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Comment by mydongle | Hacker News Reader

As a guy, I'm cool with this kind of stuff. But what message does this send to girls who are not considered attractive enough or just don't want to do this kind of work? The message is that all the study, work, and effort to work in a meaningful career is a freaking joke, when all it takes is to be born a certain way and make huge amounts of money selling your body.

On the other hand, we have a generation of young males who will be trapped in this vampiric system where their money and time are spent on girls who wouldn't even look at them if they crossed paths on the street, instead of going out there and building real relationships.

I'm just generalizing of course, don't think I'm saying this applies to everyone. But man, we are so fucked.

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> The message is that all the study, work, and effort to work in a meaningful career is a freaking joke, when all it takes is to be born a certain way and make huge amounts of money selling your body.

It isn't much different than not being born into wealth, or not being able to marry into wealth because of looks. It exposes an inequity in our society, one that wouldn't be so harsh if people didn't have to sell their body to eat and keep a roof over their head.

Many people are driven by things other than money. There are plenty of people who are good looking, but want nothing to do with making a living from it.

I think this is neglecting that it does take effort to maintain the appearance of being attractive even if there is a genetic lottery component. Additionally it's work that is often ultimately temporary akin to being an NFL player or dancer in which you can only do the thing you've been working at for a relatively short period.

> what message does this send to girls who are not considered attractive enough

Arguably this same message is also being sent to boys, who almost certainly aren't "attractive" enough to be paid in this medium.

Aside from that, who is even paying these people? It's not like there's any dearth of free porn out there (or so I've heard). Unless it's someone rather famous or personally known to you, why bother?

Why support someone on Patreon? Why tip your waiter?

If there 1000 other waiters who appear to be perfectly thrilled to work without tips, why would I? If someone needs charity, I'd consider it, but I don't care to be "paid" with naked pictures in that case.

But they will work without tips. Nobody is making you tip. Why not just pay for your meal and leave?

For non-US HN readers:

In the US, the IRS assumes you make a certain amount in tips if you work in a job that customarily allows tipping.

So when a customer doesn't tip, the waiter still has to pay taxes on the money you didn't give them.

But wait, it gets worse (this being the US):

Some states allow paying waiters less than minimum wage if tipping is customary. As low as $2/hour.

So a waiter could actually end up owing more money in taxes than what they made that day. All this, and no health or dental insurance, or pension.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Actually, I will go on. Since most states are at-will, you can be fired for any or no reason at any time.

But just as common, the restaurant manager will threaten you with reduced hours if you call in sick, or get a customer complaint (ie. "My spaghetti wasn't al dente. What's wrong with that waiter today.") Or if you don't do the manager "favors" (see the Chipotle scandal.)

BTW, a couple days ago I was wondering how esperate people would make a living during the extended lockdown. Then I saw the HN submission for OnlyFans ...

Welcome to the USA!

This is completely crazy. Its just one of these absurd Americanisms that we should take a look at during COVID and not continue.

Hold up, if a waiter makes less than minimum wage after tips, the company has to make up the difference. This is a federal labour law, and if treated otherwise, is completely illegal.

Does your average waiter have the time and energy to devote to suing the local restaurant when it doesn't pay? Most of the time, and as they should, they just go find another job. I would hate to become known as the employee who sues my employer if they don't pay me.

Is that really your defense for posting 100% false information? Seriously? Owing more money to the irs than you make, because they "assume" you made minimum wage? You're a dumbass, straight up.

To be honest this is how it should be. I am customer of the restaurant and waiter is employee of same restaurant. I am not paying tip to clerk in bank, nor to the hairdressers, etc. In Japan tip is not only discouraged but waiters wouldn't even accept one. Why they can do it and we don't?

Well it's not like we have an army of amateur waiters out there waiting to serve you for free.

Ersatz desire and relationship. There is a huge market for it.

What message do professional athletes send to boys who are not athletic enough or don't want to play sports? The answer is the same as the answer to your question. None. Life is unfair and little boys and girls that don't yet grasp this concept need better parents and teachers. That's all.

> all it takes is to be born a certain way

Couldn't the same be said about intelligence?

It's absolutley arrogant and dishonest to think your intelligence is inherited instead of developed,unless you are an exception. Unintelligent people have hard working kids that grow up to be extremely intelligent,intelligent people give birth to children that end up idiots with negative contribution to society and themselves.

False

>Twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73% with the most recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80% and 86%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

Please read the caveat section on that page:

"Some have gone further, and used height as an example in order to argue that "even highly heritable traits can be strongly manipulated by the environment, so heritability has little if anything to do with controllability.""

Regardless of this, this is a measure if IQ, they control for a similar environment but they don't control for similar upbringing and individual's interests and pursuits.

IQ isn't static, there maybe a static ceiling that differs between individuals but the choices made by parents,individuals and environment affect how much developmental effort is focused on specific IQ traits.

As Einstein put it,you shouldn't measure a fish on it's ability to climb a tree.

Even if it weren't hereditary (although I believe that it's well accepted and uncontroversial that it is), it's still pretty clear that it's innate. Even if intelligence is randomly distributed, I've never heard anybody suggest that intelligence isn't something you're just "born with" whether you got it from your parents or just got really lucky.

Well you just heard me say it. Your thinking capacity is limited and inherited but just like physical muscle devlopment, you can develop it. Women basically have to work out 10x men to have similar muscle development (hormones) but they can develop it. Similarly,you don't just grow muscle because your ancestors had a lot of muscle,you still have to work out. All that I have read about intelligence leads me to believe that while hereditary ceiling differences exist for certain "mental muscles", it is something you develop starting from early stages of life.

> It's absolutley arrogant and dishonest to think your intelligence is inherited instead of developed,unless you are an exception.

I think it is more arrogant to assume your intelligence were due to your hard work and everyone else just being too lazy to achieve the same things.

Why do you think that, in every aspect of human acheivement a person can simply learn and practice. Various factors weigh in but you will be dumb as a rock if you choose to not pursue intellectual achievments regardless of your biology.

Ha! Just wait till VR catches on and FB pours all its resources into sucking people into its ecosystem, nay econosphere. Then we will truly be effed beyond belief. Just wait till they leverage all their psychological tricks in the VR world. Goodbye reality.

But what message does this send to girls

I think the larger problem is the degree to which men refuse to engage women in a substantive intellectual fashion.

I appear to be the highest ranked woman on HN. I've been here over a decade. It continues to be the case that most men don't really want to talk much with me unless they are hitting on me.

This has proven to be a huge barrier to effective networking and a huge barrier to turning my participation into an adequate income, something men seem to have no trouble doing here if they so desire.

I am not against sex work. But I have a very big problem with the degree to which other earning opportunities are lacking for women because of this dynamic where simply being female means no one wants to take your work seriously.

I don't think it helps to put a stop to sex work. All that does is make women prisoners of their men because then earning it on your back by "marrying well" becomes the only really viable means to have an adequate income for a woman when so many career doors that aren't sex work are so hard to force open if you are female and sex work is vilified as immoral and often is made illegal as well.

I have been talking for many years on HN about my desire to establish an adequate earned income via the internet because of my medical situation. I was homeless for nearly six years of that and I have had people tell me I was "panhandling the internet" and things like that.

I was told for years "Get a real job" when men here who are trying to make money online don't get told the same thing.

I get treated like I'm just a whiner, not someone with a legitimate complaint or legitimate social observation, etc ad nauseum.

If you really are concerned about the status of women, you should be much more concerned about the myriad social factors that make sex work one of the few ways women can reliably make a good income.

Because stamping out sex work doesn't magically open other doors. If it did, I would be fabulously wealthy because I have been celibate for medical reasons for fifteen years. If this were not true, I likely would have moved to Nevada, where sex work is legal, and made a killing to pay off my debts and come up with enough money to pay cash for a house or at least a down payment on a house.

Sex work is not a viable option for me and I'm no longer amenable to the idea for various reasons. But solving my financial problems shouldn't be this hard. I have six years of college and yadda. But I can't make the same connections men make and that's a huge barrier to trying to establish an adequate income.

This is true whether we ban sex work or not. Focusing on "But what is the message to girls here..." is the wrong focus. It doesn't solve the real problem women have.

My observation as an AMAB person: you are absolutely 100% correct in your overall assessment, but I think your perception of relative ease for men has a filter of survivorship bias. Women aren't given much chance in the first place, but men have to walk a narrow line to access those chances and stay in once they get there. That's if they can walk the line in the first place.

The whole thing is a mess for everyone in an assortment of uniquely horrible ways across every intersection.

but I think your perception of relative ease for men has a filter of survivorship bias

Please don't put words in my mouth. My life is hard enough without that.

I never expected anything to be easy. Just possible.

My Patreon sits at around $150/month and I get the occasional tip while I get accused of being a beggar for expecting pay for my writing at all when all other doors are effectively closed to me for various reasons.

I recently quit my local volunteer work in meat space because that, also, wasn't leading to an adequate income. It's a long, sordid tale, but boils down to the same problem dynamics I have everywhere: People value my work but don't want to pay me for it.

They end up thinking I do it because I "care" and and they are actively affronted by the idea that I want to make money at it. I get read as very motherly and all this shit and people want me to do things for them out of "love." Meanwhile, no one "loves" me enough to give a damn about the fact that I have literally gone hungry at times and literally had no housing for years. No one is doing a fundraiser for me out of compassion. Etc ad nauseum.

I don't think it's easy for me. But I do know it is possible for men and I'm just as competent as any man here and can't get the right doors open that lead to an adequate income while I am given a zillion excuses, which boils down to people justifying the awful way in which this community has treated me for more than a decade.

I know of a MtF trans youth who had no trouble whatsoever opening doors and getting money out of people here. I can't do the same and I am treated with enormous suspicion and contempt for even trying to figure it out.

I didn't realize you were talking about HN instead of in general. It's weird and fickle. One day you promote collective action on big problems and get lots of upvotes, the next you're run out as a traitor to capitalism. It sounds like you get all of the latter and none of the former.

I am talking about HN and in general. I had a corporate job for five years as well and I did mention, above, my failure to make sufficient in roads in meat space since getting back into housing.

I don't bitch more about HN because while it is infuriating and upsetting I remain dirt poor, HN is generally less bad about most things than most places, so it's all kinds of problematic to harp too much on it here. It amounts to being abusive to some of the better people on the planet.

But it's equally problematic to not harp on it. That doesn't solve my problem here either.

So even the best of the best that I can find are still failing to go "I know! If we care about the status of women, we should figure out some kind of path forward on helping this very talented, intelligent, educated and persistent woman in our midst who has spent over a decade proving she's absolutely not some kind of man-hating feminazi."

I don't think it would be unreasonable at this point for me to just lose my shit and go completely postal over this garbage. I'm not, cuz reasons, but this is pretty goddamned ridiculously extreme stuff that any idiot should be able to see "That ain't right."

I understand, I think, that life has certainly been unkind in many areas for you.

I know this is going to sound mean, given your context, but that is anecdotal.

I know (personally) women who have doors flung open for them for the fact that they are women. I don’t tend to agree with it, but I won’t judge those who take advantage.

I know at least one person who uses her femininity very effectively to fund her passion projects. She doesn’t sell her looks or body, she sells “feminity”, as in “an empathetic, sustainable approach to x”. It’s very effective for her at least.

With that in mind, I think the parent was being earnest.

Hardships happen, sadly what you’ve experienced is also experienced by many people, mostly men. Unfortunately they don’t have much of a voice.

Trading personality for employing unearned traits to get through life sounds like a bad deal. I can perform masculinity to top standards and bullshit my way through life, but then I'd lose myself. I doubt it's any different for AFAB people who lucked into good looks and wished they could thrive on merit.

Thank you for commenting.

I was quite beautiful when I was younger. I was also molested and raped and told it was my fault for being too beautiful to resist.

I considered becoming a model at one time.

I also was one of the top students of my graduating class, won a National Merit Scholarship to one of the two most prestigious universities in my home state and had other academic accolades.

My beauty seems to have been more downside than up. It is actively problematic for trying to pursue a serious career that doesn't in some way trade on your sexuality.

Most very successful female singers, actors, etc are beautiful and sexy. The top paid ones don't hesitate to pose nude and trade on their sexuality.

Men don't have to trade on their sexuality to get to the top of their field and men have many fields outside of entertainment open to them where they can make good money.

In fact, it boils down to this: being successful in a career is what makes a man desirable. But a woman is asked to choose to either be serious or be desirable.

I have found my looks and gender to actively be a problem in getting good constructive feedback. I suspect this dynamic is part of why Theranos was valued at $10 billion before being uncovered as a fraud: It was led by a pretty young woman.

I suspect Theranos would have deflated as the hot air balloon it was well before it hit $10 billion in valuation if it had been led by a man.

I have zero interest in using my looks, sexuality or femininity to open doors for me because I have no desire to follow in the foot steps of Theranos. That company has already done plenty of harm to the status and perception of women.

Did Holmes use her sexuality to bring Theranos to a $10B valuation? I thought she actively fought to remove her femininity to be able to prop it up as a founder.

Well, she secretly slept with and lived with one of her investors who also had some important position within the company. So there's that.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/227176/elizabeth-ho...

You're contributing to a stereotype that if a woman is having a relationship with someone at work that it must be to get ahead.

Holmes was absolutely not succeeding on merit. She was so very not succeeding on merit that there is a criminal case charging her with fraud.

I don't think it helps to turn a blind eye to the issue that women can sleep their way into positions, careerwise, and men typically cannot. We have expressions like the casting couch for a reason.

I've spent a lot of years trying to analyze this problem space and find a viable path forward based on actual merit. I'm not going to refrain from criticizing the likes of Holmes. She has done enormous harm to the status of women by her actions, which include sleeping with an investor to get money for a project that had no real merit because it was straight up fraud. So she probably wouldn't have been funded at all if she were male.

> which include sleeping with an investor to get money

Again, unless this came forward in legal proceedings, you're making an assumption.

> We have expressions like the casting couch for a reason.

It's not an expression, it's a literal thing in porn.

I'm not making an assumption. I'm making an inference.

I'm not backing down from my view that Theranos was valued at $10 billion largely because it was headed by an attractive young woman and it would have never been that overvalued and gone in one day from that valuation to zero if the head of the company had been male.

I have suggested on more than one occasion that she may have slept her way into power. She was in her twenties and publicly claiming to be celibate because she was so devoted to her company and then it later came out she was secretly living with Balwani.

I think the media has really treated her with kid gloves because of this fear of being accused of being mean or unfair or something because she's a woman.

I have done my damnedest to tread lightly on this topic over the years because I know it's a hot button topic. But I am in no way surprised to learn that she was secretly living with an investor while claiming to be celibate.

I was mostly privately speculating for years that she was probably sleeping with some of these rich and powerful men who helped make her company a success.

I'm a woman. I have zero problem getting sexual interest from wealthy, powerful men. I have enormous difficulty getting them to take my work seriously and get constructive feedback on my projects.

The Theranos story is one I have paid a fair amount of attention to because it hits a nerve for me. I have a form of cystic fibrosis and I have been getting healthier for 19 years while the world calls me crazy and acts like I'm making that up. There are no wealthy, powerful men expressing interest in the potentially world-changing medical crap my head contains.

I can fairly confidently estimate the personal value to me of that knowledge at about $9.5 million dollars (and counting) cuz reasons. So I have no doubt it's potentially worth billions if not trillions if I can figure out how to disseminate it. (At least in terms of impact on the world. Not necessarily profit per se.)

And I may die in obscurity because while there is no shortage of men who would love to sleep with me, there are no men interested at all in what I know about medical subjects.

So I'm not backing down on my view here. I'm still waiting to hear that Balwani wasn't the only one and she basically fucked her way to power every step of the way.

I'm not going to continue this discussion. I have no doubt this comment will be downvoted to hell. The world has a huge problem with the idea that I know anything medically useful and a huge problem with the fact that a woman who spent nearly six years homeless still has self esteem.

Have a good evening, or whatever time of the day or night it is where you are.

I understand, I think, that life has certainly been unkind in many areas for you.

This is another bs dismissal of my criticisms.

I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board. Between my two handles, I have over 50k karma, which would put me respectably high on the leader board if it were one handle.

You are "anecdotally" acting like this is some personal problem for me as an individual. If I'm just some loser that life has kicked in the teeth having nothing to do with my gender, where are the many other openly female members who are on the leader board and/or obviously making bank through their participation here?

Men face the same difficulties you describe when starting a career and getting paid for the value they provide. Simply because 1% of men do not face that due to networking or luck does not mean that the vast majority are in some privileged position.

To be succinct, the main issue I have with HN is that when I try to network and say things like "Email me about that. Let's discuss that issue privately." it typically turns into roughly "Honey, can I get your phone number? Can we have a coffee date (for romantic reasons and not business reasons)?"

I strongly suspect this is not a huge issue for men.

My experience has led me to believe (as a not famous, not attractive, not well connected man) that I would not get an email back in the first place. I have no idea whether or not that is problematic, but that's my perception: that I wouldn't even get the opportunity to prove myself.

On the upside, that at least saves the time and energy of trying to figure out how to reply to someone in a way that moves things in the right direction and wondering if you are just crazy and reading in problem behavior when there is none and so forth.

I was strung along for months by someone who was married and not telling me that until he finally told me one day that he was married, his marriage was in the toilet and he needed "a friend." I wouldn't have fallen for that if it was clearer to me what actual successful networking looks like.

When two hetero men network, saying "Hey, let's have coffee" is a clear and unambiguously platonic proposal. This is not true in my case and it leaves me with serious challenges in figuring out just how on earth you do this.

It's only very recently that I have figured out how to get someone to discuss my work with me because those initial inquiries are so often ambiguous. Networking looks not dissimilar to dating in the initial phases and that means I waste a lot of time trying to make a business connection that will never happen because business is not his goal and will never be on the table, no matter how I handle things.

In my experience successful networking happens when you work on some minor project together successfully.

Thank you.

That's a terrible experience, and one of the many reasons networking is hard.

I suppose my perspective is that the grass is always greener. I have always assumed that I'd prefer the opportunity to pitch at a higher rate, versus a better qualified opportunity at a much lower rate. But that's probably a fallacy.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I still don't feel bad for attractive people, since the outcome measurements clearly show it's advantageous, but the experience isn't something I'd considered prior to your comment.

I suppose my perspective is that the grass is always greener.

Sometimes the grass is greener because of all the manure in the yard.

I try hard to "count my blessings" and to figure out what's good about my situation. But the reality is I'm frequently broke, often to the point of going hungry, so I very much need to solve some questions concerning "How on Earth do you make money instead of being treated like slave labor?" (Because I get feedback that people benefit tremendously from information I share and things I do and they "value" it, they just don't want to pay me for it.)

>Because stamping out sex work doesn't magically open other doors. If it did, I would be fabulously wealthy because I have been celibate for medical reasons for fifteen years.

>Focusing on "But what is the message to girls here..." is the wrong focus. It doesn't solve the real problem women have.

Given the former statement, it is the right focus.

I have no idea what you are trying to say with that. Perhaps you could try to clarify so I can try to better communicate what my point of view is here.

But what is the real problem that women have? Is it about the lack of fairness in the society they live in? Is it a problem world-wide?

But what is the real problem that women have?

Probably best explained here:

https://witnesstodestruction.blogspot.com/p/the-gray-zone.ht...

I don't think women have any real barrier in getting jobs nowdays, in fact, I think we are at a time where women are more advantaged than men. They graduate college in greater numbers, the dating market is easy (endless validation on dating apps and social networks), and since in general they aren't held up to the standards that men are they can play it both ways and win - either don't work hard and find a "rich" husband, or work hard and stay single while enjoying easy sex from dating apps.

A man, on the other hand, has to work hard and earn a good living, otherwise he's a "loser", he also has to have social calibration and be able to be interesting and good looking to find a decent looking woman.

Does the normalization of women getting rich and living lavish, bourgeoise lifestyles from selling their bodies help or hurt the perception of women?

Even before OnlyFans blew up, people(both men and women) already looked down on women who did sex work for a living. What do you think happens from here when every girl and their grandmother's has an OnlyFans? That's something every guy will probably be thinking about now when they are considering a girl to date. That is now something for employers to consider when hiring a woman. I'm not saying that's okay either, by the way. I'm just suggesting that that's what will happen.

I'm not calling for a ban on sex work anyhow. Never did. I'm only voicing my concerns.

I'm only voicing my concerns.

And I'm doing my best to address those concerns. In a nutshell, I'm saying it's sort of neither here nor there whether we normalize the practice of women getting rich via selling their bodies.

The general narrative goes something like this:

"It's bad for women to make good money off of sex. We should stamp out this practice because it is immoral."

Then I say "But how else can they make good money?" and I get told that's somehow beside the point.

It's not beside the point. It is the point.

If you want to empower women, worry about what is keeping them out of the C Suites of corporations and things like that. Don't worry about sex work. Worry about why trading on their looks or sexuality via sex work or in the course of being entertainers seems to be the only really good way for women to get rich on their own efforts.

Women often turn to sex work because it's the only way they can make adequate money. This is why you see so many single moms working as exotic dancers and the like.

Some of those women would do other things if it wasn't such a huge uphill battle.

That's all I'm trying to say.

Sorry, there's really not much I can do to get women into C Suites of corporations and things like that. Poor and unemployed due to a pandemic and that kind of stuff.

For guys like me, it's great that we get to have this huge abundance of porn from all kinds of girls who would've never done it before. I just feel very sad for the girls and boys who never consented or signed up for this fucked up clown world we've got now. That's all I wanted to say. I am not calling for a ban. I'm just pointing out that this does not help women and in fact only hurts women in the long game.

Sorry, there's really not much I can do

I don't think this is true. I think ordinary guys have access to knowledge that most women lack and just talking with women and taking their issues seriously makes a real and meaningful difference.

So thank you for conversing with me (as opposed to pissing all over me or just being blatantly dismissive).

I am not calling for a ban.

I'm sorry that you feel accused. I'm not trying to accuse you. But the logical outcome of your objections is a ban, if everyone agrees that you are right.

I'm just pointing out that this does not help women and in fact only hurts women in the long game.

I don't believe this is true. I believe this framing is rooted in broader cultural practices where a woman's sexuality doesn't really belong to her. It's a double standard that needs to be stamped out.

But I've had enough of sounding fighty on the internet for one day. So I will likely bow out of this conversation at this point.

Have a good day.

The logical outcome of my objections is not a ban. I don't know why that has to be the case. Like you say, if we did more for women, they wouldn't have to do sex work. Then there would only be a small amount of women who do sex work purely because of passion, not because they were broken and grinded down by a profoundly sick society.

I don't mean to be personal or rude - I only say this because someone said it to me once and it helped me.

Your experiences in comment threads are often a reflection of what YOU write. Hostile people get hostility, humble people often get humbleness in return. Looking at this comment thread, some of the problems you mention in this comment have come up and perhaps it's worth considering whether that is due to how you write your comments.

I've spent a lot of time in therapy. If it were somehow the way I write, I would be thrilled to pieces to learn that fact and correct it.

After nearly 11 years of being told things like "On the internet, no one knows you're a dog if you don't tell them" and having it suggested to me that if my gender is an issue, I should simply hide that fact, I'm pretty darn sure it's not the way I write. It's the way the world reacts to women.

I wouldn't even know you are a woman unless you told me. I personally don't keep track of who says what (with exception of a few famous people). On HN, I feel at home in that what is said is viewed as important, logical reasoning and reproducible process are valued from what I have seen.

> I think the larger problem is the degree to which men refuse to engage women in a substantive intellectual fashion.

First statement is a generalization across 50% of the population.

> I appear to be the highest ranked woman on HN. I've been here over a decade. It continues to be the case that most men don't really want to talk much with me unless they are hitting on me.

Second comment is decrying the fact that the population broadly smeared in the first comment does not want to engage with you.

I can only speak for myself, but the only times that I’ve ever been aware of the gender of a commenter are incredibly rare and only when I recognize the username as that of a personal friend of mine. In general, I’m pretty confident that the gender of a commenter on HN has no effect on how I reply to them for the simple reason that I’m almost always ignorant of it.

In your case, its possible that the mindset expressed in your first sentence contributes to the phenomenon or perception of the phenomenon in the second.

edit before anyone turns this into career suicide for me, I’m not saying that there is a link. I’m just observing the possibility

In general, I’m pretty confident that the gender of a commenter on HN has no effect on how I reply to them

You and I are talking about two different things.

But I said I was stepping away from this conversation, so I will leave it that.

Society already sends girls the message that their greatest asset is their looks, and their value in society is their ability to attract a man. That beautiful women don't have to work hard to make money or succeed in society isn't exactly a revelation to anyone.

Society already also sends boys the message that their greatest value lies in their sexual exploits, and that as long as they have money and power and are aggressive enough, sex with beautiful women is their just and deserved reward.

Both of these signals are primarily sent through popular media, and their purpose is to reinforce outdated notions of both masculinity and femininity, and superficial and exploitative ideals of relationships and sex which lend themselves more readily to consumerism and commercial exploitation.

None of this is in any way new.

But just because it's not new doesn't mean we should accept it or cheer it on as it continues in new forms. I'd argue a lot of the movement in culture over the last 20 years especially has been trying to move away from those trends and messages, even if it's not all fully successful.

I doubt that good looking women have such an easy life as you seem to think. Being attractive goes along with sexual harassment from the early teens onwards - stares, commdnts, unwanted touching, .. This doesn't stop until they turn 40+. I've seen 12(ish) year olds or moms with small children getting lewd comments.

In later years attractive women struggle exactly because of the trope you describe - all their achievements are doubted because others think those are just due to their looks and genetic lottery. And they can never be sure whether a male offer of support is genuine kindness or collegiality or an attempt to get in their pants.

Another example: I travel 2x/month for work. When I do I go for runs, roam late around the neighbourhoods of unknown areas to take photos, grab a beer and chat with locals, etc. I dont have to fear too much harm beyond a robbery. My female colleagues all have a very similar travel schedule but they don't see or experience nearly as much of the cities they travel to, simply because as a woman you have to fear much more for your bodily integrity than us men.

Not saying anyone is really at fault here (except our fellow men that don't respect boundaries/common decency) or that being unattractive is better (especially for women that has its own downsides) but it definitely is not all rainbow and sunshine just because a woman has good looks. Be kind to all, whether beautiful or not.

Of course, being attractive has downsides. So does being tall and also being intelligent. So does being rich. You'll get harrased, you car scratched, become a target for kidnapping and everyone will doubt your achievements as well. A rich person probably can't enter many neighborhoods as well, without a bodyguard.

Being attractive, woman or not, has so many hidden benefits it's impossible to add them all up. You'll be perceived as more intelligent, you'll get more opportunities to be promoted and of course, mating, one of the most important aspects for humans, becomes immeasurably easier. It's probably one of the greatest inequalities there is, along with intelligence and wealth. There are many studies that indicate that subjective well-being correlates with attractiveness. And yet, people seem to be a lot more eager to defend the beautiful, rather than the wealthy. Also note that attractivness is massively important for men as well; note that 80% of all CEOs are above 6 ft tall.

there is also the law of escalation to consider, to get more hits, to stand out above others, these people will perform increasingly more debase or dangerous actions and poses.

I'm not for wholesale censorship but somehow we need to find a way to stop the pressure of anonymous crowd escalation pressure.

>But what message does this send to girls who are not considered attractive enough or just don't want to do this kind of work?

Here's where the real damage gets done - women flock to onlyfans as they find it to be an easy way to sell their looks / body for money. They initially get interest and some (or a lot) of money. More beautiful girls join onlyfans, subscribers change and now you're left with yesterday's onlyfan star, having gained "worth" from her looks/body, now watching that "worth" dissipate.

Not to mention those images are now online forever.

>The message is that all the study, work, and effort to work in a meaningful career is a freaking joke, when all it takes is to be born a certain way and make huge amounts of money selling your body.

This already existed. Ugly rich/famous/powerful men don't get beautiful wives due to their glowing personality.

>But man, we are so fucked.

We are, from virtually every angle. Still, at least it's interesting.

> Not to mention those images are now online _forever_.

Online forever and owned by, or granted a license in perpetuity to, an entity that isn't you.

Imagine being a kid today and school bullies finding your mother's old OnlyFans pictures.

Could be worse, at least she made a buck off it. Think of the children of the people flooding Reddit with porn content of themselves, in which they're easily identifiable, for free.

Imagine going to summer camp on money your mom raised from sexwork!

Or, flip that script. Which _is_ happening. People are buying OnlyFans, tracking down their parents, and sending them the pictures.

>More beautiful girls join onlyfans, subscribers change and now you're left with yesterday's onlyfan star, having gained "worth" from her looks/body, now watching that "worth" dissipate.

Ah, the sadness of aging, decline, and death. Better get used to it because it's the one guarantee of life

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