So, like, is everyone but me super-happy about prostitution? The more the better? We should encourage and help anyone who wants to do it with everything we can offer?

Can I have some fundamental problems with prostitution without being called a SWERF? How about being skeptical about the benefits of legalisation? There's so much conflicting data out there about the effects of legalisation.

@JordiGH I think it boils down to an ideological question: do you think it’s ok for the state to forbid an occupation if said occupation is both maybe dangerous to the workers physical and mental well being and people still want to do it? My take is that we are not forbidding many dangerous jobs but often introduce regulation to make it safer. So that’s what we need to do for sex work. Ask the people doing the job what they need to see regulated, basically.

@kensanata But there's something fundamentally different about commercial sex. Nobody values the least experienced coal miner the most, paying hundred times more for a miner who has never mined.

People do get trafficked and enslaved to work on football stadiums, but I do think this is a different sort of thing from sexual slavery.

@JordiGH But in the examples you cited the key term seemed to be *slavery*. That’s definitely a problem. And rape is a problem. And kidnapping is a problem. And human trafficking and how victims cannot contact the police for fear of deportation is a problem. But the actual sex work itself is not the problem. It might attract a lot of problems, but forbidding it is just lazy regulation.

@kensanata @JordiGH I would say it would be reasonable to ban any occupation on the grounds that more than 0.1% of the people engaged in it are enslaved. Just because it's not a good long-term solution doesn't mean it's lazy; it's reacting to an emergency situation.

@technomancy @JordiGH Here in Switzerland I hear there is a lot of human trafficking and debt slavery related to cooks in Chinese restaurants. Now what do we do? Measuring the percentage of debt slavery in cooks would be an absurd answer, would it not? How about fighting slavery and human trafficking?

@kensanata @technomancy @JordiGH many sex worker activists call bullshit on this trafficking stuff. Not that it does not happen at all but some folk do not want to admit there are people talking up this opportunity consciously. It is a heated discussion up there.

@saper @technomancy @JordiGH Speaking of a total sample size of 1, the one person I have met in life doing this job was doing it for the easy money. She sort of wanted to do something else but the amount of money she got was simply too good to beat. Kind of like me not quitting my job because of the money, I felt.

@kensanata @saper @technomancy

Sex has a lot of risk, both with injuries and disease. Commercial sex has some psychological consequences too, mostly about self-image.

I'm annoyed that overwhelmingly women are treated as cattle whose quality must be assured but nobody talks about assuring the quality of the buyers too. Or does someone also regulate that buyers are not carrying diseases?

@JordiGH @saper @technomancy Now we are back at the ideological level and there I feel that the arms industry is doing a lot more harm.
I also feel that the discussion about buyers is a different discussion and it will be hard to argue in both threads. It’s also a point that I don’t much care about. Basically forbidding: no; regulation: yes; how to regulate: I will let other people handle it as long as they do it.

@kensanata

So you had a friend who was doing it, right? I've had friends whose services I've contracted before. Would you have been happy buying your friend's services too? Or recommended her to your other friends?

@JordiGH
I absolutely would recommend sex work to a stubborn, highly independent personality that is struggling to make ends meet with a eage slavery job

Is it a perfect solution? No, nothing is. Is suddenly becoming a criminalized class something that brings new nuances of struggle into your life? No shit. Do you have to be on your guard? Hell yes
@kensanata

@CursedConfetti While I absolutely agree that criminalising receiving money for sex is wrong in every way, I'm not so sure the other activities associated with it are. I'm sure you agree that pimping (or "managers" or "agents") is problematic.

@JordiGH
People should have a choice if they want to be managed or not. Making all managers default criminal is no different than making the work criminal.

If an actual crime takes place? False imprisonment? Assault/battery? There you go lock them up but crimes already exist for that

Police intervention - in my experience - only leads or enables more abuse