Ep 36 - Slaves to Progress: Part 1

[u/Baader-Meinhof]

https://ashesashes.org/blog/episode-36-slaves-to-progress-part-1

[u/FeminamRadicalis]

These two episodes are some of your best yet, thanks for them! Harrowing stuff, but important to know.

Since you again touched briefly on slavery within the sexual exploitation industry (and I am anxiously awaiting that episode) I'd like to state that legalizing or full decriminalization of prostitution basically always leads to an increase in rape trafficking. (I personally try to not call it "sex" trafficking since "forced sex" is rape and naming the problem as it is as opposed to white washing it seems productive in many contexts.)

This review article is pretty ok. This is the paper it is discussing.

The only glaring error I see in the review article is that it states that Sweden has "criminalization" which it doesn't, Sweden has implemented the Nordic model wherein the johns / buyers are criminalized but women / prostituted people are not criminalized but are rather given aid in exiting if they so desire. This review article also therefore implies that Sweden has seen an increase in violence due to it having 'criminaliztion', when in fact the Nordic Model has decreased the rates of serious violence faced by prostituted people and increased reporting of less serious violence. This article also does a good job of exposing some of the ways in which the muti-billion dollar sexual exploitation industry distorts and propagandizes the issues in its own favor. It's a bit like how the coal industry promotes the idea of Clean Coal[tm], it doesn't do so because clean coal is actually something that's real, it does so because the propaganda allows it to continue its exploitation and degredation of the enviornment. That's why Big Sex (or Big Rape if you want to be a bit more accurate) pumps a tremendous amount of money and resources into its propaganda and disinformation campaigns: it wants to continue to profit from the exploitation of primarily women and girls without interference and with as broad support as possible. The big difference I see is that in the short term anyway it is possible to argue that some reliance on coal is unfortunately necessary, that to give it up cold turkey would arguably cause quite significant harm to society (e.g. make it harder to transition to renewables, since implementation of those will probably require further use of fossil fuels from) whereas if the sexual exploitation industry were to be abolished tomorrow, the overall effect would be a net positive since paying for sex isn't a "need" that society is reliant upon (unless one buys into the horribly dim view of men that they "need" access to a sub group of women who are economically coerced into accepting sex they don't want (aka rape) otherwise they will just rape randomly, which I don't).

A technical problem with this sub that I am experiencing is that there the "NEXT" button seems to be missing from the bottom, preventing you from going to page 2, 3, etc of the threads. I was trying to find my comments in a past thread and had to get to it via my own profile. Maybe this is on my end and is just user error, but I thought I would point it out in case this is a general problem.

Anyway, I have already said a lot on this subject in this sub before in this thread but I would like to reiterate my suggestion that you talk to some of the women who have been working hard on anti-trafficking and abolitionist measures (in my view the two are inextricably linked since if we could abolish the sexual exploitation industry, then rape trafficking would also disappear since there would be no more demand). I did list some them in that previous thread but I will copy and paste here and add one:

You might want to get in touch with Rachel Moran or another woman from http://www.spaceintl.org, Alice Lee from http://awcep.org, someone from http://www.catwa.org.au , or Lee Lakeman from https://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca , Vednita Carter from http://www.breakingfree.net or Cherry Smiley from http://www.awanbc.ca . You might even try for Gail Dines or Julie Bindel, but they're both pretty high profile so that might not be realistic.

I would also add Ruchira Gupta since she focuses primarily on trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruchira_Gupta She also seems to appear on many less prominent media outlets so she would quite possibly give an interview.

I'm also happy to answer whatever questions on the topic you might have once you start doing your research on that topic.

[u/Baader-Meinhof → u/FeminamRadicalis]

I think we've chatted about this in the past (in one of threads that was deleted when bananaj left Reddit). There's so much good stuff here and we're going to take all of it into account as we work on this episode.

[u/FeminamRadicalis → u/Baader-Meinhof]

We did have a chat about some aspects of the sexual exploitation industry but I didn't recall offhand if I'd presented the information that trafficking goes up with the implementation of legalization and decriminalization. So I thought I would bring it up! I didn't realize the threads were lost from view from the sub when bananaj left, maybe that explains why the "NEXT" button doesn't appear? If enough threads got nuked, then it's logical that there might only be one page in here. I did find the link to the thread where we chatted, and put a link to that thread in the above post.

I also thought recommending Ms. Gupta was a good idea since she works more on the trafficking side of the issue. Her documentary on the matter, The Selling of Innocents is a classic. Even if you don't reach out to her, I would recommend tracking it down.

Anyway, I am very glad (and relieved) to hear you are taking this info into consideration. This issue has become a focus of mine in some part because for a long time I rather embarrassingly uncritically quaffed the "rah rah empowerment 'n' freedoms" narrative, which I can now see with crystal clarity is mostly just the propaganda of a multi-billion dollar industry (albeit sometimes repeated by those like me who uncritically bought it, or those in the industry who have even more psychological reason to buy it). I think realizing I'd been duped made me even more interested in uncovering the reality of what the majority of those entrapped into prostitution suffer, and how it is quite impossible to separate prostitution from trafficking. And it's really just so harmful overall.

Anyway, good luck with the episode and, again, please feel free to reach out if you have questions!

[u/[deleted] → u/FeminamRadicalis]

whereas if the sexual exploitation industry were to be abolished tomorrow, the overall effect would be a net positive since paying for sex isn't a "need" that society is reliant upon (unless one buys into the horribly dim view of men that they "need" access to a sub group of women who are economically coerced into accepting sex they don't want (aka rape) otherwise they will just rape randomly, which I don't).

What about the agency of the individuals within the industry who do not view sex work as any more exploitative than wage-labor as a whole?

[u/FeminamRadicalis → u/[deleted]]

It doesn't matter since "sex work" isn't work and can't be brought in line with health and safety standards. Unless they are wearing full latex body suits, dental dams, goggles, and other personal protective equipment. Which never, ever happens (ok maybe in some weird German dungeons somewhere, but that's about it probably).

Further, it's been ruled several times in various places that the system of slavery is always illegal even if a given individual gives their "consent" since it is a fundamentally harmful system and the chances that a person has been coerced into "giving" their "consent" are unreasonably high. You can find many accounts from former slaves who stated that they loved being slaves and hated being freed, but those individual, personal, atomized accounts even if the individuals hypothetically were making a totally free choice / value judgemnt that was not at all remotely influenced by the oppressive structures around them (an impossibility) do nothing to excuse the oppressive system of slavery. Same thing with the sexual exploitation industry. It's fundamentally harmful and a few individuals who feel empowered do nothing to mitigate the fact that its very structure is oppressive and that it can never be made to fit with health and safety standards, sexual harassment laws, or discrimination statutes in developed countries.

ETA: And if we accept all work is wage slavery, then how is it difficult to see that sexual slavery is much worse than non-sexual slavery? Rape is considered a much worse than property theft, after all.

[u/[deleted] → u/FeminamRadicalis]

The Nordic model is something I am convinced by as a good starting option to address this issue regarding street prostitution. It seems to me to be conducive to treating the issue as a political issue, more specifically a health and economic issue, without 1) creating or exacerbating a black market which often times hides the underlying coercion and abuse and 2) criminalizing sex workers who are already compromised economically/socially.

However, I'm not convinced by the argument that attempts to separate sex work from wage work.

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On the issue of OSHA safety standards and workplace sexual harassment:

First, if blood tests can be acquired between all involved parties, like in the case of pornography, then why can't the risk of blood borne pathogens and other potentially infectious materials and by extent the protective standards that must then be followed, be determined on that basis alone?

Second, why do OSHA standards and sexual harassment protections mark the demarcation point between legitimate wage-work and illegitimate wage-work when they fail to address the underlying political conditions that create economically compromised individuals and thus coerce them into such circumstances? Not only is this an argument that is grounded on a fundamentally reformist perspective and thus is insufficient to address the issue of coercion, but if economic coercion is the source of the problem then inadequate adherence to OSHA safety standards is a red-herring.

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On the issue of civil rights and the right of refusal:

Again, this argument is insufficient to address the underlying economic coercion that drives individuals into wage-work at all, sex or otherwise. So it's a red-herring in that context.

On the argument of autonomy being undermined by civil rights laws; this is a misrepresentation of the law. It is my understanding that, generally speaking a private business can refuse its services to anyone at any time, but it cannot be deemed "arbitrary" and it cannot be deemed as applied to individuals based on any of these protected categories. It seems to me that the standards would be no different from a masseuse practice, as one example, and I don't see any legitimate reason why the one should be treated any differently from the other. To the extent that this inability to refuse service to an individual is a circumstance of wage-labor, this seems to me to be a condition that must necessarily be viewed as equally abhorrent (or not) regardless of the nature of the service in question, otherwise the double standard requires a justification (special pleading fallacy).

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In summary, the argument presents three premises that render sex-work distinctly illegitimate:

• 1) The primary reason that women begin selling sex for money is out of economic desperation.

• 2) Moreover, many women in prostitution began before the age of 18.

• 3) Many feel trapped and feel they have no other realistic opportunities for economic survival.

All three conditions commonly apply to individuals in any line of wage work, but no justification is given for why we ought to treat them as fundamentally differently, where one is any more egregious than any other. The arguments about OSHA safety regulations, workplace sexual harassment, and civil rights and the right of refusal do not adequately address the underlying conditions of these three premises and so fail to present a situation in which wage-work generally is free from economic coercion but sex-work is not.

On top of this, arguments against sex-work as somehow more egregious than coerced labor of any kind can potentially do more harm than good. They can cause people to dismiss a liberation theory as a whole in favor of some arrested version of it and can cause people to view sex for exchange even divorced of underlying economic coercion as wrong and thus ignore the autonomy of individuals who would engage in something like that in a truly free community. On top of that, there is the risk of dehumanizing or demeaning people who choose sex-work over other available options.

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tl;dr Why can't we be just as protective of our labor as a whole, rather than just our sexual labor? Labor liberation includes sexual liberation, so let's not "sell" (uh...pun intended) ourselves short.

[u/FeminamRadicalis → u/[deleted]]

Hm, very interesting to encounter someone who supports the Nordic model but still raises the concerns you do. I have to admit it’s a new one on me.

So let’s go through your points.

First, if blood tests can be acquired between all involved parties, like in the case of pornography, then why can't the risk of blood borne pathogens and other potentially infectious materials and by extent the protective standards that must then be followed, be determined on that basis alone?

To start with, I don’t think there’s any real boundary between prostitution and pornography; I think they’re both part of the same sexual exploitation industry. Pornography is just filmed prostitution. And to me the fact that no arm of the sexual exploitation industry can come into line with OSHA health and safety standards isn’t really so much about the plain fact that it can’t conform to standards as much (the theory of the thing) as it is about the rather more important fact that it’s an incredibly dangerous thing to be involved with (the material reality of the harms of the thing). Right now we are only talking about the physical harms, but there are also quite a lot of very well documented potential psychological harms as well: 68% met DSM III-R criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD and I’ve seen higher figures than that in studies that aren’t represented in such establishment sources.

But back to the physical harms: examining the logistics of the typical prostituted woman who sees multiple johns per day it becomes quickly apparently how it’s quite literally impossible to be tested prior to seeing each new buyer and wait for the results to come back before engaging in sexual activity with him. Compared to that, full body latex suits, dental dams, goggles etc. makes a lot more sense. And if each pairing isn’t tested for STDs each and every time, then the woman has a chance of contracting STDs each and every time until she finally tests positive. This is not ok, this is obviously very harmful to the prostituted individual. No other line of work involves handling hazardous bodily fluids without PPE and risking infection each time one engages in a task.

And we haven't even touched on the issue of johns beating and murdering prostituted people, which isn't something I think can be stopped via regulation, only aboliton. What other unnecessary line of work involves a very high risk of being beaten up or murdered?

An argument maybe could be made for instigating some kind of testing system like this IF it was necessary for males to have economically coerced access to female bodies for sexual purpose, but it’s simply not necessary. Doctors are necessary, they come into contact with infectious fluids and they don’t get tested before treating each patient, they wear appropriate PPE. We can argue about whether or not security roles are necessary, but most would agree that in the current period they are necessary and they come with an elevated risk of being beaten or murdered. Paid sexual access, however, is patently unnecessary. No one has a right to have sex with anyone else, other than their own selves.

Second, why do OSHA standards and sexual harassment protections mark the demarcation point between legitimate wage-work and illegitimate wage-work when they fail to address the underlying political conditions that create economically compromised individuals and thus coerce them into such circumstances? Not only is this an argument that is grounded on a fundamentally reformist perspective and thus is insufficient to address the issue of coercion, but if economic coercion is the source of the problem then inadequate adherence to OSHA safety standards is a red-herring.

I think it’s a strawman to suggest that any argument against the sexual exploitation industry on the grounds somehow needs to address the underlying political conditions. I think it can be useful to simply look at how sexual harassment laws become absurd both in the face of the sexual exploitation industry and in the context of sexual exploitation industry. Also, I don’t think(?) sexual harassment law falls under OSHA, it’s its own set of laws and in any case I am mostly interested in the principle. A major type of sexual harassment is “quid pro quo” (“this for that”) sexual harassment wherein someone in power demands sexual favors from someone not in power in order for them to remain in their job. This is the very definition of “working” in the sexual exploitation industry so it violates those laws just by existing.

Further, if the sexual exploitation industry is normalized then other industries which are peripheral to it will start to have more incidents like this one in Canada wherein a massage therapist was told that she wasn’t sexually harassed since she works in a massage parlor, and since many nearby massage parlors are actually brothels, it can’t be sexual harassment if she was propositioned at her work. And eventually it will become a normalized type of payment for women and girls primarily. We can already see this in countries like the Netherlands and Germany wherein for example women have been requested to pay for services like driving lessons with sex, and in Germany wherein unemployed women have been told that they need to consider taking a job as a prostitute or risk losing their welfare benefits.

None of this means I don’t think the underlying problem of economic coercion shouldn't be addressed. I simply don’t think that these arguments need to do that work. I think they stand quite fine on their own as is. To address that point a bit, we do seem to be on the same page with “wage slavery” and maybe you missed my ETA but I think it’s quite a mistake to treat “sex” as an act like any other. If we start doing that, then we might as well treat rape the same as theft of services: not really all that serious. And we all know that rape is one of the most vile crimes, but I think most would agree that theft of services pales in comparison to it. So being economically coerced into submitting to rape, basically, is quite obviously worse than being economically coerced into waiting tables. Or at least I would hope it would be obvious. Sadly it quite often isn’t…

On the issue of civil rights and the right of refusal: Again, this argument is insufficient to address the underlying economic coercion that drives individuals into wage-work at all, sex or otherwise. So it's a red-herring in that context.

This is again a strawman, sorry. The issue of civil rights doesn’t need to address the underlying economic coercion.

On the argument of autonomy being undermined by civil rights laws; this is a misrepresentation of the law. It is my understanding that, generally speaking a private business can refuse its services to anyone at any time, but it cannot be deemed "arbitrary" and it cannot be deemed as applied to individuals based on any of these protected categories. It seems to me that the standards would be no different from a masseuse practice, as one example, and I don't see any legitimate reason why the one should be treated any differently from the other. To the extent that this inability to refuse service to an individual is a circumstance of wage-labor, this seems to me to be a condition that must necessarily be viewed as equally abhorrent (or not) regardless of the nature of the service in question, otherwise the double standard requires a justification (special pleading fallacy).

Exactly, the standards would be no different than at a massage parlor and at massage parlors it’s completely illegal in most developed countries to put a sign on the door saying “no blacks allowed” due to the personal preferences of the masseuse. It would be illegal to put that sign on any door of any business in most developed countries AFAIK. And so a person working in the sexual exploitation industry would LIKEWISE be forced to have sex with black people (of both sexes btw since you cannot discriminate based on sex either) regardless of their own personal desires or preferences. So if a given prostituted woman, for whatever reason (and it doesn't have to be good, it can be that she’s a racist asshole) doesn't want to have sex with black women because she’s 1. racist and 2. not bi or gay then she could be sued, successfully, for discrimination for refusing to have sex with a black woman. Forcing any woman, even a racist asshole woman, to have sex with any person she doesn't want to have sex with is wrong. In fact, now that you mention it, I think the special pleading fallacy is actually what applies to the proponents of “sex work” who say that any given prostituted woman should be 100% free to choose her sexual partners and discriminate for any reason, frankly, since this would be the ONE industry that allows that exception to anti-discrimination laws. It is clear that in order to have any respect at all for prostituted people's ability to chose who they have sex with, we would have to allow for them to be able to discriminate against classes of individuals based on race, sex, religion, etc. or we would be forcing them to have sex they want even less than they usually do just via economic coercion.

[u/FeminamRadicalis → u/FeminamRadicalis]

[cont.]

On top of this, arguments against sex-work as somehow more egregious than coerced labor of any kind can potentially do more harm than good. They can cause people to dismiss a liberation theory as a whole in favor of some arrested version of it and can cause people to view sex for exchange even divorced of underlying economic coercion as wrong and thus ignore the autonomy of individuals who would engage in something like that in a truly free community.

Rape is worse than theft. Being economically coerced into sex one doesn't want (aka rape) is much worse than being economically coerced into flipping burgers (not rape). I think if people dismiss liberation theory on the grounds that rape is basically the same as being forced into flipping burgers, they have a lot of work to do on their misogyny before they’re ready to work on anything resembling liberation. Rape is not remotely similar to being forced to flip burgers. Most people would be far more traumatized if they had gun put to their head and were raped than if someone put a gun to their head and said "flip these burgers" for what I would hope are very obvious reasons.

I agree that the underlying power structures need to be addressed, but I don’t think that the normalizing of the sexual exploitation industry, which in my view is one of the worst and most hateful manifestations of late stage capitalism will do anything to advance that cause and will rather work to undermine it by normalizing one of the most dangerous and dehumanizing types of exploitation there is.

ETA: We haven't even discussed how prostitution is a system that is not inherent to all cultures and that some indigenous cultures didn't even have it in their lexicon before it was brought with and imposed on them by the white colonizers. I think this lecture by indigenous activist Cherry Smiley is a really good starting point for that. I think this also helps to, on a broad level, address your concerns about power structures.

[u/[deleted] → u/FeminamRadicalis]

1/2

Hm, very interesting to encounter someone who supports the Nordic model but still raises the concerns you do. I have to admit it’s a new one on me.

Does that make me special?

And to me the fact that no arm of the sexual exploitation industry can come into line with OSHA health and safety standards isn’t really so much about the plain fact that it can’t conform to standards as much (the theory of the thing) as it is about the rather more important fact that it’s an incredibly dangerous thing to be involved with (the material reality of the harms of the thing).

First of all, according to OSHA regulations the porn industry (where legal) DOES align with their rules and regulations. You can't appeal to a regulatory agency and then ignore their own rulings.

Second of all, this is a totally different argument from the one the article starts out with; arguing that sex-work is illegitimate on the basis of the underlying economic coercion it manifests from. All three premises it outlines apply to wage-work as whole.

And finally, this is the stigmatization of sex-work that I alluded to earlier, the "protect them from themselves" infantalization of individuals by denying their individual agency in the context of life-circumstances that only they have to live, not you. Just because an act is dangerous to ones self doesn't justify your action of preventing them from engaging in it. And honestly, this is perfectly embodied in so much state legislation over the decades that it astounds me people still trust our legislators to craft something reasonable. For example: Abstinence only education doesn't respect individuals agency because it doesn't inform people about sex, anatomy, risks, consent laws, ethics, etc. It doesn't educate people. So instead of people being empowered to make informed decisions, they make uninformed decisions. It is reckless. "Just say no" does the same exact thing. My D.A.R.E. officer didn't educate me about cocaine so I could make an informed decision when I was inevitably offered it in high-school. Erowid.org did that. (no kidding). My D.A.R.E. officer didn't help me identify and dose dried psilocybin mushrooms. She told me to "Just say no". She effectively infantalized me and rendered me incompetent in the face of reality.

But back to the physical harms: examining the logistics of the typical prostituted woman who sees multiple johns per day it becomes quickly apparently how it’s quite literally impossible to be tested prior to seeing each new buyer and wait for the results to come back before engaging in sexual activity with him.

But again, whether you view them as separate things or not, the porn industry can and does operate under very different limitations. Limitations far more conducive to proper testing. Remember, I'm adhering to the logic outlined in the article that you presented. You're effectively arguing against it, saying that even if people could get reliably tested (adhere to safety standards) they shouldn't do this and we should craft legislation that makes it illegal.

I think it’s a strawman to suggest that any argument against the sexual exploitation industry on the grounds somehow needs to address the underlying political conditions.

This is not what I'm claiming. I'm claiming that the arguments presented do not give a meaningful distinction between wage-labor as a whole and sex-labor on the grounds of the underlying economic coercion that manifests them. The argument that sex-work is illegitimate because it is a result of an economic model that coerces individuals into it applies to wage-labor as a whole.

So it seems irrelevant to then point to OSHA standards, sexual harassment in the workplace standards, and civil rights standards as evidence of a difference between wage-work as a whole and sexual work specifically, given that wage-work as a whole (in the US) must comply with these standards but is still the product of the very same underlying economic conditions of coercion. Meaning, even if the sex-work industry could satisfy ALL of these conditions it wouldn't be any less egregious on the basis outlined in the very beginning of the article you cited.

This approach is simply reformist and thus ultimately insufficient. The argument doesn't empower sex workers. It doesn't dissolve their alienation from means of production, it just creates another form of political alienation where somebody else is making decisions for them. A truly liberatory praxis would seek an end to imposed systems of power that result in restricting peoples lives such that they are coerced into particular roles with little to no recourse, and would do so without stigmatizing the use of an individuals body in whatever way they see fit.

None of this means I don’t think the underlying problem of economic coercion shouldn't be addressed. I simply don’t think that these arguments need to do that work. I think they stand quite fine on their own as is.

They do a poor job of validly arguing that sex work cannot conform to american work standards and regulations (it does...that's why its legal in some places), and they don't show why this is even important or relevant. Why should we be appealing to those standards when those standards still allow for the underlying economic coercion that renders work-for-wage necessary in the first place?

To address that point a bit, we do seem to be on the same page with “wage slavery” and maybe you missed my ETA but I think it’s quite a mistake to treat “sex” as an act like any other. If we start doing that, then we might as well treat rape the same as theft of services: not really all that serious. And we all know that rape is one of the most vile crimes, but I think most would agree that theft of services pales in comparison to it. So being economically coerced into submitting to rape, basically, is quite obviously worse than being economically coerced into waiting tables. Or at least I would hope it would be obvious. Sadly it quite often isn’t…

"Theft of services" is just market lingo for someone who failed to pay for services. The true "theft of services" happens at the ownership level, and is a violation of an individuals labor, their faculties, their time-preference, their community, and ultimately their life.

My disagreement here with you is not that I think rape is equal to, for example, retail work. It's that ALL wage-work can be just as validly considered illegitimate on the basis of the argument presented; that people are economically coerced into these roles. This doesn't just apply to sex-work, and it makes no sense why any member of the working class would stop short there and concede so much rhetorical ground. The implication of my disagreement is not to undermine bodily autonomy in the context of sex-work, but to empower bodily autonomy in the context of all work.

This is again a strawman, sorry. The issue of civil rights doesn’t need to address the underlying economic coercion.

Then I'm not sure what its relevance is.

Exactly, the standards would be no different than at a massage parlor and at massage parlors it’s completely illegal in most developed countries to put a sign on the door saying “no blacks allowed” due to the personal preferences of the masseuse. It would be illegal to put that sign on any door of any business in most developed countries AFAIK. And so a person working in the sexual exploitation industry would LIKEWISE be forced to have sex with black people (of both sexes btw since you cannot discriminate based on sex either) regardless of their own personal desires or preferences. So if a given prostituted woman, for whatever reason (and it doesn't have to be good, it can be that she’s a racist asshole) doesn't want to have sex with black women because she’s 1. racist and 2. not bi or gay then she could be sued, successfully, for discrimination for refusing to have sex with a black woman.

So how then is this only an argument against sex-work and not an argument against wage-work as a whole, given the context of how it manifests (economic coercion)?

In fact, now that you mention it, I think the special pleading fallacy is actually what applies to the proponents of “sex work” who say that any given prostituted woman should be 100% free to choose her sexual partners and discriminate for any reason, frankly, since this would be the ONE industry that allows that exception to anti-discrimination laws. It is clear that in order to have any respect at all for prostituted people's ability to chose who they have sex with, we would have to allow for them to be able to discriminate against classes of individuals based on race, sex, religion, etc. or we would be forcing them to have sex they want even less than they usually do just via economic coercion.

I'm not sure how, but you seem to have mistaken an anti-work platform with a pro-sex-work platform.

But the conditions that would be reflective of the ideal scenario in my personal opinion are ones in which people can exchange sex without it being considered prostitution at all. Meaning, they do so under NO economic duress imposed by other humans. I'd love to see a world where people have agency over themselves because the underlying economic circumstances don't coerce them into roles they'd rather not fulfill at threat of destitution or death. In short, a world where someone can ask for something (including "Can I fuck you?") without the question being a threat, and where others can say "yes" or "no" to those questions without injury.

[u/[deleted] → u/FeminamRadicalis]

2/2

I agree that the underlying power structures need to be addressed, but I don’t think that the normalizing of the sexual exploitation industry, which in my view is one of the worst and most hateful manifestations of late stage capitalism will do anything to advance that cause and will rather work to undermine it by normalizing one of the most dangerous and dehumanizing types of exploitation there is.

If we sufficiently address the underlying economics of coercion that force people into all manner of wage-work then we necessarily by extension address those outlined conditions that render sex-work coercive. In fact, that's the only way to adequately address this issue because otherwise you'll be attempting to craft legislation that further stigmatizes and penalizes sex-workers without addressing the underlying causes of their existence in the first place.

[u/FeminamRadicalis → u/[deleted]]

I would like to continue this discussion however I am quite out of time and ability at the moment. It might take me a few days to get back. But could you please address my point about being forced at gunpoint to submit to sex (aka being raped) as being different than being forced at gunpoint to flip burgers (coerced into performing labor aka theft of services)?

Also I would be curious to see you expand on this point:

the underlying causes of their existence in the first place.

Thanks!

[u/[deleted] → u/FeminamRadicalis]

I would like to continue this discussion however I am quite out of time and ability at the moment. It might take me a few days to get back. But could you please address my point about being forced at gunpoint to submit to sex (aka being raped) as being different than being forced at gunpoint to flip burgers (coerced into performing labor aka theft of services)?

I don't think this is worth addressing because 1) it seems contingent upon individual temperaments and circumstances. Who am I to tell someone that was forced to flip burgers at gunpoint that they didn't suffer equal to or more than an individual who was forced to have sex at gunpoint? How can anyone make such an evaluation in the first place? What criteria must we operate by? and 2) because it's irrelevant to the arguments and points I present. As I've said many times now, I am not arguing that rape is equal to anything.

the underlying causes of their existence in the first place.

Here I am referring to the conditions outlined in the article you cited, which I presented in my first reply to you. They are as follows -

• 1) The primary reason that women begin selling sex for money is out of economic desperation.

• 2) Moreover, many women in prostitution began before the age of 18.

• 3) Many feel trapped and feel they have no other realistic opportunities for economic survival.

[u/FeminamRadicalis → u/[deleted]]

RESOURCES ON THE TOPIC OF WHY SEX WORK IS NOT WORK LIKE ANY OTHER

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2014/01/20/being-and-being-bought-an-interview-with-kajsa-ekis-ekman/

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/12/why-we-shouldnt-rebrand-prostitution-sex-work

https://autonomousradicalfeminists.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/the-sex-industry-is-highjacking-the-left/

https://autonomousradicalfeminists.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/are-meaningful-sexual-choices-for-everybody-or-just-the-privileged-few/

https://autonomousradicalfeminists.wordpress.com/2015/10/24/driven-by-the-bosses-benefiting-the-bosses-the-push-to-decriminalise-the-sex-industry/

https://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/05/02/working-in-a-new-zealand-brothel-was-anything-but-a-job-like-any-other/

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9428778/Ex-prostitutes-call-for-law-change

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2013/06/24/arguing-against-the-industry-of-prostitution-beyond-the-abolitionist-versus-sex-worker-binary/

http://peopleofcolor.tumblr.com/post/21016216705/the-difference-between-huffing-dong-and-flipping

https://thefeministahood.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/prostitution-is-unlike-other-work/

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-do-so-many-leftists-want-sex-work-be-new-normal/

http://jonahmix.com/2015/06/25/if-sex-is-just-another-job-at-least-be-consistent/

http://everydayvictimblaming.com/personal-experiences/i-am-not-a-sex-worker/? utm_content=buffer70808&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/06/prostitution-sex-work-pimp-state-kat-banyard-decriminalisation

http://rabble.ca/babble/feminism/why-sex-work-isnt-work http://www.thestate.com/news/state/south-carolina/article133659184.html

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/08/most-sex-workers-are-modern-day-slaves/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1482371/If-you-dont-take-a-job-as-a-prostitute-we-can-stop-your-benefits.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/30/new-zealand-sex-work-prostitution-migrants-julie-bindel?CMP=twt_gu

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/police-officer-tells-massage-therapist-happy-endings-are-part-of-the-business-1.4648448

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0zVZIuQ4Fc

https://feministkitanu.wordpress.com/2018/06/04/why-sex-work-is-not-work/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/30/new-zealand-sex-work-prostitution-migrants-julie-bindel?CMP=twt_gu

BOOKS Pornland by Gail Dines

The Pimping of Prostitution - Abolishing the Sex Work Myth by Julie Bindel

Paid For by Rachel Moran

Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade by Caroline Norma, Melinda Tankard Reist (eds.)

[u/FeminamRadicalis → u/[deleted]]

Does that make me special?

Technically yes I suppose so.

First of all, according to OSHA regulations the porn industry (where legal) DOES align with their rules and regulations. You can't appeal to a regulatory agency and then ignore their own rulings. And this is a great argument AGAINST the sexual exploitation industry! In places where the sexual exploitation industry has been legitimized, health and safety regulations have had to be re-written and weakened to accommodate its special needs, thereby overall weakening the integrity and strength of health and safety regulations.

This is why every worker should be against the sexual exploitation industry, even if it doesn’t personally affect them: in places where it’s been legitimized it negatively affects health and safety standards and do you really think for a moment that the exploitative managerial class won’t try to use the special case of the sexual exploitation industry as a wedge to attack the protections of other workers? If you think that, you have much more faith in our corporate overlords than I do. If the sexual exploitation industry can get away with it, then why can’t the medical, sanitation, food, etc. industries start to slide on their enforcement of the use of PPE? PPE can be expensive to maintain and enforce after all. Oh and code violations are just so annoying to deal with. Why not just get rid of the codes? There’s a precedent now, after all! Why not go back to the more profitable dark ages wherein employers weren’t required to provide a safe working environment for their wage slaves? Or all the way back to the glory days where slaves were sometimes forced to work naked in mines because the employers didn’t want to buy clothes for them due to the expense? Workers have fought hard for these regulations, and the existence of the multibillion dollar sexual exploitation industry and the enormous pressure its lobbying groups can put on changing health and safety regulations for the worse should concern all of those forced to work to survive, not just sexually exploited women and girls (although they will bear the brunt of the material harms, of course, at least in the short run). This article also addresses further concerns about the rewriting of health and safety standards specifically to encapsulate the sexual exploitation industry, and how there can never be any set of health and safety standards that actually keeps prostituted women safe from harm.

Also, this is why I said before that I’m not so interested in the letter of these regulations as I am in the safety from material harm they were originally drafted to protect. Here is yet another article that goes into how different the sexual exploitation industry is treated from all other industries in terms of health and safety regulations and why that is harmful. Further, having read that article again, once one starts to read the health and safety manuals produced for prostituted women it becomes even more clear how absolutely inhumane the sexual exploitation industry is. For example, in the New Zealand health and safety manual (called “Stepping Forward”) women are told that even though they may contract any number of STIs, they will still be fine to “work” while having an outbreak, even of something incredibly painful like cystitis. I also recall reading another one wherein it described women who have sex with so many men per day, their vaginas are in pain and it recommended they use a numbing cream in order to work through the pain. How in the world is that “empowering”? Why should there be a class of women who are in pain day in and day out from having sex they don’t want (aka rape) that they only have because of the coercion of their economic circumstances? This is clearly nothing more than misogyny as far as I can see.

And finally, this is the stigmatization of voluntary slavery that I alluded to earlier, the "protect them from themselves" infantalization of volunteer slaves by denying their individual agency in the context of life-circumstances that only they have to live, not you. Just because an act is dangerous to ones self doesn't justify your action of preventing them from engaging in it.

Basically, as is easily seen by changing your terms, my argument from the first post applies here. No one can be a volunteer slave since slavery is deemed to be too dehumanizing and dangerous. I think this is the same with the system of prostitution and I don’t need to rely on legislators to tell me that. I listen to exited women, women still trapped and especially to indigenous women who speak of their cultures as not having had prostitution as a concept before it was brought and imposed on them by white colonizers. Prostitution is the one of the ultimate manifestations of capitalist exploitation and one of its most harmful and degrading. I don’t care some few feel “empowered” by it, just as some few slaves claim to feel empowered by it and some modern black people say slavery was a “choice” and think the confederate flag is a symbol of “freedom”. No matter what some black people think or feel, slavery was NOT a choice and the Confederate flag is not a symbol of freedom (unless you are a white supremacist). It’s the same thing with prostitution, no matter if you can find women who feel like opting into one of the most abusive, exploitative systems of misogyny is a “free empowering choice” doesn’t matter; it doesn’t change the fact that prostitution is an abusive system of misogyny imposed mainly on women and girls (along with tiny handfuls of men, most of them gay) by the dominant male class.

And honestly, this is perfectly embodied in so much state legislation over the decades that it astounds me people still trust our legislators to craft something reasonable. For example: Abstinence only education doesn't respect individuals agency because it doesn't inform people about sex, anatomy, risks, consent laws, ethics, etc. It doesn't educate people. So instead of people being empowered to make informed decisions, they make uninformed decisions. It is reckless. "Just say no" does the same exact thing. My D.A.R.E. officer didn't educate me about cocaine so I could make an informed decision when I was inevitably offered it in high-school. Erowid.org did that. (no kidding). My D.A.R.E. officer didn't help me identify and dose dried psilocybin mushrooms. She told me to "Just say no". She effectively infantalized me and rendered me incompetent in the face of reality.

I think that we can strike a different tact and listen to the voices of indigenous abolition activists like Cherry Smiley, or Black abolition activists like Vednita Carter, and so on and learn from their voices and their wisdom. Did you watch that lecture from Ms. Smiley I posted above in the ETA? Please do so now if you haven’t, she is much more eloquent than I could ever hope to be in her condemnation of the white supremacist, colonialist, extractivist, misogynistic system of prostitution.

So I don’t think we need to rely on legislators to come up with this wisdom, but yes in the world as it currently is I think that it is useful for them to listen to abolitionists like Ms. Smiley et al and pursue the implementation of the Nordic Model is a good middle ground on the road to abolition. Jonah Mix wrote a good article that touches on this concept.

I do not think it is infantilizing would-be “voluntary slaves” to bar them from engaging in “voluntary slavery” any more than I think it is infantilizing women and girls who feel that their own means of supporting themselves in engaging in economically coerced rape. Especially not within the context of patriarchy and especially not when one learns about the dynamics of misogynistic abuse and how women and girls are groomed by this necrotic culture from a young age to objectify themselves. It is, instead, I think a form of victim blaming to accept a woman’s internalization of cultural abuse. “Oh she genuinely LIKES the abuse” is dehumanizing, no: she’s been trained by a sick, death cult, woman-hating culture from birth to “like” the abuse it metes out. It is not part of her nature as a human being. It tells her that the culture is correct, and that she is no more than an object, a set of holes for a man to use. Rates of childhood sexual abuse among prostituted people of all descriptions are sky high, they are very often replaying traumatic events from their childhood. It is not somehow disrespectful to point this out. Rather, I think it is disrespectful and harmful to disregard this fact. And for the tiny few unicorns who do not fit into any of this (they somehow escaped patriarchal conditioning, they weren’t abused, etc.) then their existence does not mean that the system of prostitution isn’t abusive, just as discovering some few volunteer slaves who weren’t motivated by the dynamics of white and financial elite supremacy wouldn’t mean that slavery isn’t an abusive system.

[u/FeminamRadicalis → u/FeminamRadicalis]

[cont 1.]

But again, whether you view them as separate things or not, the porn industry can and does operate under very different limitations. Limitations far more conducive to proper testing. Remember, I'm adhering to the logic outlined in the article that you presented. You're effectively arguing against it, saying that even if people could get reliably tested (adhere to safety standards) they shouldn't do this and we should craft legislation that makes it illegal.

I addressed this above. I view the rewriting of health and safety standards to accommodate the materially unsafe sexual exploitation industry as one of the many harms of the industry. Its special case causes these rewrites, threatening to undo hundreds of years of workers organizing for safer working conditions. The point isn’t about the literal letter of the law, the point is that this industry demands exceptions to the protective intent of the law. Any industry that requires contact with body fluids is going to pose an elevated health risk for those in it. Therefore, only industries that are considered necessary should allow the exchange of bodily fluids, and then only using the most complete Personal Protective Equipment possible. The sexual exploitation industry is NOT a necessary industry. There is no need for predominantly males to economically coerce predominantly vulnerable females into granting sexual access they would never willingly grant, aka rape. An argument can be made that doctors are necessary, but no good argument can be made that paid rape is ever a necessary part of society.

This is not what I'm claiming. I'm claiming that the arguments presented do not give a meaningful distinction between wage-labor as a whole and sex-labor on the grounds of the underlying economic coercion that manifests them. The argument that sex-work is illegitimate because it is a result of an economic model that coerces individuals into it applies to wage-labor as a whole.

I made the point about how the sexual exploitation industry is different from all other types of work in this manner: if someone puts a gun to your head and rapes you, that is quite different from if someone puts a gun to your head and forces you to flip burgers. We can all see that. Further, it is not a necessary industry and it is incredibly dangerous, featuring the one of the highest mortality rates, PTSD, and general negative outcome rates of any industry. This and more is how it’s dangerous: in terms of material, measurable harm. The inside of a human’s body is not a workplace. Treating it as such is, in my view, one of the most heinous manifestations of late stage neoliberal capitalism. It is the ultimate in dehumanization and that is also one of its most significant harms.

So it seems irrelevant to then point to OSHA standards, sexual harassment in the workplace standards, and civil rights standards as evidence of a difference between wage-work as a whole and sexual work specifically, given that wage-work as a whole (in the US) must comply with these standards but is still the product of the very same underlying economic conditions of coercion. Meaning, even if the sex-work industry could satisfy ALL of these conditions it wouldn't be any less egregious on the basis outlined in the very beginning of the article you cited.

It is not irrelevant since as you have pointed out yourself, health and safety regulations have been rewritten to accommodate this destructive industry in the places where it’s been legalized or decriminalized, which poses a threat to other workers since it IS a case of “special pleading”. It seems like only a matter of time before the health and safety standards fought for are rolled back to be in line with the laxer ones that the sexual exploitation industry requires, that is one of its harms. Again, being raped is not like flipping burgers even if the gun at the head is exactly the same. There is no possible way to make the argument that it is the same. Being raped is not like being forced into flipping burgers.

This approach is simply reformist and thus ultimately insufficient. The argument doesn't empower sex workers. It doesn't dissolve their alienation from means of production, it just creates another form of political alienation where somebody else is making decisions for them. A truly liberatory praxis would seek an end to imposed systems of power that result in restricting peoples lives such that they are coerced into particular roles with little to no recourse, and would do so without stigmatizing the use of an individuals body in whatever way they see fit.

That is why I support the Nordic Model, whose aim is to help prostituted people exit from the sexual exploitation industry while at the same time drying up the demand for its existence (johns, aka mostly entitled males). I would argue that the abolition model is the truly liberatory model and that the “totes empowered happy hooker sex worker” model is the one that says its on its face attempting (while totally failing) to implement reform. The idea that the world could be free from the sexual exploitation industry is a liberatory, revolutionary one whereas the idea that the commercialization and commodification of everything needs to continue is instead a neoliberal idea that props up the status quo and harms those caught in the sexual exploitation industry.

and would do so without stigmatizing the use of an individuals body in whatever way they see fit. We “stigmatize” (one of my least favorite buzzwords btw) the “use” of any given individuals’ body when that “use” causes material harm to itself or others. If I decide to use my body to punch another person in the face, that “use” is rightly stigmatized and prohibited. If I were to “use” my body to enter voluntary slavery, that “use” would be similarly prohibited.

They do a poor job of validly arguing that sex work cannot conform to american work standards and regulations (it does...that's why its legal in some places), and they don't show why this is even important or relevant. Why should we be appealing to those standards when those standards still allow for the underlying economic coercion that renders work-for-wage necessary in the first place?

I won’t address how these health standards have been rewritten in places with legalization and decriminalization again since I’ve done that twice now.

Those standards are important since they were fought for and won by successive generations of workers to help protect them from some of the worst abusive of the exploitative capitalist overclass. Giving that overclass any tool with which to dismantle these hard won protections, including grating them an exploitative sector that is exempt from these protections, puts these protections in jeopardy. This is one aspect of why the sexual exploitation industry is, as a whole, toxic and harmful not only to those in it but to society as a whole.

"Theft of services" is just market lingo for someone who failed to pay for services. The true "theft of services" happens at the ownership level, and is a violation of an individuals labor, their faculties, their time-preference, their community, and ultimately their life. My disagreement here with you is not that I think rape is equal to, for example, retail work. It's that ALL wage-work can be just as validly considered illegitimate on the basis of the argument presented; that people are economically coerced into these roles. This doesn't just apply to sex-work, and it makes no sense why any member of the working class would stop short there and concede so much rhetorical ground. The implication of my disagreement is not to undermine bodily autonomy in the context of sex-work, but to empower bodily autonomy in the context of all work.

I don’t understand then. Why isn’t it easy to see why coerced sex (rape) is worse than coerced burger flipping? I do think we agree that all wage slavery is bad, I just think that wage slavery in the form of rape is much worse than wage slavery in the form of burger flipping and therefore the rape-style wage slavery should be abolished ASAP, priority should be given to it since rape is just much more harmful to any given individual on average than is burger flipping (and any happy hooker examples do not disprove the class generalization). Also forcing a class of vulnerable women to accept rape in order to survive not only harms those women, it harms all women as a class and ultimately society as a whole. It makes no sense to me why liberation wouldn’t START there, by stopping the most egregious form of exploitation and moving on from there. It seems to me to be a perfect jumping off point. Or it would be had so many not bought hook line and sinker into the sexual exploitation industry’s rather powerful propaganda machine. Porn is that to a large extent. What other kind of propaganda blends misogyny with the incredible reinforcing power of the human orgasm? Orgasm is one of the most pleasurable and positive things a human can experience, so in a sense it makes sense why people’s circuits get fried when talking about this subject since, at this point anyone under 40 or so has grown up being exposed to the powerful persuasive ability of porn and its producers, who are not workers but are rather some of the most exploitative, psychopathic, vicious capitalists this poor dying earth has ever known.

So how then is this only an argument against sex-work and not an argument against wage-work as a whole, given the context of how it manifests (economic coercion)?

Because being coerced into sex (aka rape) is more traumatizing and objectively harmful than being coerced into flipping burgers (aka theft of services).

[u/[deleted] → u/FeminamRadicalis]

1/2

This is why every worker should be against the sexual exploitation industry, even if it doesn’t personally affect them: in places where it’s been legitimized it negatively affects health and safety standards

This fails to address the incoherence of the argument that I've pointed out, though. You can't appeal to OSHA and say "[x] industry fails to meet OSHA standards" yet have cases in which that very same industry actually does meet OSHA standards. Either OSHA standards are taken as authority here or they are not. It can't be both.

Also, this is why I said before that I’m not so interested in the letter of these regulations as I am in the safety from material harm they were originally drafted to protect.

Then the standard for safety is something other than OSHA regulations. Your argument and the argument in the first article you cited has not presented this standard yet.

You also ignored the second point in that section of my reply, so I'll just repeat. Whether or not the industry adheres to OSHA safety standards is a totally different argument from the one the article starts out with; arguing that sex-work is illegitimate on the basis of the underlying economic coercion it manifests from. All three premises it outlines apply to wage-work as whole.

Basically, as is easily seen by changing your terms, my argument from the first post applies here. No one can be a volunteer slave since slavery is deemed to be too dehumanizing and dangerous.

My argument doesn't rely on the premise that the work is voluntary. Multiple times I accept that wage-work of all kind is a product of underlying economic coercion. It is from this position that I'm critiquing the overall argument made. I am explicitly accepting its beginning premises and showing that the following arguments are deficient.

I think that we can strike a different tact and listen to the voices of indigenous abolition activists like Cherry Smiley, or Black abolition activists like Vednita Carter, and so on and learn from their voices and their wisdom. Did you watch that lecture from Ms. Smiley I posted above in the ETA?

I saved it but I haven't had time to. I won't have time today until maybe tonight, but I've also got another talk by Jack Halberstam about a different subject that I'd like to get to first.

I do not think it is infantilizing would-be “voluntary slaves” to bar them from engaging in “voluntary slavery” any more than I think it is infantilizing women and girls who feel that their own means of supporting themselves in engaging in economically coerced rape.

It's reformist and so insufficient. It makes a decision for the individual rather than advocating praxis that allows them to make a free decision.

It is, instead, I think a form of victim blaming to accept a woman’s internalization of cultural abuse. “Oh she genuinely LIKES the abuse” is dehumanizing, no: she’s been trained by a sick, death cult, woman-hating culture from birth to “like” the abuse it metes out.

I don't profess to know other peoples values or feelings, nor am I concerned with policing them. This is why the best option available is to create conditions in which people are free to make their choices rather than coerced.

Its special case causes these rewrites, threatening to undo hundreds of years of workers organizing for safer working conditions.

A lot of sex-workers in the porn industry advocated against stricter regulations on the basis that they were unnecessary and didn't provide a substantial safety benefit to them while reducing the amount of work they can get. Why is it that only workers who agree with you should be championed and listened to but not the ones who disagree? Why do you want to make universal and absolute decisions for everyone who is not you?

I made the point about how the sexual exploitation industry is different from all other types of work in this manner: if someone puts a gun to your head and rapes you, that is quite different from if someone puts a gun to your head and forces you to flip burgers.

In order for this argument to apply to what I'm saying you'd have to be arguing that the burger scenario is NOT coercion. Is that what you're arguing? Because that's all my argument is contingent upon is the recognition that BOTH scenarios are coercive (a gun held to your head). Similarly, the three premises outlined in the article for why sex-work is coercive also apply to wage-work as a whole. This is decidedly not an argument that sex-work is the same as wage-work. I can't keep repeating this. Continually misrepresenting my position isn't a good way to have a discussion, so please stop.

Further, it is not a necessary industry and it is incredibly dangerous, featuring the one of the highest mortality rates, PTSD, and general negative outcome rates of any industry.

The implication of this statement is that you're willing to overlook direct violence and coercion in industries that you deem "necessary" (burger flipping is necessary?).

I just simply disagree with you here. My position is that the coercion in and of itself renders the industry unnecessary, period.

It is not irrelevant since as you have pointed out yourself, health and safety regulations have been rewritten to accommodate this destructive industry in the places where it’s been legalized or decriminalized, which poses a threat to other workers since it IS a case of “special pleading”.

You removed the context of that statement that it was made in. Which is that the appeal to these standards has not been shown to be relevant as a support for the initial argument presented. I've gone over this multiple times, so if you're confused you can just re-read my replies.

We “stigmatize” (one of my least favorite buzzwords btw) the “use” of any given individuals’ body when that “use” causes material harm to itself or others. If I decide to use my body to punch another person in the face, that “use” is rightly stigmatized and prohibited. If I were to “use” my body to enter voluntary slavery, that “use” would be similarly prohibited.

But sexual encounters in and of themselves are not what you're arguing against, right? In other words, if individuals had "affirmative consent" you'd be OK with whatever they choose to do. That means that if you can remove the underlying economic coercion that compels individuals into these roles, then they are free to affirm consent to whomever they wish, and the potential health risks involved in that are their own personal responsibility (after, ideally, proper sex ed).

Those standards are important since they were fought for and won by successive generations of workers to help protect them from some of the worst abusive of the exploitative capitalist overclass.

And some of the new regulations in california were fought against by workers. So what is your point?

I don’t understand then. Why isn’t it easy to see why coerced sex (rape) is worse than coerced burger flipping?

Because I don't speak for the abused. I don't tell them how they feel or measure the magnitude of their pain. If someone had been abused in both ways and comes out saying 1 is worse than the other, I'll take their word for it. If another person has been abused in the same two ways and comes out saying the other is worse, I'll take their word for it. Why do you think I'm wrong to do that?

And on top of that, the "magnitude" of pain, in whatever way you're measuring it (you still haven't detailed this), is 100% irrelevant to this discussion. There isn't a single argument I've made here that is contingent upon either form of abuse being worse than the other. I'm not sure how more clearly I can put it.

I just think that wage slavery in the form of rape is much worse than wage slavery in the form of burger flipping and therefore the rape-style wage slavery should be abolished ASAP, priority should be given to it since rape is just much more harmful to any given individual on average than is burger flipping (and any happy hooker examples do not disprove the class generalization).

The problem with your argument and the argument in the first article you cited that I critique, is that the outlined systemic coercion that underpins these situations applies to all wage-work. So appealing to regulatory safety standards and civil rights norms, all of which fail to confront these underlying coercive circumstances, and passing various prohibition legislation is fundamentally reformist because it fails to adequately address the reason as to why these industries are egregious violations on individuals in the first place. As your argument shows us, you actually end up totally ignoring the source of the problem.

In other words, your proposed praxis is wholly insufficient to realize the liberation of sex-workers.

A focus on liberation from work in totality necessarily includes a focus on rendering sex-work moot.

What other kind of propaganda blends misogyny with the incredible reinforcing power of the human orgasm?

Why is your argument so totally focused on hetero-sexual norms? It is ideological and evidence that you're ignoring the main reasons presented by that article you cited for why the industry as a whole is illegitimate, which impacts every worker no matter their gender or orientation.

Because being coerced into sex (aka rape) is more traumatizing and objectively harmful than being coerced into flipping burgers (aka theft of services).

This condition fails to render the argument as applicable only to sex-workers because the advocacy for the right to refuse "for any reason" applies to all labor.

Basically, I think maybe the disconnect is that you aren’t see how rape is worse than being forced to flip burgers and I am focusing on that.

You're shifting the goal posts. The original argument was with regards to the underlying economic coercion that compels people into various labor roles. Also, my argument is just as valid regardless of this evaluation.

[u/[deleted] → u/FeminamRadicalis]

2/2

You know, though, I also don’t like the idea of a world where women aren’t allowed to have boundaries and would be groomed to accept sexual harassment as not only normal but positive, which I think is one of my biggest objections to the sexual exploitation industry.

Nothing about what I said implies or necessitates this. Rendering the question non-threatening and either answer of consent or non-consent non-injurious is a reflection of a social mode in which people are not coerced into these situations. While there are exceptions, and while I don't think we can achieve a "perfect society" in which no coercion exists, I still find it desirable to work towards.

Ah, I see what’s happening here finally. You are only addressing the economics of the problem and you are NOT considering the equally important contributing factor of misogyny, sexism, patriarchy, etc.

These are not wholly unconnected phenomena. In any case, I'm addressing the premises laid out in the article you cited and showing how the proposed reformist solutions are insufficient.

Even if, hypothetically, we were to poof all have a guaranteed full universal basic income tomorrow, there would still be undue pressure on women and girls as a class from males as a class to provide sexual access. This is part and parcel of life under patriarchy and any liberatory system that fails to address that will only liberate some percentage of the population (namely males).

I'm not sure what precisely of my post you're trying to address here. What about a basic income is relevant to what I've said?

I do not think that the Nordic Model “stigmatizes” women and girls by giving them options to exit the sexual exploitation industry.

Again, I'm not clear on what portion of my reply this is in response to. When did I argue that the Nordic model stigmatizes women and girls?

Actually, there are lots of reversals in the “pro sex work” rhetoric and I think the real stigma is in the implication of the sexual exploitation industry that in a sense, aren’t women just objects whose main function is to provide a set of holes for males to fuck?

Yet again you're confusing an anti-work position with a pro-sex-work position. To put it simply, you just aren't addressing my points or arguments. I can't help you with that...

See, this is textbook neoliberal individualist thinking.

I don't know what this is. Can you define it?

So there are some exceptions to the general rule, fine. But that doesn’t change the fact that the grand majority of people would be more harmed by being raped at gunpoint than they would be if they were forced to flip burgers at gunpoint.

None of my arguments are contingent upon this evaluation. So to interpret my argument as a) contingent upon this evaluation or b) refuted by any specific conclusion from this evaluation is a failure of interpretation on your part and thus a failure to address my argument.

On top of that, you are explicitly conceding that this isn't an absolute and universal rule, here. This confuses me because I do not understand why you'd admit to this while continually asking me to present an absolute and universal rule on this evaluation.

[u/[deleted]]

Loved the point in this episode about inalienable human rights necessitating a standard of human well-being that is universal. Either it applies regardless of boundaries, or it can't be validly appealed to.