WTF is up with this "entitled to sex" meme?

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It depends on how you're complaining. If you're like "woe is me, my life sucks, I don't get any sex", fine, but if it's more like "women suck because they'll have sex with those other guys and not me even though I'm such a nice guy..." yeah, that sounds like you feel entitled.

You KNOW this? I can point you to a whole lot of research and activism that says otherwise, and to a whole lot of sex workers who feel that statements like yours are a big part of the stigmatization they face that puts them at risk.

Google "world health organization" and "prostitution". I mean really, this stuff is so extensively documented that this sounds like a particularly silly pissing contest.

Yes, 99.935% of people go to work because they want to. It's a statistical fact.



Kinda like having a $50k student loan.



You mean like telling 14 year old kids that they'll "never get a job" if they don't go to college, misleading them to believe that there are no alternatives, and that they're somehow guarenteed a good income if they get OK grades? That kind of trickery?



Yes, I CHOOSE to work. I was given the option of kicking back and enjoying myself, or of only working enough to keep infrastructure running, but I said "Heck no, I WANT to work 40-50 hours a week so that little girls everywhere can have iPhones and eyeliner shipped from France." I'm just a stand-up guy.



You're right again. I could sleep in a homeless shelter, or under a bridge on the 3/4 of nights when they don't have enough beds. In Minnesota. In the winter.

And it's totally honest to use "public good" to justify taxing the working class and the poor when very little of that money actually goes to people in need. Nobody has to pay into that scam. They could just take my advice above and stop whining about it.



You mean like just about every other job?

NK, you're being deliberately obtuse in this desperate bid of yours to make sure nobody ever says that women are actually worse off than men. Nobody collars a kid at the age of 17 and says, "You're making some money today" and then introduces them to a line of labwork where they're likely to be assaulted and which they'll have to hide for the rest of their lives. I leave my retail work off my cv these days, but that's because nobody's interested, not because I have to hide it. And schmucky customers, not quite the same thing as rapey customers. As for dangerous industrial work, yeah, that's true. I grew up around it. Of course, those guys also had union jobs that allowed them to buy houses and send their kids to college, and eventually there was a thing called OSHA. Ain't no OSHA for hookers.

Are you implying that nothing so bad would ever happen to a boy? This isn't a perfect comparison, but it's recent enough to be easy to find: http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/258048811.html

Given that they were willing to hold a 16 year old boy hostage, beat him bloody, put a gun to his head, and threaten to cut his fingers off, I'm guessing that there wouldn't be much hesitation in doing almost any bad thing to a teenage boy if it were profitable enough.



There's no OSHA for any outlawed work. Not for kids working in meth labs and getting burned and blown up, not for kids working as couriers for drug smuggling operations, not for undocumented foreign workers...

Those union jobs are also a thing of the past for most people.

If you're going to have a pissing contest, you should at least try and aim the stream a little better, as I didn't say anything about health statistics and prostitution, instead merely contesting that it's universally coerced and a job no one would willingly do, statements that can be easily debunked. In fact, everyone here who favors legalization seems to be arguing that it's the illegal nature of the work that creates the danger and then explaining why that is, while the people opposed are making emotional and/or moralistic arguments and not citing anything supporting their position, such as statistics from countries which have legalized, before and after, which are easily available.

Here's a sex worker arguing in favor of legalization, and then rebutting several responses:

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/12/02/ ... -work-work
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/12/11/ ... ted-claims

One, if you're going to cite, at least cite authoritative sources with some hope of moderacy/neutrality.

Two, WHO is one of many NGOs that collect stats on violence against women, including prostitutes, since getting assaulted is, believe or not, a health issue. As part of their reporting they investigate/discuss the reasons why women are in that line of work in the first place, because if they don't know that, they can't do anything to help them get out. There's a tremendous amount of information out there on the subject. No, most people in the business aren't high-priced doctoral candidates looking to supplement their stipends.

In theory I'm in favor of legalization, but given how high the rates of violence against prostitutes remain even after legalization, I can't say I'm in favor of the business at all until more of the customers learn how to behave. Go buy a fleshlight instead. Actually I think it should probably be dealt with in the same way that organ sales, plasma sales, and human experimentation is, because the populations that are willing are similar and many of the risks are similar. Your cathouse should be as strictly-regulated as a medical trial that involves an IRB, and your johns should probably have to submit to rapid assays for a number of STDs. Show up clean or go home to your toys and lube.

By which you mean those that agree with you? Like last time, you don't actually seem to be responding to what I'm saying, but to some preconceived idea that you have of me/my opinion. I didn't present stats, I presented someone in the industry's argument in favor of legalization and her rebuttal of several counter-arguments; the fact that it happened to be hosted on CATO isn't relevant, unless your point was to attempt to discredit my argument (by proxy) without actually having to engage it. You're an academic, you really should know better.

Also, I've yet to see a cite from you period, and then we'll see about moderate and neutral sources.



Congrats, you knocked down two straw man arguments that I never actually made, since I have not argued that sex workers are not often victimized or that they are mostly upper class people. Bravo.
Aside from that, the studies don't and can't address how the industry would change if it was both legalized and legitimized, as the stigma that follows sex workers, even legal ones such as adult film actors, can be long lasting and every bit as limiting as any other aspect of sex work.



Wow, stifling regulation paired with naked condescension, I can't imagine why anyone would fail to see the appeal in that...

We could do the same thing with the meat-grinder that makes most of your material goods.

1,000 dead Bangladeshis here, a few hundred Koreans there - and those are just the big accidents, not including the basal rate of AD&D.

A lot of American women say "We don't need men" while living off of exploited labor and inhumane working conditions, and making up only 27% of the manufacturing workforce. Where's the brave independence in that? You've said "Go buy a fleshlight[.]" Well, you should go buy a lathe.

Hmm, a lathe would allow for the creation of some *stimulating* radially symmetrical objects...

It's been done: http://hackaday.com/2009/05/03/steampunk-vibrator/

^

Wow, I'm impressed that they actually made it steam powered, though it seems more practical when run as a straight pneumatic device.

Dont wanna stab in your back on this. So prostitution is not really a dreamjob for anyone, but in my country it is legal. There are still kills happening (very rarely) but its mostly happening to illegal ones (Legal prostitution involves paying taxes, having to go to doctors regularly to have a proof to be healthy... So if you are ill or drug addicted or simply try to be cheaper then others, then you do it illegal.) The reason why illegal ones become victimes of crimes, is because of them offering their services on the street or at the home of their customers, where they are not protected. While legal prostitution takes place at special guest houses, with the rooms having panic buttons and similar, as well as those typical big, broad guy employees, that you really dont want to mess with. Because of the job being legal, there are as well no burdens for a prostitute, to go to the police. I think knowing, that your victim cant go to the police to the report, if you commit a crime, raises criminal acts a lot.

So legal prostitution will not cause to make that job funnier, but its definitely making it safer,

I dont wanna promote prostitution but for me its similar to abortion. I dont approve it, but simply accept the fact, that it exits all around the world, anyway if legal or not. So if its done anyway, then at least it should be done as safe as possible.

ffs.

1. no, "moderate/neutral" does not mean "agrees with me". It means "not obviously polemical & dismissable on those grounds", as Cato is.
2. You demanded evidence that most sex workers are in the business because they've been coerced. Jesus, man, there's reams of that sort of stuff from reputable sources. Go thou and do thy own homework. No, I'm not doing it for you.
3. If you're interested in legalization, then why are you calling worker protections "stifling regulation"? You're talking about an activity where people exchange bodily fluids. Every other such job is regulated for the protection of both worker and client. Even your dental hygienist wears nitrile gloves. If a dude's got a disease, then why is he even considering going to a hooker? He's paying for a lay, not to saddle her with a health problem. I mean really, if you want to partake, then go through the checks. You ought to be doing it anyway before you have sex with anyone new.

Also, I don't see what's wrong with a fleshlight, apart from the terrible name. I don't understand w*k shame and have never met a woman who feels something similar. (And yes, we do talk about these things.) If it's about some sort of ranking thing in which you're low status among other men if you have to masturbate, well, that seems like an intra-guy thing to me, something for you guys to resolve yourselves. I don't see why women should have to be bothered with it. Certainly sex workers shouldn't have to just deal with client refusals to test for STDs because they can't face the shame of going home to plug away at silicone.

What are you talking about?

Me: talking about regulation of sex work that protects both clients and workers.
You: suddenly talking about third-world industrial accidents and then a segue into something about women not needing men, and then something semi-coherent about the manufacturing workforce (much of which is genitalia-free, at this point, since they don't sex the robots). Then apparently I should take up manufacturing work because I say that sex workers, like any others, should have reasonable workplace protections.

Maybe put down the Jameson's.