this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face

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[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The things that drive people to "voluntary" sex work is often the same stuff that everybody with a "voluntary" job contends with: education, rent, food etc.

I do think an obvious step is making sure those needs are met by society to reduce coercion.

As for the necessity of jobs, I don't think sex workers, drug dealers or butchers should be jobs that exist, but I would not outlaw those people for practicing jobs that I think shouldn't exist. I don't think those jobs should be illegal.

Banning sex work does little but create another power imbalance that predators use to exploit sex workers similar to how criminalizing drugs leads to more exploitation.

As for sucking dicks, I would rather do that than perform surgeries or butcher animals. If folks are only getting $20 bucks for a blowjob that seems criminally low.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Notice at no point I made the argument that sex work should be criminalized. You are arguing against points I haven’t made.

I don’t believe sex work should be criminalized, although I lean towards the Nordic model of criminalizing the actions of a purchaser. Sex work being criminalized is harmful to the people desperate enough to turn to it, because it adds to stigma which keeps them trapped in the profession and makes them vulnerable to further exploitation by the police.

My argument is that sex work is inherently harmful. Not that it should be illegal, not that it’s “icky” because sex, but that sex work does psychological damage to the people who resort to it. If one purchases the services of a sex worker, they are participating in a harmful and morally wrong act.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

The Nordic model is a good legalization model but if the goal is to reduce exploitation then those exploitative pathways are almost always unmet needs like housing, education, etc. Addressing those is also a necessary step.

My argument is that a lot of work does psychological damage and that putting sex work in a box that says its uniquely damaging is the way to setup the argument that sex work is need of a unique solution to other exploitation. Which I don't think it is. So you may not have made certain points directly but you've definitely been making arguments that conservatives have used to argue for bans on sex workers or at least exempt them from laws intended to reduce exploitation (SESTA FOSTA being an example of a well meaning law that endangered sex workers)

If you're arguing that johns should be stigmatized, then I don't disagree. Its also something that seems like a normative position to me. That johns should be stigmatized also a position nobody argued against.

I do think the stigma that the sex workers recieve themselves for being exploited is also a normative position and that is a more dangerous thing than stigma against johns. Its also a major political obstacle to extending things like housing and social support to sex workers so it seems like an obvious thing people would expect would mention in these discussions and not see as an "argument".