Edit to add my opinion so I’m not just replying “I agree” to 90% of comments. I think it should be legal, properly regulated, taxed and viewed as a profession. I haven’t personally engaged in it but I have no moral objection to it. I do hate the common sentiment that it was the individual’s “only option” though.
If the individual selling their services is doing so freely and isn’t being exploited in any sort of way then I don’t have a problem with it.
I am for the civilized approach of the Nordic Model.
What is the Nordic Model?
The Nordic Model (sometimes known as the Sex Buyer Law, and the Swedish, Abolitionist, Survivor or Equality Model) is an approach to prostitution that has been adopted in Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Canada, France, Ireland and Israel. It has several elements:
1. Decriminalisation of selling sex acts
Prostitution is inherently violent. Women should not be criminalised for the exploitation and abuse they endure.
2. Buying sex acts becomes a criminal offence
Buying human beings for sex is harmful, exploitative and can never be safe. We need to reduce the demand that drives sex trafficking.
3. Support and exit services
High quality, non-judgemental services to support those in prostitution and help them build a new life outside it, including: access to safe affordable housing; training and further education; child care; legal, debt and benefit advice; emotional and psychological support.
A holistic approach
A public information campaign; training for police and CPS; tackling the inequality and poverty that drive people into prostitution; effective laws against pimping and sex trafficking, with penalties that reflect the enormous damage they cause. Read more >>
I’m fine with either, i understand why some countries ban it and why some don’t. However if legalised, it absolutely has to be regulated very seriously. People working on that field need to be protected against abusive workplace conditions that can occur. If the govt cannot provide that protection, it’s better to outright ban it.
I think its quite necessary profession and also extremely compassionate one. Those doing it should be protected and appreciated better.
Ngl, there three or four of you on here I’d happily pay to have sex with.
Why thank you ;)
Your body, your choice
I don’t have a problem with prostitution, I have a problem when socioeconomic conditions lead people to feeling like they have to sell their bodies to survive. If prostitution is completely voluntary, then it’s fine.
Easy, I can see that it is generally less bad when legal and regulated but there is still no ethical consumption under capitalism
think it should be legal, properly regulated, taxed and viewed as a profession.
A hesitant yes to this. I have two main concerns (I’m in the US). First is that protection for the workers should be paramount, and I’m not sure how that gets enforced with all the corporate fuckery that goes on. I’d give it perhaps three seconds before someone Ubers the idea, making everyone on their list an “independent contractor” and enshittifying the entire thing.
My second concern is that “game of telephone” story several years ago. Someone pointed out that in Germany, job agencies could technically require women on unemployment to apply for jobs in brothels. Again, with the current state of things, with red-pilled incels on the rise and fringe elements suggesting the government should assign them a girlfriend, I’m not sure this is something I would feel safe implementing at this time.
Your first fear is completely valid, hopefully good policy and active regulations can prohibit that. Still can’t imagine it will be worse than the current state that sex workers face.
For the second point, while job centers are tasked to find you a job in your field, it is funny to imagine a conversation going like:
- So I have a doctorate in chemistry with 6 years of experience in my field, looking for a new position
- Sorry Dr. we don’t have any openings atm, but we do need an office twink, unfortunately our last office twink is now t’was
The thing is, the longer you’re out of work, the more they pressure you to apply for jobs outside your regular qualifications. It may be unthinkable to you now, but: rise of misogynist techbros, AI programming “matching” candidates to openings (with all the inbuilt biases and hallucinations that come with that), AI and unthinking automation in government services, cutbacks and deliberately programming for frustration in customer service - I can definitely envision people on unemployment being encouraged to work as a prostitute.
Yeah, from the sort of cold, heartless, detached, and incredibly oversimplifying level that those sorts of governmental decisions happen at… selling sex is one of the few things just about anyone can technically do. It’s also the kind of thing that it would be hard to prove doesn’t have effectively infinite demand.
I can totally see bureaucrats going: “You’ve got working holes, go get to it.”
Let me say again, that’s a horrid oversimplification of reality, but one that I can easily imagine coming out of government organizations.
I am in complete agreement with you on all these points.
The issue is, workers ARE already being exploited. The idea is regulations would bring about safeguards that would try to prevent these scenarios.
But let’s say what you said has happened and now someone is in this situation you described. There are two scenarios:
- Prostitution is legal
- Prostitution is illegal… now what? commit crimes? starve? It’s not like because prostitution is illegal suddenly there are new prospects available to this person in this broken system
I’d argue decriminalization of prostitution does more good than harm in this situation.
It should be legal, safe, and taxed
Same as belief. Churches have to pay the same as everyone. They are a corporation.
Same as belief.
how do you know someone is an edgelord atheist?
Don’t worry, they’ll tell you. They’ll crowbar it in wherever
no tax on just the tip
Knowing how small businesses are taxed more, just the tip would be 2x tax
if you pull out the big beautiful bill, you get the tip tax free
Looking at the pros and the cons, it must be the opposite of CONstitution.
…I’ll see myself out.
Honey, go back in the other room and play Twister with the other kids.
Sex work is just work, as long as it is all between consenting adults.
So long as everyone is able to legally and safely consent I don’t see an issue.
Whatever two consenting adults do between them shouldn’t be anybody else’s business
I have friends and love ones who have done survival sex work, there is nothing wrong doing sex work and I’m happy to fight people who say othrrwise
Considering “survival sex work” as something positive is quite strange.
Positive isn’t necessarily what I was going for. Mixed reviews from the creator side, I’ll say, but there is nothing wrong with exchanging sex or sexual services for other goods or money. Its just as vulnerable to exploitation and abuse as other industries, but the major difference is that the people working in the industry are looked down on and abused socially and legally by third parties.
The stigma around sex work keeps sex workers in dangerous situations where it is difficult to manage their clients safely, and allows bad actors to abuse their power over them (ask any sex worker about police interactions), putting them in more danger than is already inherent to the industry. Whorephobia sucks, and it feels like people just don’t want things to be better with people who choose sex work, or who find no other avenues open to them.
I guess a worker under capitalism, all work is “survival work”.
Would nobody have to work under other forms of governmental organization?
*economic organization
But the idea is that, under capitalism you have to work in order to survive. Under a different system you work to benefit society, by your survival is otherwise assured.
Really depends on how it’s organized of course. Hard to say now since there is such a death grip on keeping capitalism for some reason.
Let’s normalize sweatshops then, exploitation is exploitation isn’t it?
People have to do what they have to do to survive. If anything, I admire the strength of the people who fight that hard for survival. But the fact that they have to do that to survive is fucked up.
I agree with this sentiment, but I’m a socialist. I don’t think anyone should find themselves coerced into work they don’t want. Ideally, everyone is fed and cared for, and those who are fulfilled by sex work can pursue it without exploitation or stigma, and those who enjoy the end product can enjoy it without fearing the situation that produced it
