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this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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Asklemmy
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Replace 'porn star' with 'slave' and you'll understand. There might be a section of the population that would like to be a slave, but we have, as a society, decided that people shouldn't be bought and sold like furniture.
Of course, the hatred should be aimed at the economic and social systems that allow people to buy others' dignity, not at the victims of that system.
Having spoken with a few women that have done things adjacent to pornography, their regrets are mostly in regards to the way they were treated by people that were not in the industry. The escorts I've spoken with enjoy the work itself, although not necessarily all of the customers.
What you're saying about the horrors of pornography and prostitution apply to ALL people that need to work for a living. The company I work for buys my time, the product of my labor--which they sell for many times what I'm paid--and even my dignity by forcing me to wear a uniform of their choice. I absolutely do not like the customers that ultimately purchase the products of my labor, but I have little choice if I want to have a place to live, and food to eat.
There are significant differences to being forced to sell your mind, competence and time; vs being forced to auction off the another's use of your own genitals.
Yes, being forced to sell your own mind is infinitely worse. You no longer have your own thoughts; your mind belongs to your employers. That is absolutely, 1000% worse than selling physical labor.
Please explain what those differences are without using any magical thinking that places sex into a sacred sphere of human activity that is holy and sacrosanct?
Or don't. My point is you can tell how serious a person is when they start talking about the morality of sex by replacing every mention of sex in their point with "boxing". It's still a highly physical one-on-one activity that's a crime of both participants haven't consented, so if the exact same argument doesn't make sense when made about boxing then they are thinking magically about sex and not materialistically.
Why do I have to think about sex materialistically?
Because thinking about it magically leads you to idiotic conclusions like "maybe the bronze age goat fuckers really did discover the ultimate truth of sexual morality, and it's just coincidence that it just so happened to lay the foundation for millennia of Patriarchal bullshit".
So you have arbitrarily decided that I must think about sex either magically or materialistically.
Good day to you sir.
I mean, I didn't decide that, that's just kind of how it works.
Like I said, I'm sure there are people who enjoy this, but the system is still exploitative and harmful.
Yes. In an ideal world, people won't have to do any dangerous or difficult jobs. But for now, we can't start with the worst offenders.
No, you misunderstand: ALL labor under capitalism is exploitative. 'Dangerous' and 'difficult' has nothing to do with it. The system is set up so that your labor must be used for the benefit of someone else in order to obtain the bare necessities of survival, and you don't get the full value of your labor. It doesn't matter if that's working in an office doing spreadsheets all day, or as a sex work; ALL labor is exploited under capitalism.
Work is work; sex workers are workers.
See my reply to sakuraba@lemmy.ml.
I think there are no worst offenders here, all labor is valid as in all labor is exploitative in a capitalist system
Dignity is very relative here, I think you can be a sex worker and keep your dignity
There is no difference in work quality between painting and coal mining? Teaching children and soldering diodes? Really?
Again, I'm not talking about the exceptions here. Having to sell yourself for money is a horrible fate to most, to the extent that we make laws against that. You can think of this the same way.
I've met more people who are proud sex workers then I have people who are proud fast food employees.
I think that perhaps you are letting your disgust for a person's work color how you feel about the person. Do you feel the same about athletes and actors? They also "sell their bodies".
As I said above, the people being forced to sell their dignity are the victims, and need help and rehabilitation. My hatred and disgust are reserved exclusively for those who exploit them, and the economic and social system which enables such behaviour.
Having to sell yourself for money is what most people do every day, bruh. Every job I've ever had has been a major detriment to my physical and/or mental health, and was accepted only under threat of homelessness and starvation.
do you believe that all sex work is dangerous or difficult?
do you believe that easy & safe but compulsory work as a means to get obtain food and shelter is an ideal world?
Emotional toll aside, putting yourself at the mercy of a stronger person who has already shown that he does not care about right and wrong, day after day, is very much dangerous.
People do enjoy work when it is pleasant and interesting. Should it be compulsory? I don't know. Rich people who don't have to do any work often lose touch with the world. So perhaps even in that ideal world where we have amazing robots that can do anything, we should have people do a little bit of some work of their choice.
But all this is just speculation. For now, the focus should be on freeing people from the most dangerous and difficult jobs.
Are you comparing OnlyFans to literal slavery? You do know that they get paid, right?
Slaves could get paid and buy their freedom in many historical societies.
I think the comparison is about want and need. They do it because they feel forced into it, by some means or another.
Sounds like the same reason I go to work. I need the money because it's the only legal option I have to obtain food and shelter.
And you would be right. That is what it sounds like. We all get forced into working. Some have to wear a uniform and serve coffee and biscuits, others have to slop 50 year old meat in a dirty toilet - or whatever scenario that makes it more palatable.
Not most of them, apparently!