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Sex work (digression from Charlie Kirk)

Jimmy Higgins said:
It is exclusively self-serving.
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You are making a claim about my motivations, and you are basing it on nothing except your prejudices.
It means your arguments for "supporting women" are full of crap.
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It is not.
You would not hold it against a gay person to care about things like Lawrence and Obergefell. You would not hold it against a woman of reproductive age to care about abortion and contraception access as political issues. So why hold it against me?
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Because you aren't arguing honestly that you want it legal so you can legally do it.
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Huh? I am not getting your point here, if there even is one.
 
Toni said:
I’m in a rush so I’ll just address the last:
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You tend to do that a lot - ignore most of the points raised against your position.
Providing manicures to the public does not carry with it the same risk to health from transmission disease or from violence as does sex work, even in places where sex work is legal.
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- But there is risk of exploitation, as that NY Times article shows.
- There are professions more dangerous than sex work.
- Do you really think health and safety of sex workers are not negatively impacted by keeping the profession illegal?
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Personally, I don't think it is enough to legalize such work, it needs to be institutionalized.
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What does that even mean concretely? Only allow government-run brothels, like the government-run liquor stores in some states?
It needs beaucoup regulation. It needs a 401k. And it needs to help snuff out the illicit trade that will be in its shadow.
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Too much regulation does not help snuff out illicit trade, as it becomes difficult to comply with all the onerous regulations.
There should be reasonable regulation, but no more than that.
401k would only apply to sex workers working for an establishment, not independent providers. But with their income being legal, they can invest it using a (Roth) IRA.
 
Derec said:
Toni said:
I’m in a rush so I’ll just address the last:
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You tend to do that a lot - ignore most of the points raised against your position.
Providing manicures to the public does not carry with it the same risk to health from transmission disease or from violence as does sex work, even in places where sex work is legal.
Click to expand...
- But there is risk of exploitation, as that NY Times article shows.
- There are professions more dangerous than sex work.
- Do you really think health and safety of sex workers are not negatively impacted by keeping the profession illegal?
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It’s true: I do not necessarily address every point put to me. Sometimes it’s a question of time. Sometimes I feel like the point has already been rehashed many times and there’s no point to keep repeating the same points in counter to someone else’s.

Or add it to my list of character flaws.

My big qualm about legalization of prostitution hinges exactly on the point of which causes the least harm to the most people? I come down on the side of not legalizing or only very limited legalization because of concerns about underaged sex workers and coercion, which is a genuine issue that does not disappear and at least sometimes increases in some situations.

There are many dangerous occupations. Many/most have a lot of regulation and safety training to reduce risks. I certainly underwent safety training at the beginning and at least annually when I worked in a lab dealing with human blood and body fluids—and the use of personal protective equipment was mandatory—and enforced. I’ve undergone safety training for other jobs as well. I’m not certain that it would translate well into sex work. And frankly we both know that there will always be pressure to forgo condoms, for example.
 
Toni said:
As I’ve written before, I have no moral objections to any sex two ( or more) adults mutually consent to engage in.
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So you say, but if that were true, would you really only use sources that back the prohibitionist agenda?
I realize that legalization of prostitution reduces the risk of violence for some sex workers. That is a tremendous good!
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Isn't that alone a pretty good reason for legalization?

Another big reason is that it makes the society more free. Just like keeping gay sex legal makes the society more free even if neither of us wishes to partake. A true liberal should appreciate that.
But legalization does not solve all of the risks of violence or trafficking.
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It does not solve everything, but then, nothing does. That is not an argument for prohibition.
It ‘expands the market.’
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That might only mean that without fear of government persecution more people (sellers and buyers of sexual services) feel free to do what they wanted to do anyway, but were too afraid to do because of legal consequences.
Just like more gays have sex in the US than in Iran - many gays choose to go celibate because of fear of consequences.
Thus "expanding the market"

orgs.law.harvard.edu

Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?

Human trafficking leaves no land untouched. In 2013 the U.S. State Department estimated that there are 27 million victims worldwide trafficked for forced labor or commercial sex exploitation. A 201…
orgs.law.harvard.edu orgs.law.harvard.edu
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Note that this is not a Harvard study - an article about it is merely posted there. And the sole comment points out some of the problems with the methodology.

And there is this article about how "trafficking" has become a meaningless term.
"Human Trafficking" Has Become a Meaningless Term
New Republic said:
"Trafficking," in practice, is less a clear-cut crime than a call to moral panic. The vagueness of the definition allows or even encourages governments, organizations, and researchers to claim that there are tens of millions of trafficking victims worldwide on the basis of little more than hyperbolic guesses. Politicians use trafficking rhetoric to portray themselves as defenders of the downtrodden, and generate laudatory press coverage, as Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has done with his crusade against Backpage.com and other sites advertising adult services.
[...]
The exact origin of the term "sex trafficking" is unclear, but according to Alison Bass, author of Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law, it seems to have been developed by anti-prostitution feminists in the 1990s. Bass told me that "trafficking" was used especially to describe the migration of women from the collapsing Soviet Union to the United States. Donna Hughes's seminal 2000 article "The Natasha Trade" defined trafficking specifically as "any practice that involves moving people within and across local or national borders for the purpose of sexual exploitation."
But anti-prostitution activists like Hughes often use “sexual exploitation” to include any kind of prostitution or sex work—in fact, Hughes insists in her article that "trafficking occurs even if the woman consents.” In other words, trafficking can include sex workers who decide to illegally or semi-legally migrate from Eastern Europe to the United States. This describes the majority of women who were said to be "trafficked," according to researchers Robert M. Fuffington and Donna J. Guy. "More often than not," they write in A Global History of Sexuality, "these women have engaged in some form of sex work in their home countries and see work abroad as a chance to improve their circumstances."
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[emphasis added]
There are obviously pros and cons to legalization of prostitution. For me, the pros do not outweigh the cons.
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Reality is that pros strongly outweigh the cons.
 
Toni said:
Look at pot, for example. It’s legal in many states and that has generated new business models and products, including lots of CBD products. In my life, I’ve never been interested at all in smoking anything. But I’ve used some legal CBD products. Because they are legal. The market has expanded.
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Yes, making something legal will expand the market vs. keeping it illegal. But why are you treating that as a bad thing? It should be a matter of personal choice in free society.
Ever notice that one coffee shop on a nice corner often leads to another coffee shop? Same thing with fast food and tattoo parlors.
Availability generates demand.
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I do not think that one tattoo shop (or coffee shop or burger joint) begetting another necessarily leads to increased demand, but there is certainly clustering of certain businesses that compete with each other. This is a very different phenomenon than increased demand due to a product or service becoming legal, be it pot, gay sex, abortions or sex for money.
Do we think that making pot legal has increased or decreased demand for pot? Has it had an impact on illegal drugs? Would legalizing drugs reduce demand or increase it? Reduce the negative consequences of drug use? Sure, it would reduce arrests for buying/selling/possession. I applauded d that! But there are plenty of other negative effects.
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Which can be mitigated through regulation. I do think legalizing weed is the right thing to do as pros outweigh cons. Same for sex work.
Legalization would do nothing to reduce the demand for underaged sex workers.
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It would not, but neither would it do anything to increase it. So that is not a sound argument for prohibition. What can happen is that law enforcement, no longer busy persecuting consenting adults using stings and whatnot, can focus on forced and underage aspects of the trade. That is a good thing.
It would not reduce the demand for what could still remain illegal. It would not guarantee that sex workers are willing participants but it would make it easier to claim that they were.
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... but it would make it easier to distinguish one from the other.
 
Derec said:
Toni said:
As I’ve written before, I have no moral objections to any sex two ( or more) adults mutually consent to engage in.
Click to expand...
So you say, but if that were true, would you really only use sources that back the prohibitionist agenda?
I realize that legalization of prostitution reduces the risk of violence for some sex workers. That is a tremendous good!
Click to expand...
Isn't that alone a pretty good reason for legalization?

Another big reason is that it makes the society more free. Just like keeping gay sex legal makes the society more free even if neither of us wishes to partake. A true liberal should appreciate that.
But legalization does not solve all of the risks of violence or trafficking.
Click to expand...
It does not solve everything, but then, nothing does. That is not an argument for prohibition.
It ‘expands the market.’
Click to expand...
That might only mean that without fear of government persecution more people (sellers and buyers of sexual services) feel free to do what they wanted to do anyway, but were too afraid to do because of legal consequences.
Just like more gays have sex in the US than in Iran - many gays choose to go celibate because of fear of consequences.
Thus "expanding the market"

orgs.law.harvard.edu

Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?

Human trafficking leaves no land untouched. In 2013 the U.S. State Department estimated that there are 27 million victims worldwide trafficked for forced labor or commercial sex exploitation. A 201…
orgs.law.harvard.edu orgs.law.harvard.edu
Click to expand...
Note that this is not a Harvard study - an article about it is merely posted there. And the sole comment points out some of the problems with the methodology.

And there is this article about how "trafficking" has become a meaningless term.
"Human Trafficking" Has Become a Meaningless Term
New Republic said:
"Trafficking," in practice, is less a clear-cut crime than a call to moral panic. The vagueness of the definition allows or even encourages governments, organizations, and researchers to claim that there are tens of millions of trafficking victims worldwide on the basis of little more than hyperbolic guesses. Politicians use trafficking rhetoric to portray themselves as defenders of the downtrodden, and generate laudatory press coverage, as Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has done with his crusade against Backpage.com and other sites advertising adult services.
[...]
The exact origin of the term "sex trafficking" is unclear, but according to Alison Bass, author of Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law, it seems to have been developed by anti-prostitution feminists in the 1990s. Bass told me that "trafficking" was used especially to describe the migration of women from the collapsing Soviet Union to the United States. Donna Hughes's seminal 2000 article "The Natasha Trade" defined trafficking specifically as "any practice that involves moving people within and across local or national borders for the purpose of sexual exploitation."
But anti-prostitution activists like Hughes often use “sexual exploitation” to include any kind of prostitution or sex work—in fact, Hughes insists in her article that "trafficking occurs even if the woman consents.” In other words, trafficking can include sex workers who decide to illegally or semi-legally migrate from Eastern Europe to the United States. This describes the majority of women who were said to be "trafficked," according to researchers Robert M. Fuffington and Donna J. Guy. "More often than not," they write in A Global History of Sexuality, "these women have engaged in some form of sex work in their home countries and see work abroad as a chance to improve their circumstances."
Click to expand...
[emphasis added]
There are obviously pros and cons to legalization of prostitution. For me, the pros do not outweigh the cons.
Click to expand...
Reality is that pros strongly outweigh the cons.
Click to expand...
I don’t only read about the cons of legalization.

I think we must weigh the good of possibly making sex work safer for some sex workers against the potential for greater harm done to those who are coerced into meeting the increased demand. I am not as sanguine that pros outweigh the cons. I wish I were.

I know that in many places in the MidEast homosexuality is illegal. I also know that it still happens. Just as it still happened in other parts of the world when it was illegal.

Lots of women—and men come to the US to work and many of them find that the jobs they were coming to work do not exist and many are pressed into sex work. They are told they have to ‘work off their debt’ incurred in transporting them to the US. So yeah, that qualifies as trafficking.
 
Derec said:
Bronzeage said:
I've never seen Sophie's performance on Onlyfans, but I can imagine most of it. Her cost of production is quite low, compared to Taylor. She certainly isn't spending a lot on wardrobe.
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Me neither, so I cannot judge how elaborate her performances are, or what the production values are.
I confess to being baffled by the economics of pornography. I'm sitting at a computer that gives me free access to almost any sexual display for no cost. I really don't understand how anyone manages to sell something when most of the competition is giving away the same product, and besides that, anyone with access to it, can reproduce it at no cost.
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I am not an OF connoisseur myself either, but my understanding is that for most OF subscribers, there is some form of interactivity, even getting custom videos for additional $$$.
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As with all commerce of this type, GFE is a premium product.
 
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