Hacker News Reader

>ostracizing sex work is almost entirely normalized

100%. One of the universal curses people throw at each other is implying that someone's mother is a prostitute, or that they are a product of extramarital sex, implying the promiscuity of the mother. This all is hand-in-hand with the implied comtempt towards women of course.

"son of a b_tch" implies "son of an adulterer/fornicator"

This is an educated, albeit only a speculation of mine that I never confirmed: in the past (medieval times) people used to describe inferior things by comparing them to dogs like "dog's weather", "you will die like a dog" and many other sayings. It's wrong to think that your mother is being insulted by being called the "son of a bitch" (it's also pointless to censor the word as you did). What it means, or at least what it originally meant, is that you came out of a womb of a dog.

In other words, if you're with your mom in a room, and someone calls you a son of a bitch, the claim is not that the woman you take for your mom is a bitch, rather, that you're wrong and your mom is actually not in the room (unless there's also a female dog in that room).

> 100%. One of the universal curses people throw at each other is implying that someone's mother is a prostitute, or that they are a product of extramarital sex, implying the promiscuity of the mother. This all is hand-in-hand with the implied comtempt towards women of course.

How so? Not all women are prostitutes.

Curses don't try to be true, they are to express frustration, or to hurt someone's feelings.

Because no one's throwing around "your father is a prostitute" as an insult.

> Because no one's throwing around "your father is a prostitute" as an insult.

There's all kinds of things that people insult men/fathers for that they wouldn't use for women/mothers (e.g. strength, financial success, etc). It's just gender roles, not generalized contempt for women (and going that far is probably just politically motivated exaggeration).

I think the contempt is there, because we're talking about someone's parent, and for some reason, all cultures (that I know of) picked the mother as the one being out of line. As in, when there's someone that's out of line, that has to be the woman. If this would be random, or balanced, we'd curse at others like your father is a deadbeat, or that your father's sperm is weak, and therefore you are weak, or things like that. Yet that just doesn't come up much.

Edit: I do get your point though. It's not as straightforward as I implied. In fact I think that it's a complex, interwoven system, which comes up unfair for everyone. But I do observe a general hatred toward women, and if something like this curse comes up, I can't help but think that the two are in connection.

> I think the contempt is there, because we're talking about someone's parent, and for some reason, all cultures (that I know of) picked the mother as the one being out of line. As in, when there's someone that's out of line, that has to be the woman.

There's definitely contempt there, but just for the person being insulted.

I think you're analyzing those kinds of insults using the wrong framework. It doesn't have much to do with women as a class, but rather with the relationship with the insulted person to his mother. Insulting someone's mother will probably get under someone's skin more than insulting their father, because (especially historically) they probably have a warmer/closer relationship with their mother due to gender roles around child-rearing.

That's a very interesting point! Thanks for bringing it up.

>I think the contempt is there, because we're talking about someone's parent

But I feel that this is more because the mother is the more 'revered' parent? People often hate their father, but it's far rarer for people to hate their mother. Cursing someone's mother is, to me, just a way to hurt someone by insulting the person they love the most.

This of course would imply the exact opposite of what you're suggesting.

> because we're talking about someone's parent, and for some reason, all cultures (that I know of) picked the mother as the one being out of line.

As the saying goes: "mother's a fact; father's an opinion".

cursing someone's mother not their father shows exacly the opposite attitude to women (mothers) to me: since the offender presumes people are more loving to their mothers than fathers, therefore expects that maledicting the mother hurt more.

True. In fact we’ve made televised “I’m not the father” dancing into a national pastime.

The patriarchy mentality our norms are built upon includes blaming women for everything ‘wrong’. Women are blamed for premarital sex. Men are celebrated for their scores. Women are paid less yet have less leisure time. They are the first to blame if anything goes wrong with children, including just bringing them into public spaces. Men aren’t expected to be responsible parents, and usually aren’t primary caregivers. Women are the butt of jokes, and are constantly told they aren’t funny. Some men are actively campaigning to make women property again. Women are forced to give birth for anyone that inseminates them without exception in many jurisdictions now.

Not all women are sex workers, but the fact is that female sex workers (sex entrepreneurs?!) are generally disrespected by patriarchs and their women. That internalized distain comes out in a variety of ways, but quite materially as well (ie bank policy and regulations). Male sex workers are envied by other males. “I’d love that job”.

Do yourself a favor and read "Self-Made Man". It's obvious you're only seeing this from one side of the coin and lack the perspective of the other side in some kind of crusade.

Both sexes have their problems and the status quo causes stigmas for both. To claim women are uniquely seen as "lesser beings" in a developed world is horribly naïve.

Blarg. I read the summary of it, it’s going on my list thx. I grew up with a patriarch mentality and took it into my marriage and business. It’s just plain wrong, it’s effects are severe, and it’s been a long personal journey to relearn and reinterpret stuff.

I’m not on a crusade per se, but I guess I’m at a place where I’m now sharing aggregated angst I’ve heard from women and read about. Men absolutely have unmet needs, and much of that actually comes from patriarchal values.

https://www.nextgenmen.ca/blog/why-patriarchy-hurts-men-too

The phrase “I don’t see color” seems admirable but ultimately was determined by researchers to be one of the strongest indicators of racial bias. It’s a problem because it ignores or denies the struggles that minorities have and do face. It projects a meritocracy where there isn’t one. I’d love to live in a “post-racial” society, but we just don’t. In the same way, “I don’t see gender” or “it’s hard for everyone” is a polite way of lying to yourself and denying the harsh reality that women objectively experience.

I have stats and citations for everything I’ve posted here, but I’m lazy and on my phone. I hope you’ll find that most of my claims easily substantiated, not some naïve diatribe. Hit me up if something I said needs backup.

Re: the phrase I don't see colour. Do you have a reference or link for that research? That dovetails elegantly into something I'm dealing with right now.

I haven’t been able to find the paper where I saw colorblindness used as a measure, but I

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Has written on the topic for many years. This is one of his more cited works: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000276421558682...

And full text of a more recent article:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/233264922094102...

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

I found this recent dissertation which cites the earlier papers I shared, and has some very specific insights into race and gender in engineering education, which seems relevant. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/1698...

The Legitimation of Black Subordination: The Impact of Color-Blind Ideology on African American Education Dawn G. Williams and Roderic R. Land The Journal of Negro Education Vol. 75, No. 4 (Fall, 2006), pp. 579-588 (10 pages) Published By: Journal of Negro Education https://www.jstor.org/stable/40034659

Thank you so much. Lots of exceptionally interesting reading to dig into there.

>To claim women are uniquely seen as "lesser beings" in a developed world is horribly naïve.

Not really. The developed world barely raised a few generations since women can vote. This is not saying men don't have problems - but the field is still very often tilted against women.

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

Both have their problems but acting like the problems are symmetrical is laughable.

How long ago were women in America able to apply for a mortgage?

The OP appears to be mostly talking about porn, but your points seem to be mostly addressing prostitution.

Prostitution has long considered an disreputable and undesirable activity, and it along with other types of sex work are often tightly coupled with involuntary exploitation. A lot of the stuff that you're criticizing derives from attempts to continue to legally discourage prostitution while preventing the legal system from further punishing women who are being exploited.

Isn’t prostitution essentially porn without the cameras? Why ostracize legal prostitution? If porn is allowed, prostitution should be too.

Yes, there are issues of exploitation and licensing. They are at both places - maybe less for porn because it’s not as much in the shadows. Bring sex work out of the shadows. Just normalize it.

> Isn’t prostitution essentially porn without the cameras? Why ostracize legal prostitution? If porn is allowed, prostitution should be too.

IIRC, porn would be illegal, except the performance aspect gave it First Amendment cover. It might also be significant that porn seems to have traditionally involved a 3rd party paying two people to have sex, so that's arguably not prostitution. It's probably arguably illegal prostitution if one person pays another to sex with them and films it. You can't videotape an illegal act to make it legal.

Legal hack: Recite poetry while robbing the bank, so the first amendment protects you!

Maybe if you also bring along a camera crew and declare at the start that this is an art piece you're doing.

The camera provides a record of the transaction for tax purposes.

Prostituion is much harder to monitor, especially when the buyer also has incentive to pretend that the transaction didn't take place.

There are, perhaps, solutions that could be developed to deal the problem but if you are the lawmaker why would you go out of your way to make your job harder?

The system failed to act as intended then, and I'd honestly not be remisced if I didn't mention it creating new victims. The people staring at that data and making laws know this; it's not like they're unaware and yet these systems are still staples. At some point you have to sit back and question whether they're actually trying to solve a problem at all.

Just like with drugs, we see what prohibitionism brought us: it didn't solve the problems it set out to solve, and created new ones.

> Everyone around sex workers are considered criminals. Unknowingly rent a property to a sex worker? You're a criminal. Date a sex worker? Suspected to be a criminal. Lend money to a sex worker? Criminal. Use sex work services? Definitely a criminal.

Only in those third world countries where prostitution is still illegal. In the modern world not. https://prostitution.procon.org/countries-and-their-prostitu...

If you feel so confidently in the laws of your country there's a simple exercise you can do: get an escort with the intended purpose of asking them about their experiences. If you feel fear, angst, etc, if you start googling legalities then I think you'll have a better perspective of the intricate web these policies have woven to trap people and accuse them of moral crimes.

> One of the uncomfortable conversations that many people don't want to have is that sex work is heavily used by society and yet neglected constantly, thereby making it dangerous for both sex workers and the users, even making it more dangerous at times.

I have heard this familiar argument made for the legalization of narcotics.

What is "funny" is that this view is held by two very different groups of people.

- Moralist conservatives which despise sex work and sex workers for ideological and religious reasons

- Progressives which think it's degrading and negative that somebody is forced to sell their sex to survive (which is a noble thought), and therefore think banning sex work will help that goal (we all know how that went wrt drugs...)