Sex Work?

[Synobun]

[Citation Needed]

 

[Lexicus]

[Citation Needed]

Pretty much every single assertion in that post is wrong, I would say it's rather astounding but it isn't when you consider the source

 

[Ryika]

I mean it's obviously just my attempt at explaining what we see happening. You don't have to agree with it, but you also haven't done anything to discredit it, shown no flaws in my explanation, as well as not having shown any alternative either.

In the end it does not matter whether my explanation is correct or not, the phenomenon that I am trying to explain is clearly there.I have provided an account of a person who was in exactly that situation, having been a sex worker and then having realized that it has caused her psychological distress. You can search the internet and you will find a ton of similar accounts. That is what makes sex work different from most other jobs: You are not going to find a coal miner who, after not having worked for 2 years, suddenly realizes that the work has caused him emotional distress. While the job is hard, it is very clear to the mind what you are doing. Offering sex as a service is much less clear for many people.

 

[rah]

You are not going to find a coal miner who, after not having worked for 2 years, suddenly realizes that the work has caused him emotional distress.,

Maybe not, but you will find those that are dead due to black lung disease. I don't know about you, but I know which outcome I'd prefer. To me, those minors sold there bodies also and I'm willing to bet that some of them lived knowing what it was likely doing to their lungs.

 

[Narz]

Who are these people that would lie about their spouses like that? Who raised them, and why are they willing to commit unfinished murder?

People are f-ed up. Behind the veneer of society people are wild animals who will claw you up for power, control, security, dominance. Look at Milgram's experiment, 70+% of people are practically willing to murder someone with just a little prompting in more dire circumstances where their safety is on the line probably would rise to 99%

 

[Narz]

If my memory serves me correctly Superfreakonomics has a profile of a high-end prostitute, who I believe presented a compelling case that she wasn't being exploited.

Here are some facts about her that I believe support that case:
1. She was previously employed and was able to earn enough to support a comfortable life style
2. She chose to do this on her own as a way to increase her income
3. She felt free to choose whether or not to take on a client, and felt free to get rid of clients she didn't like
4. She listed online and was not beholden to any pimp or the like
5. She largely found the sex acts enjoyable and not distasteful

Yes I was thinking of that anecdote too but had forgotten where I'd read it.

I would think that in this case her clients are probably not rapists and she is probably not being raped even though the sex is transactional. That said, it is probably not be easy to ensure all cases of prostitution are like this (especially in countries with broken social safety nets like the US) so it being illegal to prevent exploitation is still in my opinion a very defensible position.

It's not a defensible position anymore than the legalization of drugs to prevent drug abuse.

 

[Ryika]

Maybe not, but you will find those that are dead due to black lung disease. I don't know about you, but I know which outcome I'd prefer. To me, those minors sold there bodies also and I'm willing to bet that some of them lived knowing what it was likely doing to their lungs.

Yeah, other jobs can be bad, too. I mean, I'm from the Ruhrgebiet, which was the biggest coal-mining area in Germany just a few generations ago. A lot of the people who worked the mines are dead today, have died way before they should have if we go by the average life expectancy, many of them as a result of direct of indirect long-term effects of the job. I do understand that doing such a job means giving up a lot, but it is a very different type of sacrifice for a job.

The original post was about sex work and coal mining being the same thing, people selling their body. My point was to show that both are different on a fundamental level; being a coal-miner does not damage the cohesive narrative in your head, you do what you do, you have a rough expectation of the negative results, and you're willing to accept those, the narrative of sacrificing some of your life to make sure your offspring, or relatives, have better chances at survival is internally cohesive between conscious thought and subconscious mind.

Being a sex worker can mess with your head on a level that most other jobs cannot. Your consciousness can tell you it's okay, but your subconsciousness may very well disagree with it, and no amount of rationalizing it away is going to fix that disconnect if you're a person who is affected by that. There is no way in which you can tell your head "It's okay for me to have sex with sub-par genetic partners." if your subconsciousness is prone to being against it.

That's the difference that I am trying to point out. I do not think this continuous disconnect exists in any of the other jobs.

 

[rah]

Your explanation just made them sound even more similar to me. So no, I don't see what you're trying to say at all.

 

[caketastydelish]

People enjoy having sex for free. Is it "wrong" for them to have sex with someone else desperate enough to pay for it? Shouldn't even be a question.

 

[cardgame]

Eh, a sacrifice is a sacrifice; different job, different sacrifice. I can see where you made this more similar to rah.

Being a sex worker can mess with your head on a level that most other jobs cannot. Your consciousness can tell you it's okay, but your subconsciousness may very well disagree with it, and no amount of rationalizing it away is going to fix that disconnect if you're a person who is affected by that. There is no way in which you can tell your head "It's okay for me to have sex with sub-par genetic partners." if your subconsciousness is prone to being against it.

That's the difference that I am trying to point out. I do not think this continuous disconnect exists in any of the other jobs.

Not to make light of you, for I am being very serious. There is also no way I can tell my head "It's okay to wake up before the sun is shining," if my subconsciousness is prone (it is!) to being against it.

As a result all jobs that would require that are not valid jobs for me to apply for

Similarly, a prostitute, who can pick and choose their clients should go ahead and deny such clients which could cause distress.

 

[innonimatu]

I thing this may be relevant reading for those interested on the issue.

I find this one bit within the text by the advocate of sex work revealing:

But the thirty-eight women we interviewed in one multiyear stuly us these jobs had far more advantages than their previous straight jobs in restaurants, office management, or medical services. One woman came to the brothels to pay for medicine for her autistic child; another was the first in her family to own a house.

Basically it oils down to "sex work is better than being poor"... not being able to afford housing or medical care. If these are the problem, the solutions should not be to tell people to prostitute themselves...

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Being raped is a disaster from an evolutionary point of view, it makes perfect sense that the genes that make you do whatever you can to prevent that from happening, would be successful and as a result.

Well not necessarily. Depends entirely on the genes of the rapist doesn't it? Perhaps the very fact that they are willing and able to rape you means that they have "good genes", regardless of whether you were personally attracted to them.

 

[Ryika]

Well not necessarily. Depends entirely on the genes of the rapist doesn't it? Perhaps the very fact that they are willing and able to rape you means that they have "good genes", regardless of whether you were personally attracted to them.

A person with "good genes" generally doesn't need to resort to rape, he gets a woman because he is attractive to women. A person who has "generally bad genes" but is willing to rape people and gets away with it, can be argued to have "better genes" than a person who doesn't, in a purely evolutionary sense, but they will never have "good" genes. Of course there are cases that are exceptions, but evolution doesn't work by taking into account the exceptions; behavior that is useful "most of the time" is what enables genes to dominate the gene pool.

If we look at other species that have exceptionally high rates of rape, we can actually see "defense mechanisms" against being fertilized, such as ducks - females have evolved "maze-like" vaginas that make it hard for rapist-ducks to fertilize them. The literal only "goal" of that is to avoid fertilization in involuntary acts, while it does nothing to stop the act of rape itself.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

A person with "good genes" generally doesn't need to resort to rape, he gets a woman because he is attractive to women. A person who has "generally bad genes" but is willing to rape people and gets away with it, can be argued to have "better genes" than a person who doesn't, in a purely evolutionary sense, but they will never have "good" genes. Of course there are cases that are exceptions, but evolution doesn't work by taking into account the exceptions; behavior that is useful "most of the time" is what enables genes to dominate the gene pool.

If we look at other species that have exceptionally high rates of rape, we can actually see "defense mechanisms" against being fertilized, such as ducks - females have evolved "maze-like" vaginas that make it hard for rapist-ducks to fertilize them. The literal only "goal" of that is to avoid fertilization in involuntary acts, while it does nothing to stop the act of rape itself.

Frankly you could argue it either way. If it gets him the girl and gets him offspring then it's a good evolutionary strategy as far as he's concerned. It might lead to an inherently "rapey" species/culture which isn't much fun to live in for a female, but from an evolutionary perspective I don't think you can make the sweeping claim that being raped "is a disaster".

 

[Ryika]

I don't think you could argue in either way, and of course I can make that claim. In any situation where the woman has all the choices in the world to seek the best partner she can get to make babies with - which is how pre-societal human tribes worked - being impregnated by that random guy whose only skill is to force himself onto you, means that on average the children that you create are of lesser genetic quality than the children you could create with the partners of your choice.

I don't deny that from an evolutionary perspective it might be beneficial for the man who has no other chance of producing offspring to resort to rape if he can get away with it, but that's where male reproductive strategies and female reproductive strategies are at odds with each other.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I don't think you could argue in either way, and of course I can make that claim. In any situation where the woman has all the choices in the world to seek the best partner she can get to make babies with - which is how pre-societal human tribes worked - being impregnated by that random guy whose only skill is to force himself onto you, means that on average the children that you create are of lesser genetic quality than the children you could create with the partners of your choice.

It only means that if you assume that the woman's ability to discern genetic superiority (and be attracted to it) is infallible, and that any man who forcefully impregnates a woman must necessarily be of "lesser genetic quality". I don't think either of those are self-evidently correct, never mind both of them together. Maybe the guy is amazingly genetically superior, and yes maybe he could sit around and wait for the women to come to him to reproduce. But he could also just force himself on all of them, AND on the weird women who aren't able to discern his superiority for some reason. Either way he gets offspring, and maybe he'll have more offspring sooner with the latter approach.

 

[Ryika]

is infallible

No, it just assumes that it is correct "most of the time". Which it is, because the things that make women want men are things that have have been successful in the past (because the genes of the woman who had interest in these features now dominate). Individual cases where a general rule is not true simply don't matter for evolution, unless they produce a better outcome than what was true before.

But yeah, there may very well be a man who has near perfect genetic makeup but really enjoys raping people so much that that's all he does, and from an evolutionary perspective you could consider the women lucky that he chose to rape them, because look at all the strong and well-equipped babies that he has made them! But given that human societies are not dominated by rapists (except for maybe those in the middle east, but you have religion to thank for that ), this has clearly not been true "most of the time" in the past.

Possibly because a guy who...

just force himself on all of them

...would have gotten into serious trouble with the other members of the tribe.

 

[Yeekim]

Let's keep in mind that from an evolutionary point of view, males and females of a species are not in a competition, they are on the same team.

 

[Ryika]

Not true at all.

 

[red_elk]

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