We are all animals at night
hazlitt.net
hazlitt.net
I don’t see the negatives other commenters are pointing out. Yes she’s talking about her perceptions born from her clients and years worked. That’s an absolute right for all of us, right? To simply relate the experiences we’ve had.
She’s definitely seen a side of humanity that, while seen by many, doesn’t quite often get public visibility-sunlight. And lo and behold, it’s a kind of grungy crudeness-but still human and shared.
Personally, I’ve worked in retail and in corporate in major casinos. People will assume they’re better than you and treat you as something like a servant simply because you’re the one taking their money for a thing. Or just because you “work here” as was the case in both retail and casino. That dynamic even exists in organizations between divisions and teams within the same organization. Ask yourself how that would change in the authors situation?
I don’t have a thesis. May this serve as a good reminder to treat all people with decency and an amount of respect if not kindness. There’s exactly one right way to treat a person, as a person-an end unto his/it/herself.
She's not "simply relating experiences" though. She goes beyond that, turning them into a general sociopolitical claim:
> Unlike sex work, my “good” jobs didn’t threaten to overthrow traditional power structures. Many sex workers, including myself, have long hypothesized that the reason so many people in power work to keep the commercial sex trade marginalized is because they’re threatened by it—by the idea that it’s the only field where women outearn men, that it’s an industry where women get to call the shots, and that women profit off something that men have been told they’re entitled to for free: sex and attention in equal parts.
I'm not saying that intrinsitically wrong or right. I just like to know in which culture men are told these.
You’ll notice I’m not working in absolutes here. She may have, but working the night she saw things that led her to draw certain conclusions from the things she saw and experienced.
I’d venture that she would be able to admit her experiences weren’t the end all be all of humanity though. But still very informative of the people in that space.
Edit-In my experience, whether someone is told explicitly that they can exploit another or not is irrelevant. The exploitive figure that out on their own often enough.
What about the type of men who would never ask for her services? She knows nothing about them.
Well...it is nice that you seem unaware of Andrew Tate, and the millions of boys and men who are eager followers of him and similar creeps...
Young men are desperate for men they can look up to, to emulate. Rich, exciting, powerful, desired; this was Andrew Tate the image. Of course he was going to be popular! Mainstream media and the chattering classes are utterly powerless against this, we must elevate men of integrity so that young men do not throw their lives away. Black men, rich white men, Jordan Peterson if he cuts through, but men with integrity. Deconstruct society too much and you will just be left with the swirling entropy of nothingness. Socrates understood this, and we are fools to forget.
My eyes were opened when I visited the Toronto area recently. From my (limited) anecdotal experience, there seems to be a fervent, messiah like following of Tate and the things he says. It was so bizarre to me.
P.S. not saying anything bad about Toronto! Just that it was my experience there. Please take things you read on the internet with a (bucket) of salt, and healthy skepticism!
Do you think in providing those things, men then become entitled to sex or attention?
Which is to say you've listed a large number of material things, or fictional things (TV sitcoms have never been reality, but boy did they do a lot of damage to millenials), absent one core element: actually being a pleasant person. Or providing emotional support. Or empathy (I also note that excluded is "be attractive to the other person in some way").
Basically: your list entirely excludes the right of the other person to...be a person. To have any independent agency or preferences.
We talk a ton about unrealistic beauty standards, "men talking, women listening", etc - but I have to wonder, maybe the world where women marry people one income decide above them is almost guaranteed to be a world where men are just more competitive in the workplace, even at the expense of running over their female colleagues. The incentives curve says that to expect anything at all of women, you have to be successful, ideally wealthy. So, you get the behavior the incentives curve tells people to enact.
An incentives curve that is set, ironically, by women
that's not true though. I'd say it's not great to be "ugly" (for some definition of the word) but you don't have to attractive. Heck, you can even be pretty poor, but as long as you you're a decent person to be around, it's not that hard.
It’s certainly not all women, of course, but there are women who feel they shouldn’t “settle” for “less” than that. As though men who are 5’9 and make $85k are dirtbags or as though tall rich guys will treat you better or be better fathers. It is contributing to the big decrease in marriage even happening, in my opinion, as evidenced by increased average age of first marriage in the West.
To be perfectly clear: I’m not daft enough to think that no guys who aren’t in this “shallowly-defined 1%” are getting dates or getting married. Rather, I’m saying that culturally we are now saying it’s very okay, or even best practice, to be incredibly shallow in evaluating men, and that’s as wrong as evaluating women by their measurements.
You seem to have skipped the take the risk of being rejected part of that comment when reading.
I do think that there are a lot of men who feel bitter that they'll never have sex with a woman, but I don't think anything in mainstream society condones such feelings. It's more of a subculture of lonely men turning misogynistic.
It is also cheap.
So the notion that the problem is "men who will never have sex" is fairly obviously false.
> it’s an industry where women get to call the shots, and that women profit off something that men have been told they’re entitled to for free: sex and attention in equal parts.
The article says for free. It doesn't say "for just being an attractive guy" or "for just being a nice person". For FREE. That's what the article says, not my word.
Also your comment is just appending more things to the list of things that men are expected to do...
Men are taught that their work is valuable but they are not; they feel entitled after putting in work, even if it's work that nobody asked for, like going to the gym a lot or chatting up strangers at bus stops. No, they're not actually entitled to sex and attention, but the entire problem is that men feel like they paid and should therefore receive. "Free" is a complete reversal of the thought process of the entitled man.
Way to simplify something very complex. What do you expect men to do, quit trying everything and leave it up to fate? Keep up with women's magazines changing their minds by the day and chasing trends to get women to buy things they don't need? Accept the tax of women casually demanding 100+ bucks a date just to have a chance? Wait for them to socially atomize themselves even further to the point of 'maybe you should pick hobbies with more women instead of your own circles filled with men'? Oh wait, that last one also has the caveat of 'if you do it just to meet women, you are a creep'.
About everything in the world, people have expectations for putting in effort and others root for their success. This is the one topic society has gone nuts about chastising men, while both encouraging women to demand more and encouraging the same aggressive approach. Even just saying
>nobody asked for, like going to the gym a lot
shows you're completely out of touch with the younger generations, given the increased demands in muscularity and fitness. Seriously, the women themselves are saying it and have been saying it for decades now.
The western world has gone completely mad in regards to dating, but the most vocal party can only shout 'men bad' no matter what they do beyond being a complete doormat with zero expectations.
Men go to the gym for themselves and secondarily, because it raises their attractiveness and confidence in front of everyone, not just women. They chat up strangers at bus stops, because dating is a literal lottery for the guy.
When a man chats up women at a bus stop it's because he likes women and wants to date them, obviously; when he yells "fucking whore, you think your too good for me" after getting turned down it's because of entitlement, and part of the reason he feels entitled is that he put in effort to make the first move.
That is actually a classic "nice guy" trope. Women want a guy who is confident in stating his attraction to them and who doesn't dwell too much before asking her out or after being rejected. Being "pleasant" only works if you naturally meet a lot of women and the woman asks you out. The reason for that is that platonic friendships physically take up time and limit the number of women you can meet. If you have five female friends, the likelyhood of one of them being attracted to you is practically zero, because the number is way too small. Nobody is going to have a hundred female friends so that one of them is going to ask you out. The economics of male dating just don't allow it to happen.
>Basically: your list entirely excludes the right of the other person to...be a person.
How exactly did you come up with this response? Honestly, it feels like you copy pasted it from somewhere else and are now responding out of context.
How does splitting the bill dehumanise "the other person"?
Walking up to a woman takes courage, which is a desirable quality. Why should a woman wan't a man, that lacks the balls to talk to her? The mating dance of many species has rules they have to follow. Complaining about them does zero for your dating success. The female decides if his display is good enough for her.
The App Bumble has women message first and it is strange for them.
Different strokes for different folks. Don't be so strict with your social structures and you'll probably be happier.
Also well within her right to do so.
I thought the issue was someone suggesting she should "stay within her lane". Whether I agree with them or not I like to hear a person's views if they have walked in shoes I'll probably never walk in.
If we're talking about destructive urges, another popular one would be alcohol, and yet we have many many examples of how it needs to be accessible to an extent to serve as a release, even if sometimes it still causes serious damage.
Put differently, the societal cost of outright banning some self-destructive things ends up being higher than just regulating them because a ban doesn't actually stop much.
We even seem to be heading towards a similar realization for many drugs (eg Marijuana).
These are extremely toxic and antisocial industries and they make society much worse off.
Prostitution, substance abuse, suicide, and other self-destructive acts, are the only measure that is available to us for enforcing that Leviathan keeps its end of the social contract: that our bodies and minds are first and foremost our own, and only when we infringe on others' freedom may ours be curtailed.
The day one becomes unable to destroy oneself is is the day freedom becomes permanently unattainable.
Furthermore, we have a bit of a scoping issue on our hands: we default to assuming that self-preservation is rational.
Self-preservation may be rational behavior for animals. But humans are qualitatively different from animals in at least the following aspects:
- We have language, which lets us continue our thoughts beyond the immediate moment.
- We are continuously aware of our own mortality.
In that light, many of the relatively irrational choices that we make, can still seem more rational in comparison with an alternative of just sitting around and waiting to die. (Terror minimization theory.)
It gets better. A being that exists, can suffer, dread, and die; not to mention, cause others to suffer, dread, and die. A non-existent being, on the other hand, doesn't have any problems at all. "Destruction" is just the process of going from existence to non-existence, and "self-destruction" is just an egosyntonic drive towards non-existence. You don't exactly act self-destructive because you want to exist more, quite the opposite.
So, from a thinking being's perspective, self-preservation is at least as irrational as self-destruction, if not more so. Of course, either way, people's thinking is much less rational than we give it credit for, while people's actions - much more. But this only reinforces the point: that the most rational evaluation of the question of self-destruction is simultaneously the most counterintuitive.
(Incidentally, if this line of reasoning makes sense to you, you can check out "Every Cradle is a Grave" by Sarah Perry. If it doesn't, also check it out, it probably contains a rebuttal to your first few arguments, and then you have no other choice but to really start thinking.)
>it's near impossible to see all of the collateral damage you make when destroying yourself.
It's still way easier to see than all of the collateral damage you make when not destroying yourself. See: the environment, the economy, the culture. All turned to shit, thanks to the presumably rational actions of presumably rational actors pursuing individual self-preservation and prosperity.
Which is why you see so many young people finding life hardly worth living. Some of them even revert to what they perceive as "traditional" value systems - ironically, the same ones that made life hardly worth living in the first place.
But of course the prostitutes are to blame /s
Perhaps, but I made a distinction between plain suicide and other self-destructive behaviors. Is affecting others for selfish reasons a rational choice there? Suicide is both final and most directly individual, which is why I distinguish it.
I'll respond to the rest of your post without pressing the distinction.
> Furthermore, we have a bit of a scoping issue on our hands: we default to assuming that self-preservation is rational.
I think self preservation is sensible as a default. It's ultimately a matter of opinion, but I go off the premise that we live to do whatever it is we choose to do, and therefore self destruction should be a last resort.
> - We have language, which lets us continue our thoughts beyond the immediate moment.
Ignoring the evidence of language in other animals (though you might convince me that human language is more sophisticated), I don't see how this is relevant to justifying self destruction or many other things.
> In that light, many of the relatively irrational choices that we make, can still seem more rational in comparison with an alternative of just sitting around and waiting to die.
"Many" and "an alternative of just...waiting to die" suggest a far greater scale of "rational irrationality" than I think actually occurs. How often are people faced with situations where their only realistic alternative boils down to "waiting to die"?
> "Destruction" is just the process of going from existence to non-existence, and "self-destruction" is just an egosyntonic drive towards non-existence.
Nevermind, I'm bringing up that distinction again. Suicide fits your criterion, but not alcoholism. "Just" is a strong word.
> from a thinking being's perspective
From your perspective, you mean. People have opinions, thank you very much.
> the most rational evaluation of the question of self-destruction
Most rational? Really?
> It's still way easier to see than all of the collateral damage you make when not destroying yourself.
I'm not sure about that, but perhaps.
> All turned to shit, thanks to the presumably rational actions of presumably rational actors pursuing individual self-preservation and prosperity.
You're not wrong to be cynical about that, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about how self-destructive behaviors can be harmful.
> Which is why you see so many young people finding life hardly worth living.
I don't think they would be taking the most rational course of action through suicide. In fact, I highly doubt more can't be done with the their effort than without.
> But of course the prostitutes are to blame /s
Is that really what you got from my comment? It was one example and not slut shaming. Realistically, a child born of a prostitute isn't going to have a great childhood. That might change in the future if society shifts more towards sex workers that are fairly treated, but that's not here.
>Is affecting others for selfish reasons a rational choice there?
Selfish reasons or no, in most cases it's not practically possible to do anything that does not affect others. Whether you have affected them positively or negatively, and whether you are to be held responsible, is for others to decide - mostly arbitrarily, that is to say in accordance with a whole host of suprarational factors.
>Suicide is both final and most directly individual, which is why I distinguish it.
I didn't really notice you making a distinction. You're free to uphold one, of course - wherever you consider appropriate.
>"Many" and "an alternative of just...waiting to die" suggest a far greater scale of "rational irrationality" than I think actually occurs. How often are people faced with situations where their only realistic alternative boils down to "waiting to die"?
Who said "only"? It's just the default option.
>Suicide fits your criterion, but not alcoholism
Use of intoxicants cause consciousness to change, then, sure enough, temporarily stop existing. It can also cause people to do reckless shit and risk their lives more. The human brain is a brilliant inhibition machine.
Addiction may be understood as a process that occurs within a person's self, or outside of it, depending on where the locus of control is defined. This is beside the point, though. It is rare that one pursues addiction with the express purpose of obliterating the self, though it's not unheard of.
You seem to be reading in my comment a distinction between suicide and other self-destructive behaviors; a distinction which I don't remember putting there.
>From your perspective, you mean. People have opinions, thank you very much
People have perspectives, and everyone's is valid (when presented in good faith).
People also have opinions. However, unlike the perspectives, some opinions are incorrect and worth disproving.
What's worse, people also tend to mix up their perspectives with their opinions, and, most perniciously of all, with their identities. I don't know what to do about that, sorry.
>Most rational? Really?
According to my opinion and perspective, whose else. Why would you imply that I mean otherwise?
>I'm not sure about that, but perhaps.
It all depends on the situation, of course. After all, you never can truly be certain what the others see.
>but that doesn't mean we can't talk about how self-destructive behaviors can be harmful.
Sure, if it helps anyone.
>I don't think they would be taking the most rational course of action through suicide. In fact, I highly doubt more can't be done with the their effort than without.
Where did I say that they find life not worth living, so they kill themselves? If only.
I'm saying that they find life not worth living, because the things that are supposed to intrinsically attract them to living, are made unattainable; so they end up living lives that are ultimately harmful to others, because someone promised them that some way of life or other is what will give their lives meaning.
By the time they have the power to change anything, the world would better off without them - but good luck getting them to budge. It's funny, give em a decade or two and Gen Z are gonna be absolutely MASSIVE boomers, the likes of which the world has never seen before.
>Is that really what you got from my comment
Not really. I got some help with staying awake though, which was nice. Cheers
I didn't say you made the distinction. I did. I said suicide is acceptable because it cuts one away completely, whereas behaviors such as alcoholism can have severe negative effects on others that aren't merely emotional turmoil.
> Who said "only"? It's just the default option.
So they have alternatives besides self-destruction and waiting to die but self-destruction is the rational choice?
> It is rare that one pursues addiction with the express purpose of obliterating the self, though it's not unheard of.
True, but upthread, you (or whoever the commenter is) mentioned substance abuse as an example of self-destructive behavior. I just went with it since I don't disagree.
> What's worse, people also tend to mix up their perspectives with their opinions, and, most perniciously of all, with their identities. I don't know what to do about that, sorry.
Opinions are valid insofar as they reflect one's moral axioms and the available facts. I know what you're talking about with regards to identity.
> According to my opinion and perspective, whose else. Why would you imply that I mean otherwise?
I was thinking you meant "rational" in the sense of you being reasonably correct. As in, it's rational to not go to areas with smoke if you're trying to evade danger. Seems I misread.
> Sure, if it helps anyone.
I think it is useful to discuss any harmful actions.
> Where did I say that they find life not worth living, so they kill themselves? If only.
I didn't say you said that.
> I'm saying that they find life not worth living, because the things that are supposed to intrinsically attract them to living, are made unattainable;
And I'm saying that these things aren't truly "unattainable" and they may be attained in the future.
> so they end up living lives that are ultimately harmful to others
I doubt the collective environmental impact of these people is very significant compared to the overall global energy consumption and, more pressingly, the potential preservation to be had in working to fix this mess. It's their choice, but saying suicide is most rational seems nearsighted at the present moment. Maybe in a few decades things will really be hopeless.
> By the time they have the power to change anything, the world would better off without them - but good luck getting them to budge. It's funny, give em a decade or two and Gen Z are gonna be absolutely MASSIVE boomers, the likes of which the world has never seen before.
Not sure what you're trying to say here.
On the other hand, smashing up some proverbial deck chairs or even breaking a metaphorical Wallace Hartley arm is an acceptable way of making people acutely aware that the ship is, in fact, sinking.
>What of a child born from a prostitute
IMHO abortion belongs in the list of acts of radical bodily autonomy outlined by GP.
You should try posing that question to the kind of person that works to restrict safe access to it.
What you'll get is a reminder that a great deal of our society doesn't really understand "cause and effect" -- and are completely willing to drag down everyone else through completely socially sanctioned acts, such as political participation.
That seems to err on the side of intentional damage. I don't know how to evaluate destructive protests. I suppose some suicides are clear protests, but I don't think all suicides are, and someone really shouldn't drag others into a mess they made.
> You should try posing that question to the kind of person that works to restrict safe access to it.
Well I'm not that kind of person, and I was referring to a child that was already born.
> What you'll get is a reminder that a great deal of our society doesn't really understand "cause and effect" -- and are completely willing to drag down everyone else through completely socially sanctioned acts, such as political participation.
Perhaps, but that's neither here nor there. Malice, ignorance, and whatnot are serious problems, but their prevalence doesn't justify drunk driving and the like.
That's an interesting statement. Do you think that sex workers should not be allowed to have children? Any other noteworthy groups in your eugenics policy?
And in the scenario where that if you have a neighbor who decides to have his apartment windows open and TV on loud till 3am? I've tried speaking to him, wrote him a letter, yet he's ignored all. I'm now looking in to taking him to court.
I always hold respect for everything and everyone, but the naivety is wearing thin, and I start to disagree. If you start and continue to disobey the rules of common decency, consideration frankly you don't deserve nice or respect.
If we lived in a truly harmonic world where problems could be squished with respect, kindness; sure. Otherwise it's moot and that line is a puff piece that falls on it's feet leaving yourself to suffer while you accept that they can get away with the conflicts.
Sure, you could say this is the most respectful option than say smashing down the door and smashing the TV with a hammer.
Why should someone who takes a child life as an pedophile, deserve respect niceness?
Why should someone who's a psychopath who goes their own way to murder deserve respect?
Why should someone who carries out unspeakable crimes, be respected?
Your telling me that no one can answer those questions?
You never read accounts of backbreaking laborers who dig ditches day in day out, or service sewer systems, covered in refuse. They sacrifice their bodies for their paycheck, and too live on the edge of society. We’re taught that laborers sacrificing their bodies in this manner is just par for the course.
The massage worker’s account almost seems white collar in comparison.
If you want non-fiction, I can recommend "Nickel and Dimed" by Ehrenreich or "Working" by Terkel.
Especially towards the end, I feel that she tries to emphasize the nobility and radical nature of this work, taking umbrage at Eric Adam’s use of the word “low-skill” to describe some of these sorts of jobs. But it seems somewhat belied by the fact that, afaict, as soon as she had the means to escape, she did. And the romanticization of sex work as the only job where women get to call the shots and make profit off of men… I am curious the degree to which this is really true for these massage parlors, which are often managed or extorted by male-run organized crime. [0]
But the central message, one that seems like a call for dignity, really resonates with me. It is one of the most beautiful vignettes I have read in a long time.
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/us/massage-parlors-human-...
Just because something is skilful doesn’t make it enjoyable or rewarding. Not to mention a person’s health and safety (both economic and physical) being considered.
“an industry where women get to call the shots” she would have said “would get” imo if your interpretation was correct, just as you use ‘would’ in your comment.
I took her to be describing sex work in the present, not some hypothetical future sex work.
Here is the excerpt for those who want to judge for themselves:
‘Unlike sex work, my “good” jobs didn’t threaten to overthrow traditional power structures. Many sex workers, including myself, have long hypothesized that the reason so many people in power work to keep the commercial sex trade marginalized is because they’re threatened by it—by the idea that it’s the only field where women outearn men, that it’s an industry where women get to call the shots, and that women profit off something that men have been told they’re entitled to for free: sex and attention in equal parts. In my experience of the corporate landscape, there was none of this radical power structure, only an upholding of the traditional: men talking and women listening, men in powerful positions getting both credit and profit for the labour of women beneath them’
Disagree. Calling the shots in the business, not in society. Just like a drug kingpin might be calling the shots in their organization.
Happy to not continue though, I think you struggle with good faith discussion and/or reading comprehension (:
Should really include sex workers in these discussions
All this conjecture that its exclusively a male run coercive trait exacerbating anything
If prostitution was legitimized, way fewer shots would have to be called in the first place. Apparently nobody wants that
The pacing, the wording, the sense of atmosphere, and what to say when are just incredibly well done.
This is what writers should aspire to.
Also, great hook (we are all animals at night).
I have to say now working a “real” job now (for salary benefits etc.) I know way more forestry folks who could do my job today (consulting) than current coworkers who could dig out a stuck pickup truck properly, fix a broken generator, put out a brush fire…
there are jobs which require accreditation or whatever but there’s no such thing as truly no-skill-required labour
Which job was harder?
Physically the rock-pusher job is harder. Mentally the architect's. I'd say pay comes in based on demand. Do we have more brainy folks or brawny folks?
This kind of measuring jobs by efforts always ends up being won by an animal or machine. Even among humans, the guy digging ditches with his bare hands is putting in more work than the guy using a shovel.
It ends up being a stupid incentive structure, and is not a replacement for supply and demand in the labor market.
I have friends who change between different types of jobs, and their reasons are often surprising.
Consider a person that carves bespoke wooden figurines. Their job takes considerable skill, even talent. But it takes then X hours to make Y figurines. Time in, widgets out, completely proportional.
Now imagine a person that configures a robot to carve crappy mass produced figurines. Their work is differently skilled, but perhaps less so. The product isn't as good. Yet they put in their time once and the machine cranks out enormous quantities with minimal additional work from them. This has high leverage, they can command more pay because their leveraged work has more value.
You can go further up the hierarchy, to the people who organize or direct the technicians or the channels that distribute the products of their machines. Their work is further abstracted, skilled in its own way but not necessarily more so. But the amount of income their efforts command is greater still-- even more leveraged.
In areas where the use of the high-skill low-leverage work are largely optional-- say custom carpentry-- they often become unavailable because the sort of highly competent people who would excel at these tasks can make more money in a highly leveraged (but perhaps less skilled!) job writing boilerplate javascript to deliver advertising or whatever. In areas where the non-scalable work isn't optional, like medical doctors-- the prices tend to shoot through the sky in part due to the income an equivalent aptitude could command in a more leveraged position.
In between the two extremes we have workers that are just flat underpaid, and we rationalize the situation by imagining that they're less deserving.
As the article points out, many of these lowly paid jobs are highly skilled in their own way-- at least if done well. What they don't have, however, is a big initial training barrier to entry that limits the supply of capable people and puts market power for this labor onto the supply side.
Skill isn't a factor in wages except in so far as the required skill impacts the level of supply or demand in the supply/demand balance.
I think we often underestimate the capability of the average person because we can't know the average person and can't see first hand the depth of their ability and because we also so often put that average person in a situation that just doesn't exercise those latent abilities (or do, but do so in ways we don't respect due to cultural biases).
I guess you could make the case that their primary skill - reading the story that the people who promoted them wanted/needed to hear - is in fact what's being rewarded, but it has nothing to do with their applicability to high leverage work at all.
Office workers earn more because they do jobs more similar to the jobs of those who allocate money.
I would say office work does not actually pay more, it depends. Easy office-hand jobs probably pay much less than your previous job... but when it does pay more, it's simply because there's fewer people willing and capable of doing that job as a rate of the number of people actually needed for such tasks.
When a job is regulated (requires license, or is protected by some law etc) the equation is skewed, usually in favour of a profession.
Supply vs demand dynamics very much do exist. I get paid a lot, I also create measurably more than my salary in value.
Desire is mimetic: you demand what you see others demanding. 99% of everything is either a layer of misdirection or support infrastructure for a layer of misdirection.
Private Equity is explicitly excluded, maybe they do, who knows?
Example 1 Bill Gates/Microsoft: Provided a stable platform for business software to run on, making it possible for millions of businesses to do accounting/inventory management/controlling CNC machinery/etc.
Example 2 Sales People/Marketing: If you got the best product/software/whatever but zero customers, how are you you gonna pay your bills?
[edit]
Example 3 Jeff Bezos: Building the dominant platform for e-commerce of all kinds. Making it easy for a huge crowd of potential customers to discover and buy your wares.
Because the work (1) takes particular skills, and (2) skills that are functionally gatekept so they are disproportionately found in people coming from a middle class (or, at minimum, proletarian intelligentsia) background.
It has work that is (compared to lots of more poorly paid jobs) hard to find people minimally qualified to do, but its not hard (in the sense of arduous) work, for the most part. Work being arduous doesn’t make it well-paid.
It was refreshing.
In jobs at semiconductor fab places, usually the head of maintenance holds a master's or PhD and still rebuilds turbopumps and blown out ion gauges when needed.
Of the people I have met that do manual labouring jobs, I know many people could do those jobs if they got fit and learnt to do them, and that those people could not learn to do intellectual work no matter how hard they tried.
Also working in the forestry industry is much harder than having sex for a living.
Have you done both?
For anybody that struggles with the length and slow-paced nature of this genre -- this is hackernews after all -- I had a much easier time imagining this as a radio piece. The writing style is very melodic, like it's meant to be read out loud. The noises of the city, the description of light and temperature, all made it feel very alive. Something to absorb in a very sensual way, quite the opposite of the how-to and faq texts we read at the office during daytime.
(Ha.)
I suggest that people read a few novels if they think this article is too long.
Emphasizing the beauty and value of reading imo is much more important if the goal is to encourage longer form reading, which can be a learned skill.
is it just prostitution and for some reason they don't call it that in Canada? is it legal/illegal? is there an implication about its location? are they in some regulatory grey zone? is it men just dropping in to be touched or is it something more? are they just operating on a drop in schedule and does that imply something about the relative standing of the establishment compared to other sex work etc? are they contractors or operating their own business?
please help me out HN :/
Also about being legal or not, it's probably work in the lite-grey zone (it's not Texas after all). The schedule looks something like, during a fixed period of time at night you just wait until you get scheduled/picked. That said, I don't think it is very important for the article.
This always happens to me when I read editorials from Commonwealth countries, the euphemisms are so deep and ingrained that I have no idea what they’re talking about.
I could empathize better with more context.
“I rubbed massage oil on a man’s chest at 1am and I was tired” that’s an entirely different article
I'm genuinely curious where you live that this is not the case. It is such a euphemism in every Anglophone country, and (large parts of?) Germany and Italy. It is usually illegal (or at least unlicensed) even in places where prostitution has some kind of legal status.
I'm told, if you're looking for an actual massage and the reception doesn't have a HICAPS terminal (similar to the credit card one but for health insurance) you're in the wrong spot.
So presumably there was no need to hide the business behind the euphemism/front, everyone just knew that if you wanted sex/porn, you went to a brothel in suburb X. Even where I am now, i know there's brothels and presumably private sex workers and if i want a massage I go and I book a massage.
I don’t think many people would be able to mix up these places after seeing them. If you only wanted a massage for health reasons you would almost certainly not consider going there.
https://torontolife.com/city/the-parlour-game/
But then it's not even grey where I am in New England and we still have "massage parlors" that are constantly getting shut down for prostitution.
there are places to get massages that aren’t sex work so using euphamisms as both to placate a cultural appetite and coping mechanism is odd and needlessly confusing.
I’m halfway through the article like “is this another sex worker that can’t acknowledge what they do in plain English, while the rest of us are supposed to repeat ‘sex work is work’ for the labor rights along with the ironic convenience that will come with it, or is this a place to get a massage“
Places that seem full are quiet and have a different character completely. You can hear echos of footsteps. Weather seems to be accentuated. Your going the opposite direction to everyone at the start and end of your shift. Its strange at a low level and everyone you meet is "in it" too.
This really encapsulates what all humans want and need. Food, sex & love, shelter & clothing. With only those three things you can live a happy life. Everything else is really to satisfy a desire for novelty and experience.
> What do you need if you’re out seeking services at night? Food, sex, shelter. The staunch of a wound.
What the author is trying to express isn't that someone out at night has different needs than someone out during the day, but rather that if you're out at night then whatever you're looking for has an urgency that outweighs sleep, like a bleeding wound.
Like, have you ever been stuck out at night in the cold and rain without eating all day and thought, "I need to focus on pursuing my passions"?
Some places become amazing after dark. People just want to have a nice time together. Maybe that’s over food, maybe it involves sex, but more importantly it was about camaraderie.
On the surface I think most would agree, but I think you need trust in a relationship.
If your job or parents job moves you around, it becomes harder to lay down roots it gets harder to trust people in anything other than a superficial way.
Friendships become a thing of the past.
People end up becoming divided, but pre-internet this was standard practice employed by the UK govt, in the name of science and law & order.
I'd be happy to spend the end of my life on my own now, ideally I'd even like a sort of drive-thru euthanasia service, where when you decide, not somebody else like doctors, politicians, scientists or religious freaks, where you can bowl up to an incinerating crematorium, pay a fee (because only a capitalist society would charge you to end your life in a painfree manner), optionally leave some beyond the grave messages, inject myself and end my life, body removed from the room, incinerated and the waste disposed of in the bin.
Its the last act of self determination and autonomy any intelligent person could hope to have imo.
Nobody gets their life back that's stolen by people in authority like parents, teachers, employers, politicians, scientists, lawyers and judges or superstitious types.
Todays society, which everyone is in denial over, is the fact they are nothing more than the property of the entities that ultimately control society.
If its any consolation, life can leave you feeling numb enough to make suicide a viable option whilst the criminals that run the world, get fat off the land.
So I can relate to the article.
I think you're taking my comment far too literally but you've never known anyone that's been happier because they've gotten in a good relationship, or pulled themselves out of poverty?
I make things for a living and consider that to be a precious and valuable pursuit, but I'm only afforded that by having some degree of food, shelter, clothing, relationships.
All our choices occur in the emotional centers of our brain (in his lectures George Lakoff often mentions research showing that brain injury in emotional centers erase the ability to choose / have a preference).
The layer of rationalization deceives us into believing we somehow made an independent choice.
One of Lakoff’s lectures: https://youtu.be/T46bSyh0xc0
I need to say that I have not yet experienced or seen an action which is not driven by needs (I subscribe to the NVC model of action).
We have needs which make us want things. We rationalize based on preferences which is another label for needs.
So, we act on needs, mostly subconscious, and tell ourselves stories. That’s about it.
I read a lot, and seldom have I run across a writer possessed of this level of skill. A writer's central task is to place the reader in another world, living another life. At this, the author succeeds with what seems like effortless grace.
Few of today's award-winning novelists display this power.
I do hope HN folks will take the time to read this essay.
What is this article about?
A woman who did sex work at a massage parlor.
Summarize what she did, then.
I... can't.
I actually thought in the beginning that it may have been sensual, not sexual. Then she described it as sex work - which changed my mind - so it was sexual (incidentally, I have heard this critiqued in pieces before in creative writing classes - preferably a reader should not read 1/2 of your story and then mentally have to reframe everything that came before a sentence which unintentionally repositions everything).
And not to be indelicate but... how? What did the sex part of it actually involve? I can think of a whole lot of variations of that, which run a big gamut of intimacy and (I imagine) danger, but I can't tell you how she fit into that. The fact that she bought condoms partially answered that, but it's still an incomplete picture. Also if she had a boyfriend or girlfriend during that time, how she talked to her parents about this, friends - how was security handled, health, pregnancy - basic social/workplace questions - all a blank.
Maybe these were limitations imposed by the magazine itself and (ironically enough) the very power structure that she mentions as a threat. But I couldn't tell you what she actually did as a masseuse, which seems like a weakness of the piece.
Most people’s lives will end without a summary of accomplishments.
It is not an article, it is an essay. Wikipedia defines an "informal essay" as: characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc.
> What did the sex part of it actually involve?
The reason that this part is left to the imagination of the reader is that A) it is more powerful that way and B) the details don't really matter anyway to get the message and image across.
These things should have been covered in your creative writing class too.
I doubt it. I've worked days and nights at different times in the same place, at a couple of jobs in different parts of the country. There's a real difference between what people are like in the daytime and nighttime worlds, and between people who are at home in the latter and those who are just visiting.
I don't really miss it. But I do kinda miss it.
The second you get another job they are reminded of all the people who take advantage of people in the suck club. You got out. They didn't.
Abroad in the night, the human world grows tenuous, and one's connection to it likewise. Most people can learn to live in that, but you never feel perfectly at home with it. Nor should you; there's nothing like it to dispel the comfortable, foolish illusion that the world belongs to us, and not the other way around.
Humans are better, I find, for a little fear of that sort. It makes us stick closer together than we do otherwise, gives us more incentive to look for the good in one another; camaraderie comes much easier, and that is part of what I miss. Both those jobs were customer service, and even the people on the phone were different: stranger certainly, sometimes desperate, but almost never spiteful like the day shift often was. The sun revolves around every narcissist, of course, but those excepted there is less pretense in all of us in night.
Its very strangeness is the rest of what I miss. I find it frightful too, of course, but never because it's trying, which counts for a lot with me after living so long with humans. There's a lot to appreciate in that strangeness, for anyone who understands fear well enough to feel and not be driven by it - to know the difference between being afraid and being made to feel afraid.
There's a wild and ancient beauty in the night to which nothing wrought by human hands compares, and an inescapable reminder that beyond all the frantic work of busy human hands, something vast beyond our comprehension still abides: the world itself, from which we never stop fleeing, despite that we neither can nor need.
I hope whatever of this species emerges from the other side of the next few hundred years understands that better than today's version does - I can't imagine how they'd fail to, at any rate. I think they'll better understand the night than most of us can, too. Maybe by then the consequences of our lethal hubris will have far enough abated they'll even have some time to enjoy it, the way I did decades ago when I last lived a nighttime life.
The line about sitting under florescent light in a cubicle rung true.
In day time, things are so busy people are invading each others space bubbles, traffic raises the emotions.
At night time, there seems more abundance, things are calmer, people have their space. People are kinder when they don’t have to fight for the same resources.
The big breakthrough would be robots that provided the emotional need of human connection and validation. If the mind could be tricked into a similar state as being in the center of a strong social network, then not only would that serve human needs optimally it would also be the single biggest health boost given.
What surprises me is how bad the tech is. It's "mediocre chatbot" level currently and yet these people are VERY happy with it, spending hundreds a month and having all sort of custom artwork done.
For a meaningful percentage of the pop, very low fidelity tech, even at an extreme price, is enough.
can you point to anything where one could start exploring this area further?
Probably start there and see where they've gone now.
People don't work to marginalize prostitution because it's "the only field in which women outearn men".
People work to marginalize prostitution because it's fundamentally morally bankrupt.
Most well adjusted people eventually realise that casual sex is not the key to happiness in life. Not all of them will admit it, though.
The illusions that one can have sex without emotional attachment, that relationships are just a side quest and careers are more important, all of that stuff comes back to bite people eventually.
Because the author of this article shows no sign of either, but neither do many of the commenters in this thread who only look at the symptom: "look kids, the stream of consciousness of a not particularly insightful person is being highlighted in the media because it serves a certain political agenda."
The agenda performed in the article is, incidentally, the usual crypto-conservative pablum that gives the "left-wing echo chamber" its structural foundations, to be spiced up with AI drivel as the technology matures. The general form of the argument being made between the pixels is: "see how dumb and sad this person is - we need to protect ourselves from becoming dumb and sad, by punishing others for having ended up dumb and sad."
And here's the catch. Punishment makes people dumber and sadder. What makes people less dumb and less sad is... intimacy. Which the article and ensuing discussing seems to be at least partially about.
The author has evidenly lacked true human connection before, during, and after their sex work career, only finding it with other lost souls in the nightmarish desert of cities at night. Now she is briefly basking in the parasocial light of having her inner world exposed on The Media. (Aren't we all?)
>People work to marginalize prostitution because it's fundamentally morally bankrupt.
People really love throwing around the "fundamentallies" and the "radicallies", but what is the foundation, or the root, of the issue here? What's morally bankrupt here is that we live in such a way that results in the emergence of a black market for loving touch.
To satisfy one's need for intimacy through "official channels", one is expected to participate in a costly and complicated social ritual with no guarantee of success. Imagine if buying food or renting a place involved pathological emotional enmeshment, and was prone to leave you with your humanity degraded ("heartbroken").
You are just as wrong as the author. The fundamental reason people work to marginalize prostitution is to maintain the profit margins of intimacy arbitrage. Men marginalize prostitution not out of the desire for control that feminists love to project upon them, but as a way of rationalizing sunk costs; and "decent" women marginalize prostitution purely as an anti-competitive measure, for the labor of being a decent human being is twice as arduous should you be identified as a woman.
P.S. Protip: it's completely possible to have sex without emotional attachment. What trips people up is that participants must decide upon that from the start, and should never offer or request said emotional attachment for the duration of the encounter(s).
Unfortunately, we are animals most of the time. Starved ones. Should the bait be proferred, it is likely to be taken - automatically, against participants' better judgements. Beware.
> What's morally bankrupt here is that we live in such a way that results in the emergence of a black market for loving touch.
I agree. We don't live this way, though. Some of us do. I see that as being a problem for those people that may require holistic change.
Everyone I've known who genuinely feels that prostitution is a viable career choice (not just for other people, actually for themselves) has evidently been traumatised in some way, had a rocky upbringing, etc.
In my experience those in poverty are generally more morally oriented than those who are well off. It's often part of the reason that they are skint.
These places conduct zero-sum economic activity. One person loses money, one person gains money, and nothing of value is created. Draw a control volume around an economic activity to understand it. China: Opium in, silver out. Congo: Guns in, rubber out. This place: Money in, nothing out.
A hallmark of exploiters is that they have contempt for their marks. Well, I sense more than a little contempt here. Don't trust this person around children or small animals.
Of course she justifies herself eloquently; did you not just see what she spent the money on? An English degree.
Moreover, she admits that she understands what she was doing:
> my livelihood somehow still depended on men employing bad judgement.
So don't get distracted. Draw a control volume. And stay away from these places, and these people.
Most people here commenting, even those praising this writing, who will surely rush to defend her, must at some level clearly understand this. Like -- do you frequent prostitutes? ... Didn't think so. So you know I'm right.
I presume your job must be much more important for the good of society than sex work.
It sure is and I think it would be hard to deny that. Everyday I go to work I generate a large amount of value for the economy, far more than I get paid for.
Sex work simply isn’t very valuable. Anyone can do it, you don’t need any intelligence or skill to make a buck via sex.
No value and no skill? My foot. There's more to life than generating value for the economy.
Some guys are lonely and will pay for any hole to stick it in, but that doesn’t mean the work has any real value.
Make no mistake that’s what they see her as, some random hole to enjoy and she’s trying to cope with that.
I’m tired of the glorification of sex work and people pretending it’s anything other than what it is.
If this is the crux of the issue for you, I assume you don't frequent the following places:
- bars
- arcades
- any entertainment venue (concerts, etc)
The impression she seemed to be making was that many of their patrons weren't there for physical gratification but rather a sort of emotional catharsis. Yours is a highly judgmental and uncharitable take.
I also assume they've never really been out much around 2AM.
Same question[1].
She gets to take money from lonely men and then call them the bad guys.
Saying it out loud costs HN points though.
Genuinely curious to know where you think she called them "the bad guys". Mind quoting a specific passage?
Well, it has to disappear somewhere, doesn't it? Otherwise why would they need to print more?
I mean, that's how it works, right?
Then, at about 70% through the story, I realised that in Canada, a massage parlour is not for getting massages but, basically, a whore-house. Why the misnomer?
Article is not something I was expecting.
For 5 grueling years, the author worked long overnight shifts at a massage parlor in Toronto's industrial area. The 2pm to 2am days brought unpredictable clients and income, requiring emotional and physical intimacy when exhaustion left little to give. Yet amid the job's difficulties, the author found beauty in the simplicity of people's fundamental needs late at night—food, sex, shelter. Stripped of pretense, their raw desires connected them in basic human instinct and experience.
A sense of community existed among fellow night workers—at the parlour, driving cabs, serving food. Brief moments conveyed camaraderie: a knowing glance, an extra pastry. The author sorely missed this unspoken bond after leaving for corporate office work. The professional world felt disconnected compared to the pack she once travelled with.
The overnight world is dismissed as "low skill," but takes great skill to handle unpredictability and confrontations with grace when exhausted. The author developed deep respect for those keeping cities running 24/7 through their undervalued labor.
Though difficult, the ephemeral moments of care and understanding within that transient world meant something real. Like the taxi driver gently ensuring her safe passage home in a snowstorm. The coffee shop server passing extra sugar despite her unconventional attire.
Years later, the author still reflects fondly on the stories and bonds built while working nights. The brief connections and wordless care showed her a beautiful side of humanity she hasn't experienced since.