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Comment by fwungy | Hacker News Reader

Given that "love is love" , why can't sex workers be deemed "money-sexuals", i.e. people who's sexual calling is to have sex for money because that's just what they're into - born that way.

Then we can separate out the innocent money-sexuals from those who actually are being forced into it?

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While the concept of "love is love" stands as a testament to the universality of emotions, equating it to the realm of sex work oversimplifies the complexities faced by those in the profession. In a society where money equates to basic necessities like food, shelter, and healthcare, many individuals, especially women, are driven to sex work not out of a "money-sexual" inclination, but due to economic vulnerabilities. Labeling them as "money-sexuals" risks trivializing the very real challenges they face, many of which are systemic and rooted in inequality. It's essential to recognize the broader socioeconomic pressures that contribute to the choice of sex work, rather than attributing it to innate predisposition. By doing so, we can focus on creating a society that offers every individual the autonomy to make choices without the burden of economic coercion.

What makes sex work special, though? Why is it somehow less moral for sex to be sold for money than it is for any other sort of labor?

Question's kinda rhetorical, in the sense that the answers are rather uncomfortable to capitalist socioeconomics and the beneficiaries thereof.

It's rooted in the sexist idea that women are not capable of making decisions about their sexuality.

There's a weird double standard around "love is love" for women. No one is concerned if an adult male has sex with a substantially older partner or engages in sex work, but if a young (adult) woman dates an older man or decides she wants to be a sex worker it's considered fraught.

This is a relic of the patriarchal order that many feminists still cling to.

Putting aside the cases of coercion and rape, is there something fundamentally degrading about sex to a woman that demands special legal protection?

Providing good sex is a skill, whether it's paid or not. There is no reason to stop a woman. or anyone, who freely chooses to sell their sexual skills from doing so. The notion that a woman needs to be protected from her own choices is patronizing.

This is generally what sex work legalisation looks like.

Some people have been pushing for this for years. Decades, even.

Because the people who hate sex workers also hate "***sexuals" and don't believe that "love is love".

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