Which part, ‘voluntarily applying’ or being ‘free to quit’?
Asbestos is outlawed because it causes permanent physical damage. The ‘pain’ of sexual harassment goes away. Would it be better if women were told up front before getting hired that they’d be harassed, that way they could make an informed decision about whether or not to work there?
How much dick? I didn’t ask you about working retail.
No, I’m not. There is no real mid-ground between “legal” and “not legal”. Yes yes, decriminalization and such, but this debate is about whether or not it should be legal. My argument is that prostitution should be legal. I also, explicitly, stated that it should be clean, safe, well-regulated, etc…
In fact, I already specifically pointed out that various jobs are, of course, going to be different in nature. That does not however mean that because prostitution is not arc welding, it should be illegal. In as far as it’s important, however, sex work is providing a service voluntarily in exchange for monetary compensation. It is not materially different from the sphere of legal careers as to be illegal.
So noted, you are determined to focus on images of fellatio and are unable or unwilling to actually discuss the principles at work. I accept your admission that you have no real argument other than “So you gonna suck dick? Eh? Eh!?!?”
I would welcome legalization. And take the business out of the hands of pimps-we should have health inspections and licensed brothels.
Sex isn’t going away-might as well control it and tax it, and mitigate the harm is causes.
No. I am focusing on the kind of activities that prostitutes actually do as part of their job. You keep harping on how much you hated working retail and trying to draw some equivalency with prostitution. You seem comfortable with the idea of others being reduced to trading sex for money to pay the bills. Not comfortable enough with the idea to taste one yourself though, “eh?”
Given the typical hourly rates, if I lost my job I’d RATHER suck dick in a regulated, safe context than work retail. I would also prefer sex work to landscaping, day labor, construction, fast food clerking, and any other number of hot, dangerous, degrading, and/or physically strenuous jobs. In point of fact, I’d also prefer prostitution to working as a performer in other areas of the sex trade, like porn or strip clubs.
If you disagree with the relative rankings, you are free to not take up sex work and instead herd a hedge trimmer in 103F heat for 10 hours a day.
Similarly, FinnAgain is not engaging in any kind of contradiction or logical “gotcha” by preferring sex work become legal/regulated AND preferring to not take such work himself.
Because generally speaking, a role is understood to be either paying or not. You never come across a McDonalds or Wal-Mart where half of the people working there are getting paid, and half of them are happily unpaid volunteers- the volunteers would obviously feel entitled to the same money for doing the same activity. I’m not saying that unpaid sex would disappear if prostitution was made legal and shame-free, but I can see how lawmakers in a patriarchal society would fear that.
Yes.
Your argument displays a marked orbit around “Finn, would you engage in gay sex? Huh huh hunhhhhh???” You are unwilling or unable to address the actual issue, which is that there are plenty of jobs I wouldn’t particularly want to do. You cannot bring yourself to article an actual cogent position as to why degrading retail work should be legal but (in your interpretation) degrading sex work should be illegal. “Suck dick suck dick suck dick, eh eh eh???” by the way, is not a cogent position.
There are plenty of jobs I wouldn’t enjoy doing. That’s a pretty shitty reason for arguing that they should be prohibited upon penalty of law.
It is a form of special pleading if he thinks that he shouldn’t have to resort to prostitution to save his life, yet others should.
You’re positing an appeal to ridicule for the notion of wage slavery in order to equivocate between other forms of wage labour and prostitution.
Which isn’t saying “we must protect them from choices they make to acquire currency”. It’s saying that prostitution can be undignified when women are forced to resort to it in order to preserve their living conditions.
There are many kinds of currency. Money is one. Loyalty, friendship, care, are others that also get exchanged for sex, if you must be totally mercenary about it.
There’s also the fact that I build computers for free (labor, anyway) for my buddies as a hobby. The existence of Dell doesn’t “obviously” make me feel entitled to getting paid.
“shouldn’t” and “would prefer not” are two very, very different things.
Again: I would never want to take a landscaping job, I hate it above almost all other activities. That is not a form of special pleading if I also think landscaping should remain legal.
This argument is functionally identical to “Landscaping can be undignified when pudgy white guys like Zeriel are forced to resort to it in order to preserve their living conditions.”
Both.
Sucking dick is hardly ever mentioned in job interviews, so there’s your voluntary applying. As for the latter, many women (and men) agree to suck dick because their economic circumstances scare them into sucking dick to keep their jobs, even though they’d make more money sucking dick professionally (or, on the flip side, woud make much less but would be hard pressed finding a similar position that wouldn’t involve sucking dick).
The point is: nobody chooses to be sexually harassed, and because they don’t choose it they’re often not ready to deal with it.
Straight up prostitution, on the other hand, is a choice without illusions, deception, or power play at work. Is it driven by desperation ? Probably in the majority of cases, yes. At least in the context of skanky-ass street tricking (which is hardly the only kind of prostitution out there).
But then, as **Finn **says, we tacitly accept that people are getting “forced” into a lot of straight up dehumanizing jobs out of desperation. As long as they know what they’re getting into going in, and as long as they’re not coerced into it, that’s just life being a cunt. As usual.
Spin it how you like. I still see you as comfortable with degradation, as long as it isn’t you being degraded. If you prefer, how many unattractive old women are you willing to service to pay your bills? I specified male customers because male customers are overwhelmingly the majority in the sex trade.
You are not using the term at all correctly.
It is not, and there is no reasonably coherent method by which one could conclude that, by saying that something should be allowed I am saying I would like to do it. It should be legal to get your genitals pierced, too. Doesn’t mean I’d do it. It should be legal to have sex for money, to work retail, to work construction in 102 degree Texas heat, and so on. Doesn’t mean I’d want to do them. Notice, I haven’t said that I “shouldn’t” have to do anything. You imagined that, as you’ve imagined multiple things in this thread so far, with no retraction or correction , let alone apology.
Simply for the record, if it came down to me being flat broke with no income and no job, I’d far rather have the option, dashing, roguish rake that I am, to enter into voluntary agreements with lonely/unattractive/old/whatever women who wanted to contract for my services. The only place I’d apply “shouldn’t” is to say that people damn well shouldn’t stick their noses where they don’t belong and condemn me to grinding poverty ‘for my own good’ out of some bizarre sexual version of White Man’s Burden.
You just rephrased the same exact sentiment and are acting as if it’s materially different. It isn’t. Saying we must prevent adult, autonomous women from freely entering into contracts to support themselves financially, because it’s “undignified”? That’s the same exact thing as saying that we must protect them from choices they make in order to acquire currency.
I discern a bit of hyperbole mixed with a passionate belief in what exactly?
That dick sucking does go on is without question. Even the fact that the dick suckers get paid for such is without question. What do you object to? You say people will be ‘reduced to’ as opposed to what?
People choose to do this, everyday. Will some people take on this job as a means to feed and care for one’s family? Sure they will, just as a janitor would. Or maybe closer to home, just as an exotic dancer would.
Just because FinnAgain is unable or unwilling to engage in the activity is not means enough to keep it illegal, so I don’t understand why you keep beating that drum.
Let it be legal. It makes no sense that I can meet a stranger at a bar, F@&K him and its totally legal BUT if he gives me a dollar that very same sexual activity is now magically illegal
No, all sorts of people volunteer to work for free - retail (charity thrift shops etc), lawyers, firemen, nurses and so on. It just depends on the context. So what I’m saying is that if I imagine distant/alien cultures I can imagine sex work without many of the negative consequences we have here in our culture on earth reducing the most egregious harms will result the industry’s decline. So to the change the context enough for these kinds of industries to be harmless and dignified in the way you mean would require some sort of cultural revolution or whatever.
Unless it’s your first time, which, as I understand it, allows you to charge significantly more.
Or if it’s your 217th and you can convince them that it’s your first.
(On a serious note…)
I would preemptively like to bring up issues such as withdrawn consent half way through sex, prostitutes turning down clients, and so on. If prostitution was a legal commercial transaction, it would be legal only with consent and could I’m sure have regulations in place to ensure refunds should a client be denied a full session. Rape charges would be appropriate if a client refused to stop, and if the business was well regulated and policed, that rape charge would have a very good chance of sticking. As for turning down clients, as a private business any prostitute would have the right to choose her (or his) clientele just as private businesses can do today.
This claim demonstrates a profound ignorance of history.
Cite.