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Comment by ausbah | Hacker News Reader

I am all for letting people do what they like with their bodies, but if people are trying to makes ends meet and they believe the only way of doing so is via selling pictures of their bodies - I think society has another massive moral failing on its hands

and this probably an unrefined opinion, but I feel like firing a worker for running a NSFW OnlyFans account (or similar) would, if not should, run agrounds for sexual harassment or unlawful termination. or at the very least be should be called out for being rooted in unwarranted social standards and expectations

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It's crazy to me how ubiquitous the assumption is that any kind of sex work, even something as tame as nude photography, must be considered an unhappy last resort by any woman engaging in it.

It's a pretty lazy assumption to assume that assumption. Why not set the bar higher for oneself?

this isn't quite what I was trying to say, I should've been more specific. I was more trying to say that I think bodily autonomy is a such a important part of a person's identity that a person should never feel pressure to unwillingly give up their bodily autonomy

What? Selling nudes is the epitome of bodily autonomy, if they want to sell nudes, they should be allowed to because they own their own body.

again, that's not what I'm saying. if someone wants to sell nudes, go for it. however I see an issue in having someone who had no desire to do so, but feels compelled to so just to get by

> someone who had no desire to do so, but feels compelled to so just to get by

is the definition of work for most people. How is this different?

Exactly that. It's not like janitorial staff or farm hands or factory line workers or the swaths of other people doing menial, backbreaking or extremely boring jobs by and large chose to do so for any reason other than trying to make ends meet.

Do you feel the same way about bodily autonomy when people choose to do hard labour?

What about picking strawberries? Working in a meat-packing plant with a high risk of catching Covid-19? Especially these days, there's way less bodily autonomy in most "essential" jobs than posing in front of a camera.

We're still in a system where if you don't work, you should expect homelessness and starvation. Until we get beyond this, OnlyFans is among the best of a bunch of bad options for lots of folks.

You cannot in one breath say you're "all for" something then immediately caveat it. The "moral failing" of society is the inability to provide for those who are hungry, under-housed, sick, not sex work.

People clearly cannot make ends meet due to a global pandemic, massive unemployment, all within a system with increasingly restricted upward mobility.

> The "moral failing" of society is the inability to provide for those who are hungry, under-housed, sick, not sex work.

Is that not exactly what the OP said?

You cannot in one breath be performatively outraged at someone's opinion and then immediately agree with it.

Clearly OP was linking selling photos of one's body to the moral failing. They make no mention of those systemic issues.

"... they believe the only way of doing so is via selling pictures of their bodies - I think society has another massive moral failing on its hands"

I don't agree that the moral failing is that people can earn money this way.

That is not how I read that, at all. My reading is that the moral failing is on society for not providing other options to them. Not that it is a moral issue for them to earn in that manner. If someone, who otherwise would not want to do this work, must because there are no other options to pay the bills it is an issue with society.

Seems to me that selling nudes is a pretty easy way to make a living, compared with other entrepreneurial types of businesses. Could it be that some of the outrage is due to the easy money?

I would say that selling nudes is pretty nice work, compared to farming, fast food or roofing.

If anything real pornstars and prostitutes are leaving their professions, because they make more money as streamers :-))

> I think society has another massive moral failing on its hands

Why? The outlook from the top comments on this thread are basically "all sex work is equal to any other work and sex workers should be held in equal regard to any other employee of any other field"

> I feel like firing a worker for running a NSFW OnlyFans account (or similar) would, if not should, run agrounds for sexual harassment or unlawful termination.

I don't think it should be considered unlawful termination. Someones behaviour outside work definitely has an impact on the business they're a part of. Unfortunately, whether we like it or not, SW has a very real stigma attached to it that could hurt the business reputation. That's a risk the business must take into account. It's like if someone were to attend white supremacist rallies on the weekends. It may not directly affect their ability to perform their role but I suspect we'd agree that it's justified if a business terminated someone for that reason.

Reputation is one aspect, but another aspect from a business perspective that I haven't seen discussed too much is the effect it could have on coworkers' performance. Say a woman has an OnlyFans and somehow her male colleagues find out. It would be at least a little bit distracting for them and could cause their productivity to drop. This is again a liability the business has to consider.

I'm not saying the stigma or termination is _right_ or _just_ in this case but it's just the reality of the world we live in and it will take generations to change that.

EDIT: To add a little bit about the sexual harassment aspect. I'm not sure where I fall on this. Say a woman works a side job as a stripper and one of her colleagues accidentally visits the strip club where she works. I would say it's not sexual harassment to visit the club the first time when they are unaware she works there. However if they were to solicit a private dance from her then I would consider that sexual harassment. I'm not sure exactly how that relates to viewing someones photos online accidentally vs paying for their only fans but I think it's somewhat similar. And what about repeatedly visiting the club/public photos? Visiting the club again probably is harassment depending on whether or not she is working that night but viewing the photos again probably not if she's not aware of it. It's a pretty large grey area with this part and it's difficult to form a solid opinion or even a rule without assessing things case-by-case.

I think your arguments are a little disingenuous, to put it mildly.

1. You compare an adult person selling nude photos of themselves to somebody attending a white supremacist rally....

Surely you can see the difference here?

One is perhaps amoral, by traditional Christian/religious values, but not illegal - just like blasphemy or swearing is no longer illegal in most parts of the world. And religious points aside, an adult selling photos of themselves without clothes on doesn't hurt anybody.

White supremacy on the other hand is closely entwined with racial discrimination - which is illegal, and does hurt people.

2. You say that it could negatively impact coworkers performance, as it might distract them.

Assuming that the videos are made on personal time, and not during work hours or during work time - I fail to see how this is the person's fault.

This is victim blaming - which is a terrible thing.

It's like saying a girl is "asking for it" based on the clothing she wears (which people have used in parts of the world to justify rape) - except in this case, it's what she wears at home, away from you.

3. Sexual harassment

I'm not going to weigh in here - this is a seriously nuanced topic with a lot of emotional content that can trigger people, and I'd make a mess of it.

All this being said - I always find it funny how Americans seem perfectly fine with insane amounts of bloody, gore and violence in television, film and games - but any hint of sexual impropriety or nudity immediately triggers them.

Oh, you can to show somebody getting decapitated, or having their fingernails torn off? Sure, that's fine, that's a normal action film.

Aha, you want to show a nude man from the front? Nope, can't do that. Oh, you want to show a woman's cleavage? Err, you're not going to get a M rating.

From what I've seen, the Europeans don't seem to have the same hangups about nudity or the human form.

I'm not a historian - but I wonder if perhaps it's the American Protestant heritage?

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