How exactly is the sex worker masterminding the operation being exploited?
1) The existence of sex pests like Andrew Tate who openly recruit and exploit young women into working for them as adult performers
2) The socio-economic realities of where a given person grows up and is raised in, which greatly affects their prospects in life in general which may artificially make sex work a more appealing option
3) The overarching threat of starvation which may force someone with literally no other options to do it, lest they end up homeless and freeze to death.
This is where some feminists and "anti-porn" activists have problems with it, because in an exploitative system that demands you work in some way to survive, there is an argument to be made that no sex work can be truly thought to be entirely devoid of some form of coercion, and therefore the sex involved in that sex work cannot, in turn, be entirely devoid of coercion, which makes it, by definition, rape. I don't particularly subscribe to that belief as I believe it trivializes the free will and agency of performers, but like, I also can't entirely say that it's incorrect. I see the bones of the reasoning and it does make sense to me, and there surely are a ton, an absolutely stressful amount of sex workers out there right now, who are doing it because it is the only path to a decent quality of life available to them (or worse, their sole method of survival due to systemic or more direct threats). And if I found out a given performer who's content I enjoy was one of those people, I can't say I wouldn't be uncomfortable with it.
The part where they completely discredit themselves is where they (almost invariably) draw from this the conclusion that paying for sex work must be made illegal.
If women turn to sex work as the only available means to survive, how exactly does it help them to take away that option?
Agreed.
> If women turn to sex work as the only available means to survive, how exactly does it help them to take away that option?
Well I don't think the goal is to help them, I think the goal is to take away the ability for people to pay to rape them with legal cover. Like it's one thing for sex workers to be selling access to their bodies if it's under the table and illegal, even technically. It's quite another for the justice system of your particular country to go on the record and, in writing, state that you are allowed to coerce sex from another person in exchange for money. And like, again, I don't entirely disagree with that, if you accept the underlying logic that goes:
- Anything done for survival is coerced
- Sex work for survival is therefore coerced
- Sex during sex work done for survival is coerced sex
- Coerced sex is rape
- Therefore, no sex work done within a system where it is required for survival is consensual.
Like, there is a there there. It's uncomfortable but I can't argue it down. Making it illegal surely doesn't help them, but making it entirely legal means you are basically legalizing the ability for people with money to rape women who cannot say no, lest they starve to death. And like... that doesn't feel great either.
Would anyone at all work food service if the alternative wasn't starvation? I don't know a single person who's worked that sort of job that would do it if they didn't need to to eat, not because it's antithetical to the human experience to serve food, but because it pays like garbage and the customers treat you like shit.
>Well I don't think the goal is to help them, I think the goal is to take away the ability for people to pay to rape them with legal cover.
In other words: you are willing to make life worse for people in order to protect your own sensibilities.
I am so very curious which part of this is breaking with reality in your mind. But given you aren't refuting any particular assertion I'm guessing you're just uncomfortable with the conclusion and don't have a logical refutation for any part of it, so you're just discarding it.
To be clear, I do not fully agree with this either which I spelled out quite plainly above. I'm just saying I do understand how they get to the point they're at, which like, you're allowed to do that. You're allowed to understand why people think a certain way without agreeing with it, but just saying "well that's not how reality works!" as though our modern world, legal system and basis of governance was handed down to us by the Almighty on Mount Sinai is the epitome of intellectual cowardice. Most everything about our "reality" is malleable should we will it.
> In other words: you are willing to make life worse for people in order to protect your own sensibilities.
I literally outlined that I don't agree with this conclusion because I feel it discards too much of the given sex worker's autonomy! I am completely fine with sex work, as long as it's safe for all involved.