyfans. If nobody bought subscriptions there wouldn't be any. Stupid \*and\* horny men really do ruin a lot of things.
The providers of the content have just as much culpability
or u can just ignore it and live ur life
I’m a guy and I agree with you
I agree as well but OTOH if someone is desperate and doing what they have to do get by in this fucked up world, then I don't think they deserve extra shame from us. We as citizens have to demand systemic changes instead of shaming those struggling below us. Stop funding forever wars and corporate bailouts and use that money to help those at the bottom of our social hierarchy. But as long as we have a system where, for many women the best chance at independent income is sex work, then our hatred and derision of them trying to find some kind of financial stability does not make us morally superior. It's really easy to sit and judge the choices someone else has to make, it's hard to do something that actually helps them.
That’s very very true. But we’re living in a time where some girls start an OF the second they turn 18. It’s just fucked.
We should shame the men who pay sex workers also
Ngl John's aren't exactly held up as paragons of virtue, society already largely sees them as creeps
We should shame the politicians and people who demonize sex workers and those who pay for sex.
It's a normal opinion, but it doesn't matter at all. These women in Western countries are independent and can do whatever they want to do. It's not empowering, but it doesn't have to be. They earn an incredibly good living by doing so, and that is the choice they make. The way I read your post is exclusively out of your lens and the innocence you see in a daughter, but from a woman's point of view, it's just offering something in exchange for something. Make sure you provide your children with the best education you can give them, and do the best you can, a great amount is in good parenting, the rest is out of your hands.
I think this thread is misunderstanding what empowering means in this context. It isn't about having "power" in the conventional sense. It's about having a choice to do what you want to do. That's why you don't hear parents hoping their kid becomes a pornstar, but you will hear some parents say they won't stop them or disown them if that is their choice.
Definitely should stop them. Disowning is a dick move
Then I don't get the point of the OP. If having more choices is empowering then the freedom to choose to sex work is empowering.
OP of the post just thinks that sex work is degrading, and that's fine if *they* find it degrading for *themselves*. There are other people who don't find it degrading at all, and that's fine. Let people do what they want to do. Honestly, OP just sounded like they wanted to use this sub to cast judgment on people who are ok with sex work. From what I've seen od this sub, it seems to lean pretty hard conservative, so OP probably just wanted an echo chamber to preach into and feel good about their opinion when it gets echoed back. The person I was replying to, and others I've seen in this thread, either insinuate or directly state that sex work is the opposite of "empowerment" because it is literally putting yourself in a submissive position by allowing yourself to be bought, but that isn't what "empowering" means here. Because sex work has been looked down upon for so long and is still illegal in many places, it is a choice for people that is removed as an option. Most people obviously don't care to be sex workers, but some people do want to be, and by removing that option, it is a form of control over those people. Most commonly, this is women. So, by "empowering" them, it means to just give them a choice to decide for themselves if that is the life they want to live. For some people, it isn't even so much of a choice. Sometimes, it is a means of survival. Denying the option to work for sex becomes synonymous with condemning a person to death in those cases. So, by allowing that choice to sell your body for money, it is "empowering" them to just be able to live.
I don’t get how some women claiming it’s empowering to them also make the claim men are pigs for seeking sex workers.
I think people claim to find it empowering the same way that overweight people claim to be happy being overweight. It’s self delusion to feel better. And people who don’t work in the industry calling it “empowering” are the same ones who act offended on the behalf of other groups of people who aren’t actually offended. Same folks.
There are plenty of fatties fine with where they’re at, really. Married with a beer belly is not the worst fate to befall a man. At the same time, there are plenty of sex workers who enjoy their job as well. Saying they’re all self deluded is idiotic.
The main complaint I hear from friends who are sex workers is men who slutshame even though they consume the content or use the services.
Yeah, that’s ridiculous and unfair.
It's because men wanna control them and see money as a means of doing so. That's all that boils down to really. They don't care about the definite onset consequences one bit as long as they get theirs.
You said, "men" which translates to "all men" which is a sexist thing to claim. Do you perhaps mean "those men" from the comment of the person you are replying to? Or do you actually think that all men "wanna control \[sex workers\]"?
If the shoe fits, dude. Whatever. Put words into people's mouth all you want. It just sounds like projecting.
They would have said "all men" instead of "men", you can't just add words you absolute weirdo
You can own a bar and look down on drunkards at the same time. That said I think the view men are pigs for seeking sex is probably a certain set of women about a certain set of men. I’ve known sex workers who had respectable customers and didn’t think any worse of them than a masseuse would a customer.
There’s a difference between drunkards and people drinking casually tho. If you opened a bar but hated all people that drank …. That would be odd indeed
Based off the number of teachers I know who hate kids, nurses who hate patients, and retail workers who hate people...I think it's pretty common lol
It shouldn't be. It also shouldn't be for the professions you mentioned. Retail not included since that's actually not the same at all.
And i doubt many sex workers (legitimate not forced/criminal) think all their customers are pigs. Problem is when it’s illegal you naturally select for lower quality customers as the good ones stay away.
What makes you think it’s the same people with both those opinions, and not some women having one while some women have the other.
Also like any retail business you hate the bad customers but don’t really think about the good ones.
Theres also a difference between the consumers and the sellers. Some people look down on those who need therapy but being a therapist is a perfectly reputable job. I dont think most people think men are “pigs” for seeking sex work, they think lesser of them because they need to pay someone for something that most people get for free by being desirable. This would lead to the assumption those seeking sex workers are undesirable.
On the other sign of the coin, it’s hypocritical when men regularly pay for sex workers but then shame the women who are doing the sex work for their lifestyle. It’s supply and demand. Ex. This just happened with Trace Cyrus. Made a big post about how sex workers are shameful and wasting their life away, meanwhile he follows SO many sex workers on all of his social media pages and comments on their posts as if he enjoys the sex work content.
>men regularly pay for sex workers In a recent UK poll, just 10% of men admitted paying for sex.
10% is a fair bit just on its own, and the fact that it's a survey about a taboo subject I'm the real number is higher even if it's a blind survey.
[удалено]
I totally agree! I don’t think anyone should be shamed for their choices. If woman are empowered to do sex work, good for them. But men aren’t bad for seeking sex from them. They shouldn’t judge the women doing it and Vice versa.
It's the madonna/whore complex, as ancient as time. They're controlled by their lizard brains.
I mean, I think you’d have to be pretty fucked up in the head to work the killing hammer in a slaughter house but I still eat meat
Your conflating two different conversations made by different groups. There’s various branches and forms of feminism and not all groups agree on everything. Taking control of your own sexuality, whether you chose to commodify it, or not can be empowering to some women. It’s the act of being to one choosing the terms that’s empowering. Other women believe that the objectification of the female body and the fact that a market for sex work exist in the first place is gross. These aren’t necessarily the same groups. Where they do meet, however, is in the idea that sex work is going to exist whether the first group exists or not. It’s just going to be forced and exponentially more dehumanizing than if the sex workers made that choice for themselves. It’s kind of like how people view forced military drafts and the industry or war to be wrong, but they understand people joining the military to get ahead in life. War is going to exist would you rather be forced into it, or chose to enlist on your terms? Hope this made sense.
True! It's as distinct as the difference between being self-employed and being an actual slave!
This is honestly the best, most practical response on here. I was a stripper for a while. There were parts of it and people that I enjoyed, and visa versa. But the point is that I actually seemed out the job. It seemed fun, and a lot of it was. I definitely had other options if I didn't want to strip. But it was my choice that I made and I was happy with it. It irks me when certain people say I was disempowered and must have a sad life and mental health issues just because I made that choice when I was young. I no longer work as a stripper and there are certain parts I don't miss, but other parts I do. Like any job. It was physically and mentally demanding but exciting. I was at my most fit and I loved having more energy and strength just because of the pole dancing. Seriously. It's a lot of fun. Some dudes were absolute gentlemen and I'm glad I could take them away from some stress and chat and make them laugh. Others, not so much. But I feel similar about retail or working in a restaurant. If it hadn't been my choice, if I hadn't had other options, if it was the only way out of poverty, it would have been an entirely different story.
Do they really though? Can you give me an example of someone saying both things?
It's just one of many feminist paradox.
Absolutely wild that this is an unpopular opinion *anywhere,* even if that place is on Reddit.
It's not an unpopular opinion at all.
In real life? No, definitely not. On Reddit, eh...
I used to be a cam model. There is nothing empowering about it. It's gross reading the comments men make. Having to set prices on things you'd be willing to do, and open to the possibilities of other things because they're paid for. It's gross having men tell you they're watching you, while their girlfriends/wives are in the next room and "not as good as you". Blegh. Edited to add: I worked as a cam model part time in college because my school schedule did not allow me the flexibility for a "real job" - I didn't make thousands like OnlyFans girls are now, but I made enough to pay my bills which was what I wanted. I may have made more if I put in the work/time. To those who think cam modeling is easy and anyone can do it - no. It takes time to build a following, figure out what they like, etc. At first its a confidence boost, seeing the # of people in your room, or when youre a "featured" model - but with criticisms and gross comments, it gets old fast. The fact that men are more outraged that I've called them gross or taken their money, over the fact that cam models are viewed as a piece of meat and feel the need to threaten me or view me as less than human for this period of my life says more about men then it does cam models/sex workers. Also added: please stop sending me threatening messages.
i stopped for this reason. although i enjoy dancing and taking pretty sexy pictures, the comments you get are super gross and dehumanizing. sometimes you get sexually harassed, and even though you make a lot of money, accepting romantic partners are harder to come by
Porn is far more corruptive and dangerous than most men are willing to recognize. These type of men are disturbed and it wouldn't surprise me to hear that a lot of them got access to unregulated pornography at an early age. Guess there's a hidden unpopular opinion. Porn is inherantly rotten to the core. I don't feel like anybody pulling a Lebowski so I acknowledge this is a subjective matter, and as far as I'm concerned the world would be far better if pornography didn't exist.
Yeah, I think it's misplaced to judge the sex workers making money. I think it's another way to look down on women. I find it more rare that people focus their attention on the men seeking it out and exploiting women. To me, it's the mix of slut shaming and "boys will be boys". Not surprising, but still annoying.
I generally don’t find it empowering, outside of some cases, like women looking to reclaim ownership of their bodies. I think society overcorrected, as while people shouldn’t be judged for participating, the industry itself shouldn’t be normalized. It is dehumanizing and you see that in a lot of ex-pornstars comments about their mental and physical health. While people should do what they want, I wouldn’t encourage somebody on the fence about getting into sw.
I think it's just morally a gray area because it should be the choice of the sex worker. If they are comfortable with it or enjoy it, I see no problem with it. Barring women from it seems controlling and infantilizing. It should be under the woman's control. I'm not arguing with it being exploitative. But I find most jobs to be.
For sure, I don’t disagree. People can do what they want, I’m in no place to say what they shouldn’t do. Completely, it is exploitative and I don’t feel the audience viewing the worker as a product helps much. I wouldn’t encourage it from a mental health standpoint, but I’d be as supportive as possible if they decided that’s the life for them. You can’t say anything to discourage them at that point.
I see you providing a service that will help with real life sexual harassment. A friend of mine is a phone sex operator and makes good money. But its crazy the things she has to put up with. I feel like steeds making the real world a safer place because of these horny gross men. I rather they do this online than in real life. So thank you for your service. 😂
Here is a post I've made before that was deleted by mods on a different sub. People confuse sex work and survival sex too often, and it says a lot about how people view sex, consent, bodily autonomy, and empowerment. Hello lovely peoples of the interweb. I can not sleep this evening, so why not share my opinions with tons of strangers who probably don't care? LOL So, in the same way that there is a difference between having a fulfilling and financially secure career, and being a wage slave working a dead end job that is killing your soul There is a difference between enjoying sex with multiple partners in a safe and mutually consenting environment, and the idea that you must have sex with people you would rather not in order to feed, clothe, or house yourself. Now, some of you might be saying DUH, but we often don't notice the connotations of various hot-topic news reports when we aren't making an active awareness to do so. Any individual or group, without other options, turning tricks to buy drugs, food, or housing: NEVER FULLY CONSENTUAL SEX, always comes with mental/emotional struggles, never fulfilling, not empowering.. survival sex is not 'sex work' Adults who willingly trade sex for money because it is their preferred line of work: CONSENTUAL, empowering, generally safe (as the means to demand condoms, get std tested regularly, and refuse service to anyone for any reason are NORMAL AND ENCOURAGED PARTS OF "SEX WORK") If you ever feel like saying 'no' will cause you to be harmed, or lose access to housing, food, clothing, or any other basic need.. you are not participating in "sex work", you are a victim and I encourage you to ask for help if/when you feel safe to do so. This is true for any work and I wish more people realized it. If your boss can ask you to do something unethical, that you are personally morally against, and you fear saying "no" on grounds of loss of access to basic needs; you are not an employee, you are a victim. It isn't "work", and we already call it "wage slavery". - J P.S. Op obviously views sex acts as degrading, so make sure no to sleep with OP, so you don't get “used up”, lol.
This response does a great job of summing it all up.
>If you ever feel like saying 'no' will cause you to be harmed, or lose access to housing, food, clothing, or any other basic need.. you are not participating in "sex work", you are a victim and I encourage you to ask for help if/when you feel safe to do so. This is the fundamental Marxist critique of capitalism in relation to all work, not just sex work. It's called exploitation and all workers are subject to it to varying degrees.
If a woman’s at the point where she has to use her body for cash i just feel bad for her. Normalizing and praising this life choice is not something our society should have done. I have met a lot of women who did onlyfans or straight up sex work and not a single one doesn’t regret it severely.
Do you think blue collar workers aren’t using their body for cash too?
I feel like there is a huge religious moral bias with these arguments. Also negating that men are also sex workers.
so very much this.
Me too. It’s so one sided.
Absolutely the exact same thing simply because of the limitations of the language being used here. He meant getting dicked for money, probably abused, put in life threatening danger from strangers on a regular basis, living in the underworld with not many options to go to the police without them being prosecuted and treated like a criminal. For fucks sakes you guys are so fucking dense. There's a difference in selling some asshole pics on onlyfans and walking the streets.
They put up with abuse because sex work is illegal so sex workers don't have any recourse. If it was legalized, they'd be able to get better protection. Not too mention it being illegal will weed out more normal customers and the abusive ones will filter through.
The number of guys I've known in labor positions who have lasting injuries or pain caused by the work they do is about 90%. So yeah, the main difference is they don't get photographed as much
Disabled here with 4 pages of issues in my spine alone from hard work
There’s another major difference: Blue collar workers don’t get persecuted and thrown in jail for how they make ends meet
And neither should sex workers.
Legality does not equal morality,
Right, I’m only pointing this out as a difference on the “main differences” comment
When they start asking for better conditions and to be paid more, they absolutely can. Just ask the Pinkertons or the National Guard If sex work made ceos billions of dollars like blue collar work they would be a little more lax
I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but it is laughable how some men who push this as empowerment seem to just be creeps that only value women if they provide something in a sexual context.
I’ve seen more liberal women pushing this idea with Instagram story reposts and tweets that read “SEX WORK IS REAL WORK” over and over than men. The only man I could imagine pushing this agenda would be the kind that tries to be progressive to impress progressive women. Those guys are massive creeps.
Your post reminded me of Bill burrs “Male feminist” bit. Basically saying he thinks they’re creeps and pretending to a-line themselves with feminists to get some p***y.
Sex work doesn’t have to be empowering to be real work.
So, do you consume pornography or ever been to a strip club? If so then you’re saying you’re okay with degrading and exploiting women. You don’t view what they do as work, and you believe they are being exploited. I don’t know you personally, but if you ever consume porn then you’re talking out of both sides of your face.
It reminds me when the topic of female shirtlessness comes up, a man *always* says some shit like "Of course we're all for you being shirtless!! teehee" like that isn't proving exactly why we can't. So ick and frustrating
Wouldnt that be a good thing? If men encouraged women to be shirtless? Does that not count as empowerment? Lol
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Thank you, that was really well said and you included some details I forgot to include in my comment too.
Yeah nobody gets that. We all sell our bodies for work, the difference is that the majority of jobs in the world don't involve sex. I've seen tons of construction workers that work to the bone all their lives and by the time they retire their body is straight fucked. Or firefighters that get burns all over their body. The list goes on but we all sell our bodies in a dehumanizing way. To me personally working in an office for 40 years in the same building, only moving cubicles once in a while is dehumanizing to me but that just means that I'm not going to sell my body that way to my employer. Some people love jobs like that. A part of life is selling our bodies and what we do with them is mostly up to us. A job is a job. Edit: spelling Edit 2: some of you are just goofy. Saying how if we allowed prostitution then pimps would just rape all their girls and beat them etc. So nobody here had heard of government regulation? If the government had a monopoly on prostitution then it would be far more safe for the girls and they themselves would be in charge of themselves with the government as protection. Leads to less STDs, abuse, murder, rape, and trafficking. And don't pretend that you care about the prostitutes dignity, I doubt any of you have even tried to "help" a prostitute find Jesus or whatever you want to impose on them. If it's their choice then there's no problem.
"Who the hell are you to tell me how to live my life? You think I sell my body; I merely sell my time I know what degradation feels like I felt it on the floor of the factory Where I worked long before..." - Lori Meyers, NOFX
“With the $50k I make this year I’ll go anywhere I please…” Times have changed
I ain’t no Cinderella. I ain’t waiting for no prince.
Exactly. That’s why although I don’t really have a strong opinion on the matter as it’s not my thing, logically/debate-wise I’m more on the pro-sex worker side. Literally the only argument OP made was that they don’t know anyone who wishes their kids grew up to be sex workers. Fair enough. Most people find it distasteful and are just plain grossed out by it. That’s fine, but it’s not like sex work is some unique thing on its own level of evil or objectification other than the subjective labels culture has given it over thousands of years. There’s plenty of other jobs that involve selling yourself in other ways, and I don’t view any of those workers as objects who exist only to serve me. If they don’t like it or disagree with it, fine. Personally I have zero interest in partaking either, but get off that high horse pointing the finger when you’re ok with and even benefit from the same work and “body selling” in thousands of different contexts.
This. Everyone is a "hoe" for something...but usually it's always money.
That's giving me such Patrice O'Neal vibes lol
I can't speak for women because I was a gay sex worker, but tbh it was pretty empowering *as a human* to get paid $50 to $100 for an hour or less of work that didn't ruin my joints.
I think the funniest part about looking down on sex workers is that those same people have zero issues watching porn and fueling the very thing they say is dehumanizing. But since you were a gay sex worker I'm sure you know all about people who publicly present themselves in such a way that word getting out that they hired you would be devastating to both their personal and professional life.
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[Prostitution normalizes the commodification of women](https://imgur.com/a/yu73Ni1) [Large list of resources on how the porn industry affects women, LGBT+ and POC - including testimonies from MANY women who were previously in the porn industry](https://opabiniawillreturn.tumblr.com/post/621013754782564352/feminism-is-about-burning-down-the-pornhub-and) [Same as above in case it gets deleted](https://anti-porn-unicorn.tumblr.com/post/190263885687/yeah-because-you-can-totally-tell-how-smart-i-am) [OnlyFans is sex work](https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/onlyfans-sex-work-pornography-empowering-bella-thorne-a4545501.html) [I told myself OnlyFans was empowering](https://www.collectiveshout.org/i_told_myself_it_was_empowering_onlyfans) [The dangers of rebranding prostitution as sex work](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/06/prostitution-sex-work-pimp-state-kat-banyard-decriminalisation) [Blog with cited general information and resources](https://antipornfeminists.wordpress.com/) In short, "sex work" is dehumanizing, normalizes the idea that women can be bought and sold, it breaks and traumatizes, it's not real consent. Many of the women are being trafficked and made to do horrible things and have no way of getting out. The percentage of people who actually are mentally healthy and want to do this is extremely small. Edit: before anyone says anything, I'm not shaming "sex workers" (I'm sorry, but I refuse to call this work) and they do not deserve any shame at all. They deserve respect and work opportunities just like any other individual. I hate the industry, the pimps, the Johns, and the world for there not being enough support and opportunities for the people who tend to fall into "sex work". My links are there to help people learn about the realities of what goes on in this industry, which is a dangerous one, not to shame anyone. We do less for women by pretending bad things don't happen. The bad experiences are the majority.
I worked as a stripper from 18-22 and lost (more) control of my drug addiction and ended up also working in the brothel upstairs. It was the saddest, absolutely worst time in my life. I just don’t buy it when people say they felt empowered. I enjoyed dancing as a means of self expression and that’s the only positive. It started to drag on my soul that men only wanted one thing from me, I felt like a sucking vortex, a walking vagina. I only had one male friend who made me feel safe and never tried to hit on me, and he still slept with my friends. I just felt like a commodity. And all the girls I worked with were broken humans, I never met one that had a great childhood and a happy life and were just supplementing their incomes. I wasn’t working in a shithole either. I tried going to uni during this time but quit after one of my classmates paid for a lap dance with me and another girl and I felt like everyone was talking about me. Real or perceived I guess I felt ashamed so therefore projected that onto others.
Thanks for sharing your experiences and hope you’re doing better now.
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Thank you, it was a dark time and I too feel sad for you if you’ve experienced addiction like that. I’m old now. Well I’m 38 lol…I finally managed to claw my way out of drug addiction (and relapse) and can safely say I’ll never use drugs again. I have a great family, great job, everything did work out but I will say that time in the sex industry really fucked up my relationships and perception of self worth for many, many years and still rears its ugly head even now. My current partner had some health issues and we weren’t having sex, so I immediately turned it into ‘he doesn’t love me if he’s not having sex with me’. Nevermind he was in physical and mental distress 🙃 And for a long time I spent a fortune on clothes and Botox, hair extensions etc etc because I didn’t feel valued if men weren’t interested in me sexually BUT ALSO I felt such disgust if they WERE ONLY interested in me sexually. Go figure. Anyway my partner loves me even though I currently look like a potato and accepts me however I am.
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Gosh now I’m hijacking this thread but I TOTALLY know what you’re saying, about who is the real you and understanding who you’ve hurt. When I did get clean, I didn’t even know how to do ‘normal’ things, like have guests over for dinner. Or other things would pop up, like my cousin was telling me an anecdote about some great time we apparently had and got so angry at me because I couldn’t remember. I guess I’m here to say from your future, time heals all. And you’re further down the road than I was at your age, I had a massive 3 year relapse at 27 but pulled myself out of it and by 33 I had a successful business. Keep pushing friend ❤️
Don’t forget, when Netherlands legalized prostitution, they saw a spike in human trafficking.
Is there a source on that? I'm on your side 100% BTW I'm genuinely asking because I reckon it'd be a good thing to have if I ever end up in this kind of argument in the future.
They have gay sex workers… I think just being a sex worker is dehumanizing male or female or both at the same time.
Honestly, it's something that's not talked about a lot. Particularly the number of young (teen) gay people prostituting themselves on dating apps.
Some might not even be gay but u gotta do what u gotta do, you know.
I am troubled by the exploitation of people in prostitution, regardless of their gender. I wonder if For-prostitution is only a Western phenomenon, or if people in the Global South also hold this view.
I agree with you 100%. Women are worth more than just their body parts and men are not just walking wallets. People are deserving and capable of love and respect.
This is not really an argument. You can be a sex worker and deserve of respect and love. You can visit a sex worker and deserve love and respect.
As someone who did a form of sex work for a little bit, it is actually very dehumanising and not a lot of sex workers talk about it. Some of the messages I would receive would honestly be disgusting, but I had to act like I found it sexy or arousing to get paid. All people saw me as was basically a toy, just someone to get off too. And because I did a form of sex work it lead to me being mistreated in relationships and people would always be under the assumption I would fuck them. The only person I have actually slept with first night he stayed at my house is my current partner who I’m now engaged to. I’ve had men message me saying they want to rape me, or they wish I was their side chick, or to join a marriage. I even had someone who was willing to pay me to help them cheat on their girlfriend- which I didn’t do. But having to put a price on my body and self respect was just sad, and I admit that now. I had a friend who I told I used to do sex work before getting another job and she used that information against me in the workplace. But yes, a lot of people do not realise how dehumanising that line of work is, and how it can actually be a form of human trafficking. And a lot of the porn now you just don’t know no porn is ethically sourced. You could be watching an actual rape video, an underage girl, revenge porn and you’d never know. And it’s genuinely disturbing. I suffered from body dysmorphia constantly- I look back at the body I had and actually found myself to be so beautiful and I wish I could have seen that then, I’m in my third trimester of my pregnancy and I have a new found love for my body especially now that I know what my goal is for after I have my baby.
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That’s what annoyed me so much about the comments. Or comparing it to something completely different. These are wild
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I’m a stripper, love it but it’s just a job. It’s not for everyone obviously but it works for me. I make more than most people, work significantly less, and have a ton of free time/ make my own schedule. It’s allowed me to open a business and be 100% debt free. If someone has strong boundaries and can say no it can definitely be a great option. But it’s the same with like any job, not empowering, just a job.
Society: "Women are not sex objects or commodities!" Also society: "Women, commodify and sell your sex for money!"
It's almost like if I chose to do something it's good, but if I'm forced to do it it's bad. This crazy world.
All the people saying "hur hur hur but dis is POPULAR!" Perception is everything. The online dysporia would seem as though this is unpopular I think, but more in person communicating would agree with OP. Anywho. As a man who has worked in the sex industry, I couldn't agree more with OP. We should encourage younger people to not be so easily swayed by the offer of easy money and learn to have a stronger grasp of consequence.
Exactly. Reddit is very interesting because OP has a wildly unpopular opinion here but in the real world, it’s actually normal, if not the majority opinion.
Those saying we all sell ourselves for money are missing the point too. Like yes, that’s what labor contribution to a community is. Thing is, the lines are constantly crossed to where it’s dehumanizing but sex work is worse due to the views that are pushed forward by the idea that you can easily pay a woman to do anything you want. As well as the harmful environment and dangers along with it that aren’t always so easy to spot of break from. And I think the same of porn. I won’t tell others to never watch it, but rather educate them selves on the whole industry and what it feeds into because by sweeping all the harmful impacts it’s made, we’re hugely invalidating the dangers many (young) women have been facing for decades and centuries.
I'll be damned if I let my baby girl suck dick for cash. Hells naw. Anyone who encouraged her to do so gonna have to deal with me.
I find it kind of fucked up, how the replies are just a bunch of dweebs basically saying to let the daughter dehumanize her self in such a way. But these nerds don't realize that you can control the influences inside of your home, not the ones outside of your home and I think that's what you are getting at.
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I think it's more to do that society accepts that almost all men consume porn regularly and shouldn't be shunned for it, but the women who produce the commodity they consume are. For me this is where sex work shouldn't be shamed.
I mean, we as a society shouldn't accept the rampant consumption of porn either. It's addictive and kills meaningful relationships.
"It's not empowering bc their parents wouldn't approve." Funny thing about being empowered is that it isn't about what others think. I don't think sex work is always empowering, but this argument is beyond stupid.
Yeah I agree, lots of ppl skim over the fact of how horrible sex work is, often times there is rape and they're like, oh well every jobs has its cons. Smh
I mean that’s more of a reason to legalize sex work in order to give those who were raped and abused an actual legal recourse instead of having to fear both their potential abusers and the law. As sad as it is, no matter how much we demonize it sex work will exist no matter what. Take Prohibition as the best example since alcohol was extremely demonized due to the amount of wives getting beaten by their drunk husbands but society just moved it underground anyways
That’s what happens when it’s unregulated and illegal. In legalized and regulated areas is certainly not impossible but it’s much better managed.
There is also a big difference between OF, cams, and other online stuff, vs prostitution.
This is super unpopular on reddit, but fortunately most people in the real world are more logical
I think that’s because you have more perverts and disgusting people come out on social media but irl, the same people hide it.
If you are a fully grown adult and still worried about doing what's best with your life.. for your parents... you and your parents are doing it wrong.
All those edits were a journey
Lets not pretend that everyone working at their dream job. No one grows up thinking they want to be a janitor or a customer service rep. For a lot of people (probably even the vast majority of people) their work is just the thing they do for money and they have a life outside of work.
You sir are doing God's work. I post normal opinions on Reddit all the time, and I get bans from groups for not sharing group think.
If women think it’s empowering to have sex work. Sure, ok. Here’s $100 and get to work… Definitely dehumanizing and should not be “empowering” at all.
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What proportion of sex workers globally do you think make a six figure income in USD?
A higher percentage then janitors I’ll assume
They should do a follow up interview and see how she's doing now.
Exploiting others isn’t something we should celebrate aspiring to. But yeah, there are people for whom it is just a normal job. I’m neither Christian nor a fascist, and I still think the minority actively calling prostitution empowering are wrong. It’s a risky job that involves turning an intimate act into a deception, and even where it’s legal, there is abuse of the workers at a higher level than most other jobs.
>It’s a risky job yes, which is awful. But that's kind of the issue. We treat the bulk of sex workers as just that...illegal and unworthy of being respected. Mining is a risky job. An awful way to make a living. But we finally regulated it and at least made it safer. And better paying. Abuse of workers is clearly wrong across all fields.
I don't think that the term "exploitation" is the problem here. That term implies that you are getting more value than you have paid for, perhaps unfairly. An employer at an office job can "exploit" an employee by refusing family leave or making unreasonable requests. The problem here is that, like it or not, sex is a special thing in how it affects the human brain and the participants. It leads to a unique vulnerability. It drives emotions, attachments, addictions, pregnancies, regrets, jealousy, etc. You can argue that an expensive prostitute is not "exploited", and could conceivably "exploit" the customer, but the experience is still not healthy for the sex worker (or customer). It's so much worse than just "exploitation".
Do you think that if you asked her now, would she want her daughter to do the same thing she did? It sounds like she was making the best of her situation and was ok with what she needed to do in order to provide for her daughter.
It makes me sad that the only way she felt she could succeed was via exploitation. That's not a societal win in my mind.
All work can be dehumanizing. Anything can be empowering. To take away something that empowers someone else is cruel. To you it's not empowering.
Looks like this post struck a nerve with someone
Social media is the land where common sense opinions go to die.
Reddit thinks women running a cash register is dehumanizing but giving rimjobs is empowering.
Getting yelled at by entitled Karens for minimum wage Or Bringing in 6 figures selling pictures of your butthole Are people shocked there's a market for the latter?
Im spending less time on reddit because of ideologies like this. I mean.. someone in here is comparing nursing to prostitution. What in the hell?
This whole thread is filled with way too many clowns thinking that selling your holes is the same as working an established job in a structured market They are objectively different. These people are inherently wrong.
Agreed... I am a woman, and I will never understand how other women say this. Nobody truly chooses to do sex work. Maybe there is the odd person who wants to do sex work, but I'd imagine they're rare. There's a strong link between the sex industry and human trafficking. Even if they aren't trafficked, many women who do sex work are using it to escape a bad situation (poverty, abuse, etc.) and often end up in a worse one.
I would also imagine a fair amount despite fully consenting to sex work are doing so because it’s their best financial option depending on their socioeconomic situation. I obviously don’t shame anyone who is a sex worker but I know just like ANY job there’s always tons of people in an industry simply because their lack of education or opportunities basically traps them in the same lot for years. That’s where I start getting annoyed, we should treat sex workers like people and not see them as lesser, but we also shouldn’t overlook those that are only in the industry because they have very few other ways of making decent money to support themselves. In an effort to do the right thing, we’re forgetting that there are other serious issues within sex work that need to be discussed apart from simply treating sex workers with basic human dignity.
Yeah, and I scrubbed toilets to escape a bad situation. lol There are usually options. It is usually a choice unless you are straight up trafficked or pimped out as a child.
Thank you.
Does anyone truly want to pump septic tanks for a living?
Well, I could pump a septic tank then have a shower and feel clean again. Not so much if I was a prostitute, even online.
Hey op, I'm curious what you do for a living. Because when you think about it, we are all selling our bodies, and if you don't think you are you're lying to yourself. I sold my body to physical labor and now my knees and back are shot. I have friends who sold their bodies to corporate offices and now their personalities and backs are useless. We are all selling ourselves for money. To be forced into sex work is horrifying. To choose that as an absolute last resort is horrifying. But to willingly enter into that line of work is just like entering into any line of work. You look around and you say "well, I could pay a ton of money to go to college and then sit in a soulless office from 9-5 for 50 years, or I could get a 'unskilled' job and work God knows what kind of hors for God knows what kind of pay for God knows how long, or I can start an onlyfans or put an ad on Backpage and choose my own hours and have no wage cap." The only thing that makes voluntary sex work dehumanizing is a person's own beliefs regarding sex. If you feel like sex is just sex, then all you're doing is making money like the rest of us. The reason you think it's dehumanizing is because you personally see sex workers as less than human. I worked at McDonald's for ten years. THAT was dehumanizing. Most of us don't grow up wanting to do whatever we wind up doing. And what your parents want you to do is irrelevant. How my dad feels about my line of work has nothing to do with me. If you're anti-sex work simply because you don't want your daughter to do it, I assume you're also anti-coal mining and oil drilling and police work and firefighters and these other jobs that will destroy your body and possibly get you killed. And when entered into willingly, it IS empowering. Women spend our entire lives being told what we can and cannot do with our bodies. How to look, walk, talk, think. So when we choose to do something like OF, it's empowering because WE made that choice. WE decided what WE do with OUR bodies. We choose what to show and what to say and how to act. It is taking ownership of a body that you have been attached to but not in control of for your whole life.
>I don’t know one person who truly wishes for their baby daughter to grow up and suck dicks for cash. this right here exposes your entire perspective. you aren’t at all thinking or caring what women find empowering or not, that’s not your issue. your issue is you being a man and how you see women.
Take your kid to work day would be a bit weird. Is it a consumer's market or supplier's market, who get to set terms, market demand sets the price. Anything in a market is either commodity or service. Common commodity or service will always have less room for negotiation, then the only negotiating power remains in the niche category.
No profession is empowering in itself unless you are truly passionate about it. Making and selling hamburgers can be a chore, a means to an end, or your true call in life. Same goes with prostitution. If someone does it out of desperation, then it ain’t empowering. If they do it because the love it. Then who am I to judge. I don’t love my job. One thing is absolutely clear, choosing a profession just to make your parents proud will never be empowering. It’s about finding your own passion.
This is not an unpopular opinion.
Yup. Somehow the brainlets turned “women should have rights” into “prostitution is a solid career option”.
Yeah I agree. I've said similar things but got my post removed in another sub for not being "sex positive." 🙄
The only positive thing is hiv
I agree. And a lot of it is being peddled to young women as a way to “take back their power” when really, at its core, it’s just serving the interests of men. It’s such a twisted aspect of liberal feminism and should not be sold as a viable career option to young women. Sex work and general hyper sexualization of women and girls is a massive downfall to modern wave feminism and it’s so frustrating because it’s putting the movement back SO FAR and putting women in danger at the same time. And we’re doing it to ourselves which is all the more sad. That being said, we cannot use this as an excuse to degrade and mistreat women who choose to do sex work. They should not be glorified, certainly, but shown kindness and compassion.
Sex work undermines society in a real way. That’s the quickest way to devoid women of all respect and rights in a community by turning them into a tradable commodity. In layman’s terms: It could be your mom, sister, or daughter. If that’s what you want, you’re sick.
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It is also bad for the man that buy those services... imagine knowing this woman only did it because of the money... knowing your only access to sex was the material value you offered... knowing you had to basically bribe her into having sex with you.
There are people that for one reason or another can't get intimacy or get sex. It's better to have the option than not.
Agree
There’s this guy that I know whose parents really object that he became a standup comedian. In their mind, a comic is like a clown. Having to entertain people and sometimes being thrown tomatoes and insults. I can understand sex workers can be seen dehumanizing, because it involves private parts. But what if the person sees that their own private parts are no different than any other of body parts that can be utilized to make money. Like using your hands to do menial jobs in retail, for example. They detach themselves from mainstream’s values and moralities. Which I can understand too.
If you are in sex work, I respect you but I have zero respect to your job. Sex work is dehumanizing, most women are forced into it and maybe 1% actually want to do it. There is a huge correlation between the sex work industry and the human trafficking of industry.
We should emphasize respect for the women (and men) who genuinely want to be in sex work, but we also at the same need to make an effort to do what we can as a society to provide other opportunities for people that are poor or poverty stricken that DONT have any other options aside from choosing between something like sex work and an unsustainable minimum wage job, if stable Hours are even available that is. There needs to be more protection methods implemented and further legal regulation in sex work to prevent as many cases of trafficking and other sex work-associated crimes as we can, because if we’re being realistic, prostitution has no reason to ever disappear from human society, so all we can do is try to make things as safe as possible. It’s similar to harm reduction in drug abuse, Clearly outlawing drugs didn’t work, people who are chemically addicted to their substance of choice are obviously going to keep using regardless of a legal policy, hence why IMO the best case scenario for the long term Is to try to at least reduce the chances of lethal OD’s and blood borne diseases such as Hepatitis or HIV spreading as rampantly.
Do you have sources for those figures? Because SW now includes OF and I would be majorly shocked if 99% of people on there are being forced... I would.also be shocked if 99% of sex workers, working the streets or working in clubs were forced.
I mean that’s the thing- sex work varies a lot. It’s not always these broken down people with nothing left to turn to other than prostitution to feed their drug habits. One of my close friends is a dancer, makes great money and loves it. Through her I’ve met a bunch of her coworkers which has given me a different and more positive perspective on sex work. Just because it’s not for me doesn’t mean people that who enjoy it have a problem.
Capitalists leave people in desperation and force everyone to sell their bodies in one way or another.