I understand that some of the criticism comes from conservatives but the sentiment seems to extend far beyond thst. Of course, I understand it when it’s forced or when someone only does it to survive against their will. But if people genuinely want to do it, why do people hate on them?
I only have a problem with sex work if people feel like they have to do it to make ends meet, or if they are being coerced into it. The latter being a big problem in the porn industry.
The first is a form of coercion as well.
Who do you know that goes to work for fun, and not to make ends meet?
I work with several such people in my department. I prefer not to reveal much information about my work but I’ll just say it’s with electronics.
Three of them are retired and one of them works for us in his spare time when he’s not traveling across the country for his “main” job. The later one offered to do the work for free because all he really wanted out of the job was to learn how the work is done and how he can do the same work for his retired father.
Of the other three one recently had a second “retirement” because he no longer had the spare time and now cares for his wife full time. Another one recently had an argument with management because he wasn’t logging all of his hours on the job while working from home and would regularly do additional work that he wasn’t being paid for.
I’ve also had one prior side gig type of job where I know some people did it for fun while getting some cash on the side in the entertainment industry and another job with a similar situation in sports.
I’m not going to pretend much of this is very normal by current standards and I’m certain the majority of people involved were also motivated by having at least an additional source of income, but there absolutely are people who even within our current economic system go to work for the fun of it. But the only ones I’ve ever met who do it are people who no longer need to worry about making ends meet.
No one
I have at least 4 coworkers who disprove this.
All work is done through coercition Some coercition are worst than other, but the all the worst one are not only in sex works. Fighting for emancipation is done by the workers themselves, not aqainst them
I feel like I have to do my job to make ends meet - how is that different from sex work? Coercion is a different story
Fact is, we humans make quite surplus enough for everyone to make ends meet. Your job is a form of coercion, to make others money. That health care in the U.S. is tied to one’s job is evidence of that. That housing is dependent on mortgages being paid consistently or one risks homelessness is more evidence still. Taxes are coercion by governments to give credence to fiat currency, not because they need it to pay for goods and services… they could print money to pay for goods if that weren’t true. Point is jobs are coercion, and sex workers are under the same pressures I described above, enough that I doubt any sex worker is in it just for their love of the game.
And thus… Sex work is no different to the others
Then why so many sex workers die from drug overdose?
Why do so many people in other jobs die from a drug overdose? Because the world sucks
Sex workers face mortality rates from overdose that dwarf the general population. We’re talking about an external-cause mortality risk roughly 8-12 times higher for these marginalized groups. The direct link is undeniable: studies show a significant history of substance dependence (100% in one cohort) with opioids involved in ~90% of those fatal events. It’s crucial to note these are likely “conservative estimates” because many records don’t capture sex work status.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12405828/
The driving factor isn’t the work itself, but the trauma surrounding it. You see a high burden of PTSD, anxiety, and depression that predates or coincides with substance use. For many, the drug use, especially “polysubstance” mixing of opioids and benzos, is a form of self-medication to numb the violence and stigma
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acps.13559
The overdose is often a direct consequence of criminalization and policing. Research shows that when police target sex workers or create barriers to safe consumption sites, the odds of a fatal overdose more than double (AOR 2.15)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955395922003668?fr=RR-2&ref=pdf_download&rr=9d06bca97a56066e
I agree with what you’ve said but I don’t consider these things as caused by the job, rather symptomatic of how the job is treated in society (and how poorly regulated human trafficking for sex work is)
Of course, but it is the reason why I would not want any woman to be a sex worker in the current capitalist bigoted society.
Time to abolish anesthesiologists
and that’s why sex workers made their unions too
We are not free. We are just able to choose from a limited selection of approved choices or face retribution, or maybe you can’t even get a choice and that is seen as a personal failing.
needing to perform sexuality in order to make ends meet is a form of coercion. Like if someone has to grant access to their body, under threat of starvation or homelessness or whatever, that’s coercion. I don’t know how many sex workers are out there with a couple jobs lined up an then say “nah i’d rather do sex work” but within the current framework of gig economies and legally grey/restricted labor I bet it’s not a significant amount.
But that’s employment in a nutshell, though. A welder rents out his body to a company to weld steel beams for 8 hours a day. An accountant rents out their body to sit behind a desk for 8 hours a day and crunch numbers. A salesperson rents out their body to cold-call for 8 hours a day.
No matter what, we’re coerced into giving or body to perform someone else’s labour. The fact that it doesn’t always involve nudity doesn’t change anything vis a vis your bodily autonomy.
None of them rent out intimate access to their bodies, it’s stupid to think that an account sitting behind the desk is just like a sex worker. Clearly one is in a more preferalble job. Clearly the welder has a better option to barter or organize for collective action, clearly those jobs would still exist in a society where destitute women didn’t whereas the porn industry as it currently is would die out
That rings true for every single job - I mean individual coercion
and yet some of those jobs would exist in a society without destitute women, whereas the porn industry as it currently is, wouldn’t.
I am personally friends with multiple women (and non women) who do sex work (some do porn) instead of other, more mundane jobs that they are fully qualified to do. There are issues with the industry for fucking SURE but lets not pretend that everybody in it is a hostage, as an excuse to belittle those who work in SW.
I think they mean it’s their only option to make ends meet.
Other people do a lot of shit to make ends meet.
Hazardous backbreaking work and being treated like shit in a minimum wage job.
And you have a problem with people who have the choice to be their own boss and work on their own terms?
So you’re basically saying you’re against it.
You can’t do it if you’re coerced, and not by your own choice to make money.
Do you also have a problem with 99% of people who work to make ends meet, not for fun.
I’m against the conditions that force people into doing any work that they don’t want to do. I’m mentioning sex work because the topic of this post is sex work and not construction or janitorial work.
No, that’s only one reason you mentioned.
You also said you are against it “to make ends meet”.
If they’re not coerced, a valid reason to be against it, then it’s nobody’s business how they choose to get their money.
If they choose sex work over janitorial or whatever shit work it’s their right and there’s nothing wrong with it.
I don’t really know what you’re taking issue with because I agree
OK
Whats going on??? There’s obviously a difference between a cashier or warehouse worker being forced into their labour than a sex worker forced to sell intimate access to their body?? “Their own boss” what kind of liberalism is this??? This just flattens all the discourse around “sex work as work” into “wow they just perform a service like my mechanic it’s literally the same thing!” Fuck off with that bullshit.
I’m just gonna quote some marx here for all you people that think all labor is equally good and everyone just chooses freely what they want to do
LOL the moral police got triggered hard I see.
Yeah being against the commodification of womens bodies and nonconsensual sex is just being the moral police 🤮
Woman can do what they want, cry about it repressed biblethumper.
yeah I’m sure they’re really stoked to be fueling your goonsessions. disgusting. fucking libs start frothing everytime someone dares call out the oppression required to maintain their treatlerite life.
Nah, they’re right about this one and you’re wrong.
If you don’t feel the same way about fast food workers, convenience store clerks, and baristas, your problem isn’t with the exploitation, it’s with the sex.
No it isn’t. It’s more like gig work if anything but often operates in legally gray/illegal areas with less if any chance to unionise. It’s harder work than retail, leaves you with less options in your social life, pays barely enough to get by, and is way way more intrusive to the laborer. it’s clearly not like other work. If there were no women left in the margins of society with no option, nothing to sell but access to their bodies then the porn industry as we know would die out. It’s such an idealistic view to think that a woman chooses to become a sex worker the same way she applies to be a barista or fast food worker.
Also “her own boss” is how libs try to sell the gig economy that leaves the laborers destitute and desperate, be it uber eats or whatever else. Any john/client whatever should be treated with the same scorn as a landlord, a predator preying on less fortunate.
I feast on your tears little frustrated nasty man