My opinion is that sex work should be legal. It would enable involuntary virgins to get a good sex experience for payment; they will be guaranteed a good sex experience with a sex worker: no harassment, good education, and a fun time.
Sex work gets shamed by people puritans because of payment for sex and it’s “sinful”; yet these same persons puritans get and have sex for free out of “passion” or marriage; they also discriminate against minorities in sec.
EDIT: Apparently there is an implied difference between sex work and prostitution. I mean sex work.
EDIT 2: I messed up the writing of my post. My real opinion is located in this comment:
Oof. I didn’t realize there was way more exploitation than just sex traffickers. It totally makes sense though; sex trades are a product of capitalist exploitation and the existence of private property. (Naturally under communism, the prevalence of sex trades would be heavily reduced.)
It seems like I couldn’t communicate my ideas properly beforehand. I don’t want people in the sex trade to be criminalized; I want pimps and johns to be criminalized.
Only a few hours ago: I wanted to support a sex trade industry that didn’t involve rapes or rely on economic coercion. I just wanted disabled people, who keep getting discriminated out of sex,[1][2][3] to be able to feel better about their lives; a lack of sex can cause mental health issues in some people (even though this shouldn’t happen). (However, having sex probably won’t fix the issue, it will just hide the problems until later). Now I feel like shit…
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under capitalism yes, but should be outlawed under socialism. There is no need for it without a system that coerces women or men to sell their bodies to make payments.
(I’m playing a little devil’s advocate here, but I like interacting with people that have a point). I agree that in an idealistic state, no one should be forced to sell their body to pay rent, but let’s look at the argument the other way: what about people that their only way to get sex is to pay for it? You probably are a good looking and/or sociable person, and that’s why the problem never occurred to you, but there are many people out there for whom is really hard (if not completely impossible) to have sexual experiences, just because of how they look or because they have serious difficulties interacting with other human beings. What about them?
I have considered the social viewpoint a bit, and this is my response:
I am flattered, but I am not that good looking or very sociable (although I find myself tugged into social situations quite frequently, but more of a kidnapped-mostly-introverted-person situation). Although I still generalized such problems as “improve yourself”. In a more collective society such interactions would be far more likely, an example of such occurrences would be things like this. setting aside all other aspects of the GDR (as the situations of such are nigh impossible to repeat), it was an example of a collective society, and had far more and better sex than that of hyper-individualist societies. Of course this does not solve the problem of all, it gives some assurance (I guess?).
But I don’t think prostitution would have to be an answer to such problems. Sex robots are far more ethical and accessible than prostitution (of course it would have to be some years from now most likely). Under Capitalism I guess they could use the service, but as any other, it would be unethical consumption.
Thats all I got for now.
I strongly disagree, for three major reasons:
sex robots produce new forms of dehumanization: i have nothing against masturbation and/or employing ordinary objects to take pleasure, but giving human characteristics to a robot that’s supposed to be used as a passive object could (i don’t have the science on this topic sorry) make it easier to objectify other people as well ; this question is widely being debated in the topic of personal voice assistants (Siri, Cortana…) and how having a docile human-sounding could encourage verbal/emotional abuse
sex robots are polluting: they’re electro-mechanical parts assembled from raw human suffering (in mines/factories) that help completely destroy the environment ; in that sense, prostitution (given some protection for sex workers) is an organic and eco-friendly alternative to sex robots
parallel (but not equal) to point 1 is that from what i gather from my friends who do sex work on a regular basis, a lot of clients employ their services not just for sex but for emotional bonding/support, to escape their miserable daily lives or just to have someone to talk to (or practice weird kinks with) without judgement… this kind of capacity will never be provided by a robot
As a technologist I feel obligated to point out that this is far more accessible than most people realize. When people think of sex robots they imagine blowup dolls and the evolution of that. There’s certainly sex androids and progress is being made in that avenue, however it is still probably like fucking a dead body for most people. The uncanny valley is too large.
However, if you mix VR with deep fakes and advanced dildonics you could create a very realistic and satisfying experience with current technology. Just sayin’…
You people should really respect sex.
huh?
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you are ignoring the coercion that places most of these people to turn to prostituting their bodies to be playthings. That’s what they are in that job, sexual servitors. Sex work could be freedom for some well off people , but frankly I don’t care about the well off ones. Painters and musicians create art, art that has been observed and created since the dawn of humankinds ability to create anything. Prostitution originated as a way for some to buy food for their families, not as a way to “have fun”. Whenever society is developing and exploding, you find rise in beautiful art and music, when the opposite happens, you find increases of prostitution. You cannot equate the two.
I am not trying to restrict guys, gals, and non-binary pals. Under capitalism it would be easier (and better) to get legislation to help these people by legalizing and protecting them, granting them some semblance of safety (rare in a capitalist system). Socialism will erase the need for selling one’s body at all, reducing them to random few that would also wither away, as society collectivizes enough for them to not have to do exchanges to be objectified. This is my analysis. please critique where you see fit, I want to develop it.
This 100%. Thank you thank you thank you. I’m a guy who used to do SW and I’ve met/befriended tons of women who do SW over the years-- after having countless conversations with them, I’m inclined to agree with your assessment. You actually get it, unlike so many people who I’d like to think are just misguided in their understanding of SW, or lack thereof.
I gotta ask, do you know any sex workers? Are you a man? I’m a guy but I used to do SW and in that process I met tons of women who are SWs and I think most of them would roll their eyes so hard at your comment and the sources you provided.
You’re sort of cherry-picking articles and are ignorant of the other side of SW-- the side most SWs would understandably feel far too uncomfortable explaining to the media, but far more comfortable explaining in a more private context.
I don’t have the energy right now to thoroughly explain why your view on this is so far off the mark but just… yeah. You really don’t understand it and by your logic, I could easily cherry pick articles where people claim they love working at Wal-Mart and how it allows them to express themselves.
I feel like there’s a LOT of privileged people on the left who can’t wrap their heads around the difference between a person selling their body to Amazon to pack boxes, versus a sex worker selling their body to (almost always) some guy. Go look up statistics on how common sexual assault is among women who do sex work, versus say women working at Amazon.
Don’t be one of those people who thinks the sex worker and Amazon worker are both selling their bodies, therefore there are no major difference between what each party has to deal with.
I really don’t want to talk about this topic anymore but yeah, I wish there was some fast-track way for me to help you understand why you’re wrong on this. I’ve met plenty of people who mistakenly but genuinely believe the average SW enjoys her job and it’s so far off the mark. If we were in a voice call I don’t think I’d mind taking more time to explain this but that being said, the topic and discussion does exhaust me because I’ve had this conversation with so many people in the past, although thankfully I’ve changed a decent amount of peoples’ opinions on this.