My opinion is that sex work should be legal. It would enable involuntary virgins to get a good sex experience for payment; they will be guaranteed a good sex experience with a sex worker: no harassment, good education, and a fun time.

Sex work gets shamed by people puritans because of payment for sex and it’s “sinful”; yet these same persons puritans get and have sex for free out of “passion” or marriage; they also discriminate against minorities in sec.

EDIT: Apparently there is an implied difference between sex work and prostitution. I mean sex work.

EDIT 2: I messed up the writing of my post. My real opinion is located in this comment:

Oof. I didn’t realize there was way more exploitation than just sex traffickers. It totally makes sense though; sex trades are a product of capitalist exploitation and the existence of private property. (Naturally under communism, the prevalence of sex trades would be heavily reduced.)

It seems like I couldn’t communicate my ideas properly beforehand. I don’t want people in the sex trade to be criminalized; I want pimps and johns to be criminalized.

Only a few hours ago: I wanted to support a sex trade industry that didn’t involve rapes or rely on economic coercion. I just wanted disabled people, who keep getting discriminated out of sex,[1][2][3] to be able to feel better about their lives; a lack of sex can cause mental health issues in some people (even though this shouldn’t happen). (However, having sex probably won’t fix the issue, it will just hide the problems until later). Now I feel like shit…

  1. Sexual Ableism ↩︎

  2. Dating With Disability: How to Rise Above Sexual Ableism ↩︎

  3. Dating with Disability: Choose Your Dreams Over Sexual Ableism ↩︎

    • @MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml
      7•2 years ago

      "But this woman who wouldn’t be able to afford rent or food if it weren’t for the money I give her said she loves having sex with me! She couldn’t possibly be lying to protect herself and boost my ego!"

    • AmiceseOP
      1•2 years ago

      I was thinking of consensual sex work (sex work that is not done by neccessity, but by people who want to do sex work); but I agree with you that sex trafficking is rape.

        • @pH3ra@lemmy.ml
          2•2 years ago

          People sell their bodies everyday to make excel spreadsheets for 10 hours straight under fluorescent lights in a cubicle that’s smaller than my bathroom or work in factories where they risk their safety because of old machineries, chemicals and hazardous environments in general. How all of this is considered better than having sex with someone in a controlled environment, where people get checked for deseases before going in, where security guards can keep you safe against violent clients and where you get to pay taxes and work for a pension?

          • Leslie(she/her)
            8•2 years ago

            Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without that person’s consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent.

            You have no problem understanding the lack of agency of the worker in their workplace. you just don’t want to call it rape because it makes you uncomfortable.

            • @pH3ra@lemmy.ml
              3•2 years ago

              You know, I used to work for this big company that exploited me like a slave (making excel spreadsheets for 10 hours straight under fluorescent lights in a cubicle that’s smaller than my bathroom, as a matter of fact).</br> I called that job “rape” everyday for three years and when I quit I had no problem telling that straight to my employer’s face.</br> I’m doing the exact same job self-employed now, do I still call it “rape”? Of course not, because now I’m in control of how I do it and there’s no more exploitation…</br> And I think it should be the same for sex workers, but as long as there’s no legalization and regulation it cannot happen.

              • Leslie(she/her)
                9•2 years ago

                You can call your job whatever you want. But unlike prostitution it’s not literal rape. What makes your job exploitative is not the working conditions or the size of the company, it’s the necessity to sell your labor to get your means of subsistence. You had no choice but to keep working because you would starve and freeze to death if you didn’t. That’s why I quoted the literal definition of rape. Prostitution is literally rape.

            • @pH3ra@lemmy.ml
              3•2 years ago

              I don’t like to put it in a socialist vs. capitalist context, I think it is stretching the topic a little bit. I prefer talking about the individual: I don’t think that every people has it’s “dream job”. Sure some people wish to be doctors, lawyers and other professions, but a lot of other people don’t. So in this latter cases, how is it that prostitution in a regulated environment is worse than anything else?

                • @pH3ra@lemmy.ml
                  5•2 years ago

                  Most of those people do want to become scientists, discovering new things, writers, or something more than basically the toy of the dollar

                  Of course, but the same principle can be applied to people that work retail or pull a lever in a production chain. Of course prostitution is a product of capitalism, but the same is true for every job. I agree with you that capitalism generates exploitment of people, but that’s the focal part I think we should focus on to make the discussion go further and not making it sterile in the end: TLDR is the exploitment of any kind of work wrong or just prostitution in particular? IMHO it’s the first one…