India’s sex workers turn to WhatsApp, Instagram to find clients safely | Hacker News Reader

India’s sex workers turn to WhatsApp, Instagram to find clients safely

restofworld.org

62 pointsvinnyglennon68 comments

> She could not meet her clients outside due to movement restrictions in her city Sangli, nor bring them home as she didn’t want her daughter to know she was a sex worker.

It must be wild to have a sex worker as a parent. Maybe I’m getting older but there’s no way that’s a good environment to be raising a kid in.

Like that adam22 guy, no way his daughter will turn out normal. Especially when they were using her for content like his wife breastfeeding her.

> It must be wild to have a sex worker as a parent. Maybe I’m getting older but there’s no way that’s a good environment to be raising a kid in.

Plenty of people are raised by parents who did sex work. There's no inherent reason it has any effect on parenting.

It's just a job.

If you're independent, mentally sane, and not blowing your money on drugs, you could actually give a better to life to your kids that 99% of people.

I knew someone who invested enough of the money she made that way so that her daughter would never have to work a single day of her life, and she was like 40yo.

And how many people are like that? You are basically discard most of the population

Independent, sane, and drug-free doesn't seem like that high of a bar to me.

A lot of people where work is tied to your healthcare are not independent. A lot others work so much it leave them no choice to not be sane after a while. And sometimes people can't afford the expensive tools needed to deal with lots of personal issues (tools like therapy) so they turn to the cheaper options, like drugs.

I don't think it's so shocking that not a lot of people would actually be above that bar.

I had a feeling somebody would quibble with "independent." In context, I don't think it's a high bar. If we're talking about sex workers, we're not talking about people with regular jobs so work is tied to their healthcare. "Independent" has to mean no more than an independent-minded personality; exactly the sort of person who can cope with running their own business doing something that's less socially acceptable.

Therapy is not the universal requirement for mental health that many people seem to think it is. Most people just muddle through and manage to stay reasonably sane without developing substance abuse disorders. In many cases that might not be optimal, but it's not insane or drug-addled either.

Most sex workers I've come across are not drug addled nor mentally unwell. Obviously that's a tiny proportion and not enough to draw solid statistical conclusions from, but at least it's more data than you have.

It’s a job, sure… but it certainly isn’t straightforward or without its problems. And above all, sex isn’t exactly “I tried these gloves and I didn’t like them so I will get the other ones” type of deal.

Love is great because it’s innocent and exploratory, I find it hard to believe these sex workers deal only with clients who are in it for romantic aspects, which means a lot of the time these women will be taking on whatever nasty bullshit their client is dealing with in their own life…

And that isn’t something you can suppress for the rest of your life. It will eventually seep out and begin to distort your view of reality. And no amount of money can fix that.

Not trying to be too cynical but it’s a major point to consider if you want to weigh the topic as a whole.

> isn’t something you can suppress for the rest of your life. It will eventually seep out and begin to distort your view of reality. And no amount of money can fix that.

Anyone working a job that deals with a lot of drunk people, or criminals, or mentally unwell will experience a fair amount of nasty behavior. It sucks, but people do the work because it's their best option and others rarely judge them for it. Except sex workers, they get judged by practically everyone.

Some jobs like bar work or physiciatric work carry risks of physical altercation etc.

In prostitution the physical encounter is the whole job, there's no avoiding it. Your body is the product.

Sex itself is also highly exceptional emotionally. Your body reacts to sexual behavior neurochemical in a way that's incomparable to really any other activity, and it's unique in how it can affect your relationships and self perception.

Please note that I make No judgement against sex workers when I say this.

I think that how harmful it is depends on the society in which it takes place.

I mean, everyone who works is a prostitute in the more abstract sense. We are all renting the use of our bodies for money. The only difference between me and a sex worker is that I'm renting my body to someone to be used toward a different purpose.

You don't see a difference in your body being the actual product?

Your body is always the product, that's the point. You're selling your body (the product) to a company or directly to the consumer.

Every woman should just be multi-millionaire prostitutes to be better mothers than housewives and corporate wageslaves!

Why, why would you say that? Parent leaves for work, parent comes home from work with income.

Is it because sex work is dangerous? So is fishing, and pizza delivery, and construction.

Is it because sex work wears down your body? Plenty of general contractors, nurses, and landscapers have jobs that are more physically demanding.

I genuinely do not see how, if someone has a reasonable separation of work/home, it would present any more negativity on a kid's upbringing than any other physical labor.

It seems like a judgemental attitude induced by religion. Those most against prostitution seem to be in religious groups.

> It seems like a judgemental attitude induced by religion. Those most against prostitution seem to be in religious groups.

That's a common misconception, but it's simply not true. If you talk to actual sex workers, they'll consistently tell you that they face judgemental attitudes and discrimination across the board, not just from religious people.

Fair enough, that was just my impression. But it is my impression also that most *organised groups against prostitution often seem to have religion behind them. I may well be wrong though.

I would go further and say that some people who are against sex work are against the propensity for other crime to occur (including trafficking, drug use etc) or for violence to be perpetrated against sex workers.

Ironically, if we didn't have puritan attitudes, the majority of those issues would be mitigated quite drastically.

In a strange twist, I wonder if the puritan attitudes increase the retail 'price' of sex work? Said attitude/laws increase risk, which lowers the number of workers in the market, which increases potential earnings of those willing to participate in the market.

The earnings for a streetwalker, who is at the bottom of the heap pretty much, is low. Some years ago I was offered sex for £15. I still feel sorry for that lonely lady who was just trying to get by best she could. I hope she's well.

As I moved across my country (US) I stopped at a hotel for the night. As I got out of my car in the hotel parking lot, an emaciated, twitchy, and frankly quite unattractive woman approached me and explicitly offered me her mouth to "release that road trip stress". I said no, thanks for the offer but I have to get some rest, sorry, maybe next time. Certainly not my first encounter with the hallowed and empowered sex worker caste, and my response was met with apparent grace. She moved along to the next family pulling up.

Between the time it took for me to check in to my $25+tax/night room and get back to my car to park closer to my assigned room, 3 of my 4 windows were smashed and 4 of my 6 Rubbermaid bins and suitcases full of personal belongings were gone. It was full daylight and there were many other people going in and out of the area. There were cameras. It was the middle of a built up suburban area that appeared nominally safe.

All I got from the hotel was a 20% discount for the night. All I got from the experience was an increase in multiple forms of prejudicial behavior that I still struggle with daily.

I also have a lot of... experience with the sex industry, from multiple angles.

I say this just as a anecdote, but my overall take is that people in this industry are not necessarily "just trying to get by". There are at least some participants whose primary goal is to harm others in some way for their own enjoyment -- on all sides.

Who made it their primary goal to harm someone for enjoyment in your story?

Well, one day kid will want to know where you work and what you do and you can't lie forever. Especially if somehow they learn early or other kids will.

But yeah there is plenty of worse things that can happen.

I hate that people have a purely punitive approach to this. They get to feel puritan with a semi-reasonable argument: sex work damages others! It damages children! And, for that they get to do anything, because now they want to "help children", and not what they're really doing, using violence against children to attempt to impose their own moral values on the world. What they're really doing ... that sounds a bit bad. But it sounds bad because it is bad. And let's ignore that organisations like the police or Child Services definitely have their share of people who merely want to use violence against children, for whatever reason, because those definitely exist.

Look at what these people DO! Are they improving child services for the children in there? No, of course not. These moral crusaders are, effectively, looking to punish children so they can look good and moral. Damaging real people, real children with real violence so society can look just a little closer to their moral ideal.

You see ... what determines if this is better or worse is the alternative. If you're really after the welfare of the child, what determines your position is the alternative ... What damages the child more? That's what matters for the moral position. Taking the child away, in India, leads to this:

https://borgenproject.org/orphans-in-india/

So no, a parent who's a sex worker is a LOT better.

That should be the basis for your moral position. It's all well and good to define an ideal and then blame people for not attaining perfection ... but of course we'd all be in jail if that's how we actually work. Is leaving children with sex workers ideal? No, but WE DON'T CARE ABOUT IDEAL. We care about the best possible situation for the child! And that, sorry, is definitely, without any doubt, letting sex workers raise children.

You want to change sex work? Offer these people some better options. And if you can't do that, for whatever reason, throwing the child into child services IS NOT a good second option.

And I would argue this applies to pretty much every country in the world, including the US. The situation of orphans may not be quite as bad as in India, it's certainly not better than living with (very) suboptimal parents, whether that means this or ...

And, frankly, that should be the only concern.

I didn't say it damages anything; I said it will be pretty hard talk to have and hard to manage situation, especially if it somehow leaks to the other kids, kids are cruel. And things that are hard can go bad easily.

"But the other job earning less money would be worse for kid!" is extremely one-dimensional view on that

And I'm not sure how your weird rant about child services is even related to that

> And I'm not sure how your weird rant about child services is even related to that

That's the only alternative you/society offers for these children. So that's what you should compare to. I get that you don't want to do that, because it totally demolishes your argument, but it still is the only alternative.

What’s wrong with the truth?

Someday I had to tell my kid that people have two mommies and some people have two daddies, and you know what? It was fine. You can abstract it for a kid until they are old enough to understand.

A frightening large amount of people have terrible and judgemental attitudes towards sex work of any kind even though there they are objectively irrational. Rather than introspect, they try to debate and argue they are somehow correct. This is one of my favorite most unapologetic videos on the entire internet: https://files.catbox.moe/fzmvu0.mp4

Well, sex work corrupts the workers psychologically and aids the addiction of customers. Sex work is a lot closer to selling mild drugs than to mowing lawns. It's hardly the worst thing in our society, for there are far worse white collar jobs that are officially respected, but it's not a reason to whitewash it. Another way to think about it is to imagine it's a virtual reality that customers pay for to get a dopamine rush. The VR allows to create any experience for the customers, but is it a good thing to do?

The idea that the person who gave birth to you is being used to pleasure random men for money is psychologically traumatizing because every child treasures and looks up to their parents (or wants to). Their life and identitiy is intertwined with yours and their decision or vicitimization is also by extension affecting you.

You want your parents to be valued and respected. You would think sex for money is valuing but it is or at least feels like devaluing. It is one thing for your parent to have sex because they want to and for the sake of it, it is another thing to do it because they have to which means they are unable or unwilling to provide anything else of value to pursue partners they are interested in, instead of the general public.

The idea that anyone, even neighbors and hobos could be paying to penetrate the person you treasure the most and is supposed to be role model and teach you how to live right is at the very least disturbing. Even porn stars work with other porn stars but prostitutes at best filter by appearances aside from money.

Children are protective of their parents and vice versa. Whether a child or parent, seeing them become a prostitute feels like something sacred to you is being desecrated.

If that doesn't make sense to you, I suggest taking off the ideological glasses.

>If that doesn't make sense to you, I suggest taking off the ideological glasses.

You might want to check and see who is wearing the ideological glasses. You are the one who has the hangup here.

Sex is. People enjoy sex. People can enjoy sex with close intimate partners or flings. People can enjoy sex or perform it for money. Not all sex work is penetrative either.

You've got a narrow and restrictive view of the world.

Human psychology is not a world view. This is not a matter if opinion. You are just stuck on an extremist view where sex is cool in a ll context when it isn't.

You're right, it's not a matter of opinion, and in this case you are the one with the wrong opinion.

99.9% of humanity is on my side on this. You're free to have your opinion just keep in mind it isn't valid just because you say it is. I told you how things are and you did not refute what I said, you just made ideological statements and mental gymnastics to help you hold on to your opinion. The world is not as black and white as you want it to be.

> 99.9% of humanity is on my side on this.

Citation very much needed.

> I told you how things are

You very much did not. You shared your opinion, just like you did with the 99.9% "statistic". Get over yourself.

It was obviously a guesstimate not a statistic. It was my opinion but it is also correct, go outside and ask random people how they feel about this and find out for yourself.

> It was my opinion but it is also correct

You are clearly unable to have a discussion in any sort of good faith. You cannot just assert things are true and then say, "Well, they were just my opinion, but also they are axiomatically true."

I'm done. You'll probably tell me that I'm being ideological or something, but I don't have the time to argue with someone who isn't able to engage in a productive dialog. (Either the "we have different opinions, and that's ok, let's talk through them and listen" or the "here's some factual discussion, with some sources that aren't anecdata.")

If 99.9% of humanity agrees that sex work is bad, then surely sex workers and their customers combined must make up at most 0.1% of the population, right? And yet there are an estimated 1 to 2 million prostitutes in the US, so about 0.2% of the population, and presumably the clients outnumber the sex workers... so your magic number seems very very unlikely. I doubt even 99.9% of your friends and family would share your opinion, though they may not feel comfortable admitting this to you (you seem rather judgemental and close-minded).

> how it would present any more negativity than any other physical labor

The mistake is characterizing sex work as "physical labor."

There is a well documented link between sex work and trauma/psychological disorders.

How would you characterize sex work if not physical labor, together with a bunch of other characteristics too.

There is documented links between content moderation (and a bunch of other professions too) and trauma/psychological disorders. Hence these professions should be able to talk to psychiatrists freely, like any work that has a metal toll.

together with a bunch of other characteristics too

Sex work is correlated with poverty and mental problems. Of course people are going to think such an individual is likely to be an unfit parent.

I'm fairly certain what you describe in the last sentence there is a crime. A very serious crime.

What dystopian country are you in that makes a video of breastfeeding an actual crime?

Is that what it was? Or was it "content".

I mean, monetizing your child with breast feeding videos might be considered tasteless even though it is legal and certainly not CSAM.

Perhaps you should look into it, try and find out a bit more from other people's experience whose parents were sex workers, before you decide. Otherwise you come across as bigoted.

The saddest problem from sex work that I'm aware of is people get forced into it from lack of money. It may not be the sex work so much as the poverty that does the damage to the children. In terms of growing up with the constant fear of lack of money, that deeply affects your parents, and that in turn damages you. Yes I am speaking from experience.

edit: "A woman in Zambia stated that five blowjobs would allow her to purchase a bag of cornmeal for her children." https://www.socialconnectedness.org/the-stigmatization-behin... Fucking hell.

I think working from home is probably a much worse environment to raise your kids than going to work and coming back and they don't know that you sold your body for the day. The latter case is indistinguishable between jobs.

Do you find it strange to think we wouldn't consider it weird to have a parent who was a soldier or a boxer or a cop who had demolished someone's face on camera or killed another human during a non-defensive war or put someone in a cage for selling a plant, but the idea that a parent would give another human one of life's greatest pleasures for money is disturbing?

I'm not the one you asked, but I think those are all various degrees of disturbing. Don't you?

It's not just you. That's an abominable environment to raise a child in.

It would be more abominable to raise them on the streets. If it puts food on the table and a roof over their heads, who am I to judge?

I won't disregards the possible health, psychological and societal risks of doing sex work. But it is (or should be where it is forbidden) honest work like any other.

> When Dhokne’s friend lent her a smartphone to find work online, she didn’t know how to use it. “I had always used a black-and-white [feature phone],” the 35-year-old told Rest of World.

Incredible to read so vividly about the digital divide. Glad there are organizations geared towards connecting people with more digital tools, lest them and their children get left behind.

In India, voice-based UIs are extremely important in the local app ecosystem, because of wide illiteracy in rural areas.

I've heard that too. Do you have an example of an app that has a particularly great VUI? Preferably something with a discovery component, not just executing commands.

Do you have evidence for this?

As far as I understand, speech recognition accuracy for Indian languages is basically non existent outside research demos.

I believe parent is talking about a focus on Voice UIs like Voice Notes and Messages. Not transcribing the voice into text, but the voice itself.

This too doesn't exist in a form usable by people outside the anglosphere.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-all-top-e-commerce-apps-i...

> already added in-app voice assistants to their apps - Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket, Udaan, P&G, and JioMart

> Voice technology has finally caught up and can now understand Indian dialects and language reasonably well

https://www.trinityaudio.ai/the-audio-and-voice-revolution-i...

> India is the second quickest nation to adopt voice-activated technology, just behind the US. More than three-quarters (76%) of the users are familiar with the speech and voice recognition technology. As a result, Hindi is the second-most commonly used language on Google Assistant, behind the English language.

> Voice assistants can understand accents and vocabulary not just in Hindi but also in other regional languages,

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/marketing-bra...

> Voice is enabling access even for users in India who cannot afford a smartphone. Voice technology works even on a simple Jio feature phone running KaiOS. Priced between Rs 700 to Rs 1400 price range, these phones are used by 100 million people. While these entry level phones don't have the fancy capabilities of touch, they still come equipped with technology that is helping ordinary Indians in far-flung villages and towns use voice as their primary interface to navigate their phone and access a ..

As opposed to sex workers in other countries?

This article has a “every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes”

or “In Japanese culture, killing someone is frowned upon” vibe to it.

The article is in a "South Asia" category, the author seems to be based in New Delhi and all the people interviewed in the article are based in India.

Seems it would be irresponsible for the author to draw any conclusions about things outside of India when the focus of the article is in India. I don't think the article seems to claim that this doesn't happen elsewhere, but at least they've verified it is happening in India.

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