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Comment by yters | Hacker News Reader

What kind of 'feminist' community is HN when men want women to let strangers abuse their bodies? 'Feminist' men are merely cads taking advantage of women using politically correct language. Anyways, if this is the sort of 'pro-women' environment HN wants to foster, count me out.

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You make it seem as if there was an universal feminist agreement that sex work should be illegal.

It's not. There are plenty (female) hard-core 2nd-wave feminists that are all for legalization of prostitution, citing self-empowerment, economic empowerment and the acceptance of female sexuality.

You fail to distinguish between what people who call themselves "feminists" want, and what actually is in the best interest of women. If feminists suddenly started saying forced teenage marriages to abusive old men was in the best interest of women, they'd be wrong. Same in the case of prostitution.

Sorry, but now you've lost me.

You say -- to paraphrase -- 'the True Feminist only speaks what's good for women and only I decide what's good for women'. That's not an argument, it's a dogma.

Say your kid decided it is best for him to eat ice cream all day and play in the street. Who actually knows what's best for him, you or the kid?

This is not particular to feminism. If we can clearly see someone choosing a self destructive lifestyle (i.e. drugs), even if it is what they really want, our responsibility is to help them get out of it.

If your brand of feminism has you comparing adult women to children incapable of deciding what is best for themselves, I think you've lost the point somewhere.

abuse? That's a bit of a stretch.

STDs, unplanned pregnancies, any number of horrible things men might do to the prostitutes, the psychological abuse of having one's body be treated as an instrument for another's pleasure, of having one's humanity be reduced to being a sex doll.

I don't mean to diminish the hardships of prostitution. But its a matter of degree, isn't it? What performance artist isn't reduced to an instrument for another?

The body is an especially intimate part of one's being. To denigrate it to be another's tool is no different than slavery, even if one receives financial recompense.

Don't you think that should be up to the owner of that body, rather than you?

People make bad decisions about their bodies all the time. When the decision is bad enough, you intervene. Drug abuse and alcoholism are clearer. You don't let your friend go down the path of heroin abuse and an early grave.

I try to intervene by nudging him/her away from bad decisions and make him aware of how his decision will affect his live. Not by prohibiting the actions.

Prohibition itself has never stopped anyone from doing anything stupid. All it ever does is empower scrupulous people to make money of it.

E.g. actor, singer, laborer, masseuse... as a matter of degree, each is a 'slave' to their client(s)? I think that's exaggerating the case.

None of these jobs involve subjecting oneself to multiple disease vectors every day and arbitrary acts of violence. Plus, as the 'my body my choice' crowd recognizes, our bodies are one of the most important sources of our identity. To have others treat our bodies as disposable commodities essentially communicates to us that we ourselves are disposable.

The current economic setup already forces us to treat our bodies, our precious time of life as commodities. Prostitution is just one example, there are many others.

If you argue for changing the economic setup so that nobody has to do work they would rather not be doing -- I'm all for it. But don't make it sound as if prostitution was anything special in that regard.

We'd better ban janitors then. And, you know, teachers.

You've never been in a crowded theatre then. Or doctors' office.

And yes that same argument, our body is important to us, I'll repeat (for the last time) is important to all performance artists. Let's not project "I would be offended by this use of my body" to everyone in the world.

By this logic all employment that requires physical activity is slavery.

That argument could be made, but I don't think this is yters'.

All these issues -- potential physical and mental problems -- you cite apply to other professions as well. Why treat prostitution any different? Obviously there's a need for this kind of work. Why not make sure that at least the workers doing this kind of job enjoy the same protection as other workers?

Other professions are legitimate needs. Such as soldiers, police, firefighters. A society needs them to function well.

Prostitution destroys society. It breaks up families. It leads to fatherless children. It spreads STDs. It teaches men to treat women as sex objects. It denigrates sex in general to pleasure instead of its main purpose of creating the next generation.

Families break apart because the persons involved don't make the necessary effort to uphold the relationships anymore and there are no economical necessities that hold the people involved together. Not because of prostitution.

Prostitution (might) spread STDs because there is no regulation and oversight, no health-check mandate for prostitutes (of either gender).

All those issues you cite don't really stem from prostitution and making/keeping prostitution illegal will not make them go away.

Families don't break apart randomly. One of the main reasons is spouses cheating.

Even regulated, the number of STD exposures climbs exponentially with prostitution. That is just the unavoidable math of having massive numbers of sex partners.

Well, then you can ask yourself; what's the reason for spouses cheating?

Seriously; prostitution is a symptom, not the cause.

With regards to diseases; diseases spread with any physical contact between humans. I still don't think that it would be a good thing to stop having contact.

Making prostitution illegal will not make it go away. It has been with us for before we climbed out of the trees, it will be with us long after we've stopped reading words. Making it illegal will just rob the prostitutes of potential protection and safety.

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