Wage Slavery

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You look like a muppet.

You look like a clown.

What gave it away?  The polka-dotted pants or the big red nose?



Now, everyone else:

We are doing the same fucking thing that happens anytime people start coming back to PD full time, creative efforts get underway, whatever.  Some assburgers jackass comes on the board and gets his 15 minutes, and everything else stops.

We have failed the pattern recognition portion of the test.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You're right. I'ma stop now.

[Dildo Argentino]

You look like a muppet.

You look like a clown.

What gave it away?  The polka-dotted pants or the big red nose?

No, it was the constant stream of fair-to-middling jokes and the pronounced dependence on positive audience feedback, actually.

[Ayotollah of Ass]

Waitwaitwait. Is part of your hostility  toward me based in you being offended because I referred to you as "that asshole guy" and variations thereof?

Not at all. And, if you think about that fact and the rest of your comment, you can see the problem. It's like you do the inverse of the principle of charity, rendering the worst interpretation or making up something whole-cloth, and then you attack that - while adding in a side dish of scorn and derision. But, I did a bit of that myself. It is an "inflammatory topic", after all. And, in the end, my thinking ended up in a better place. So, really, there's no room to bitch about it, and it's probably just a sign I need thicker skin.

Has the Ayotollah seen the light? Or does he have his tail between his legs now? Is all sex-work significantly worse in terms of psychological damage to the worker than all other varieties of work (I think I did mention soldiering??? No responses? Prison wardens, doctors, I mean particularly doctors practicing in areas with totally inadquate welfare resources? Obstetricians? Subsistence farmers under increasingly desert-like conditions?). Or is it more the case that the nature of sex-work provides a unique leverage for exploitation partly because sex is, well, sex (though the commercialisation aspect runs deep, did you know that chimps exchange meat for sex? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7988169.stm), and partially because of this particular society's hang-ups about sex are so atrocious?

I see the light. I think the exploitation/wage slavery lens makes this topic much more difficult to understand - or at least opens the door for vigorous rationalization. Part of the problem with this lens is that it treats sex as if it were an economic transaction. While economics may figure into it, sex is never only about economics (if I recall correctly, even Marx identifies capitalism as social relations), and when you make it only about economics, you are blinding yourself to other important issues and treating it as merely an economics transaction is part of the violence of it.

Even if you want to go the comparative exploitation route, what is the difference between a soldier going to war and killing themselves after because they would rather not live with the things they have done, and a sex industry performer doing sex industry porn and then doing the same? Or, let's imagine that individual soldiers had soldier cams. What kind of person would watch these war cams? Maybe there is a case for getting information about facts on the ground, but what kind of person enjoys it?

Another important point, since we are using the economic lens, is that there are ready substitutes. Real sexual relationships, erotica, reflections on pass experience, or whatever. It is an act of commission that is completely optional.

It is possible to could go round and round on this topic. But, I find the argument above convincing. In order to attack it, you would have to argue that sex industry porn is not harmful mentally, emotionally or physically to the performers, and while there may not be definitive studies on the matter, to take a phrase from Roger, the fact that it is harmful is how you bet. And the whole thing turns on that point. Whether it is as harmful as being in a war zone, a prison, an area of subsistence farming, etc., who cares?

Anyway, everyone has rightly moved on. I just wanted to address a few loose ends since I dropped out of the conversation. Thanks to everyone who helped change my mind.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Waitwaitwait. Is part of your hostility  toward me based in you being offended because I referred to you as "that asshole guy" and variations thereof?

Not at all. And, if you think about that fact and the rest of your comment, you can see the problem. It's like you do the inverse of the principle of charity, rendering the worst interpretation or making up something whole-cloth, and then you attack that - while adding in a side dish of scorn and derision. But, I did a bit of that myself. It is an "inflammatory topic", after all. And, in the end, my thinking ended up in a better place. So, really, there's no room to bitch about it, and it's probably just a sign I need thicker skin.

I am not sure what you mean by this. I re-read the rest of my comment, and can't figure out what you're referring to with this. Can you please be more specific? Here's the post again.

Waitwaitwait. Is part of your hostility  toward me based in you being offended because I referred to you as "that asshole guy" and variations thereof?

Dude, just to point out, I don't know about other people but the reason I was calling you "that asshole guy" because ASSHOLE WAS IN YOUR USERNAME. Your username was long and I couldn't remember exactly what it was so I just pulled a memorable piece out and used it for shorthand. Sort of like someone might call me "that monkey guy" if they couldn't remember my username off the top of their head.

If you don't like it when people to call you "Asshole", perhaps it would be wise to not make it your NAME.

As far as picking and choosing who to listen to based on their assessed credibility, it's actually a very important skill; not for confirmation bias purposes, but for gleaning the information that is most likely to be accurate. When there's money involved, it's important to look at who is making the money and where it's coming from. If you are trying to assess whether a product is safe, and you have three studies in front of you, one funded by the maker of the product, one funded by a competitor of the product, and one from an objective third party, when you assess the credibility of the three studies, how do you weight them?

I did not, previously, even as a former sex worker, have the opinions I have today about the sex trade. As a matter of fact, I didn't have these opinions when I came to this board. Changing my mind took a combination of compelling arguments from people here, notably Roger, and of doing additional research that included weeding out, or at least viewing with a high degree of skepticism, opinions from parties who have religious moralistic reasons to denounce the sex trade, and opinions from parties who stand to profit from sex trade. Both have insurmountable biases, in my assessment.

[Ayotollah of Ass]

Waitwaitwait. Is part of your hostility  toward me based in you being offended because I referred to you as "that asshole guy" and variations thereof?

Not at all. And, if you think about that fact and the rest of your comment, you can see the problem. It's like you do the inverse of the principle of charity, rendering the worst interpretation or making up something whole-cloth, and then you attack that - while adding in a side dish of scorn and derision. But, I did a bit of that myself. It is an "inflammatory topic", after all. And, in the end, my thinking ended up in a better place. So, really, there's no room to bitch about it, and it's probably just a sign I need thicker skin.

I am not sure what you mean by this. I re-read the rest of my comment, and can't figure out what you're referring to with this. Can you please be more specific? Here's the post again.

Waitwaitwait. Is part of your hostility  toward me based in you being offended because I referred to you as "that asshole guy" and variations thereof?

Dude, just to point out, I don't know about other people but the reason I was calling you "that asshole guy" because ASSHOLE WAS IN YOUR USERNAME. Your username was long and I couldn't remember exactly what it was so I just pulled a memorable piece out and used it for shorthand. Sort of like someone might call me "that monkey guy" if they couldn't remember my username off the top of their head.

If you don't like it when people to call you "Asshole", perhaps it would be wise to not make it your NAME.

As far as picking and choosing who to listen to based on their assessed credibility, it's actually a very important skill; not for confirmation bias purposes, but for gleaning the information that is most likely to be accurate. When there's money involved, it's important to look at who is making the money and where it's coming from. If you are trying to assess whether a product is safe, and you have three studies in front of you, one funded by the maker of the product, one funded by a competitor of the product, and one from an objective third party, when you assess the credibility of the three studies, how do you weight them?

I did not, previously, even as a former sex worker, have the opinions I have today about the sex trade. As a matter of fact, I didn't have these opinions when I came to this board. Changing my mind took a combination of compelling arguments from people here, notably Roger, and of doing additional research that included weeding out, or at least viewing with a high degree of skepticism, opinions from parties who have religious moralistic reasons to denounce the sex trade, and opinions from parties who stand to profit from sex trade. Both have insurmountable biases, in my assessment.

Sure. You went with an interpretation, "This guy is complaining about being called an asshole." And then, spend two paragraphs pointed out how absurd that is, given my name. The absurdity was definitely a sign, but was it a sign that I was complaining about something I essentially do to myself or that the interpretation wasn't quite right? In the end, it's hard to accept the logic of a position while reading and responding to people who are saying they think you're not worth talking to, compare your position to stomping on puppies, so forth and so on, which was my point.

The second half is valid. I brought in the porn star's blog as a weak counter-example and because I thought it was interesting. But, your subsequent commentary focused on me - your perceptions of my ability to evaluate evidence, things I might need to learn, etc. - rather than what you see as the problems of the counter-example. This came across as condescending in the context of the larger discussion, but reading it again now and taking it on its own, it's innocuous.

[Placid Dingo]

Nigel; Really sorry if you addressed this already but it's midnight and there's 24 pages of conversation I haven't read, which, from a glance, look kind of painful to read.

I'm just really curious; you said your opinions have changed a lot in regards to sex work and said that that came from conversations here and your own research. I'm wondering what they changed FROM, what they changed TO, and what was the compelling feature that you came across that made that change happen?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Waitwaitwait. Is part of your hostility  toward me based in you being offended because I referred to you as "that asshole guy" and variations thereof?

Not at all. And, if you think about that fact and the rest of your comment, you can see the problem. It's like you do the inverse of the principle of charity, rendering the worst interpretation or making up something whole-cloth, and then you attack that - while adding in a side dish of scorn and derision. But, I did a bit of that myself. It is an "inflammatory topic", after all. And, in the end, my thinking ended up in a better place. So, really, there's no room to bitch about it, and it's probably just a sign I need thicker skin.

I am not sure what you mean by this. I re-read the rest of my comment, and can't figure out what you're referring to with this. Can you please be more specific? Here's the post again.

Waitwaitwait. Is part of your hostility  toward me based in you being offended because I referred to you as "that asshole guy" and variations thereof?

Dude, just to point out, I don't know about other people but the reason I was calling you "that asshole guy" because ASSHOLE WAS IN YOUR USERNAME. Your username was long and I couldn't remember exactly what it was so I just pulled a memorable piece out and used it for shorthand. Sort of like someone might call me "that monkey guy" if they couldn't remember my username off the top of their head.

If you don't like it when people to call you "Asshole", perhaps it would be wise to not make it your NAME.

As far as picking and choosing who to listen to based on their assessed credibility, it's actually a very important skill; not for confirmation bias purposes, but for gleaning the information that is most likely to be accurate. When there's money involved, it's important to look at who is making the money and where it's coming from. If you are trying to assess whether a product is safe, and you have three studies in front of you, one funded by the maker of the product, one funded by a competitor of the product, and one from an objective third party, when you assess the credibility of the three studies, how do you weight them?

I did not, previously, even as a former sex worker, have the opinions I have today about the sex trade. As a matter of fact, I didn't have these opinions when I came to this board. Changing my mind took a combination of compelling arguments from people here, notably Roger, and of doing additional research that included weeding out, or at least viewing with a high degree of skepticism, opinions from parties who have religious moralistic reasons to denounce the sex trade, and opinions from parties who stand to profit from sex trade. Both have insurmountable biases, in my assessment.

Sure. You went with an interpretation, "This guy is complaining about being called an asshole." And then, spend two paragraphs pointed out how absurd that is, given my name. The absurdity was definitely a sign, but was it a sign that I was complaining about something I essentially do to myself or that the interpretation wasn't quite right? In the end, it's hard to accept the logic of a position while reading and responding to people who are saying they think you're not worth talking to, compare your position to stomping on puppies, so forth and so on, which was my point.

The second half is valid. I brought in the porn star's blog as a weak counter-example and because I thought it was interesting. But, your subsequent commentary focused on me - your perceptions of my ability to evaluate evidence, things I might need to learn, etc. - rather than what you see as the problems of the counter-example. This came across as condescending in the context of the larger discussion, but reading it again now and taking it on its own, it's innocuous.

You're attributing all kinds of weird intent to my post.

A. I explained why I was calling you "That Asshole guy" (after you said something that indicated that you may have taken offense to people calling you an asshole in their responses to you) and B. I responded to your implied accusation that I was picking and choosing who I found credible by explaining why selecting for credibility is important. Maybe you disagree. Either way, I was responding directly to the "picking and choosing" criticism. Yes, it was also an implied criticism of your apparent lack of vetting when you chose which sources you found more credible, but that's how we learn, isn't it?

The problem of the counter-example was that it was provided by someone who has a direct monetary interest in portraying a positive image of the porn industry. I don't think I failed to address that in my post.

I also am not interested in engaging further with you, because you argue like a butthurt teenager.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel; Really sorry if you addressed this already but it's midnight and there's 24 pages of conversation I haven't read, which, from a glance, look kind of painful to read.

I'm just really curious; you said your opinions have changed a lot in regards to sex work and said that that came from conversations here and your own research. I'm wondering what they changed FROM, what they changed TO, and what was the compelling feature that you came across that made that change happen?

When I came here, I believed that sex work can be empowering. I thought that sex work is simply providing a service that fills a need, and that it can be provided as a safe, sane, consensual exchange between equals.

Now, I believe that while under ideal circumstances the above would be true, those ideal circumstances are so unlikely as to contribute negligibly to the overall reality of sex work, and that sex work as it exists in reality contributes negatively to human equality, particularly gender-based human equality. The compelling feature that I came across, or rather which came into focus for me, was isolating the concept of the commodity being sold, and what it is sold for. The commodity is human bodies, and it is sold for physical gratification... consumption, after a fashion. It is peddled like a consumer good. I think this is harmful both to the consumer and to the consumed. 

[Placid Dingo]

Thanks.

[hunter s.durden]

Nigel; Really sorry if you addressed this already but it's midnight and there's 24 pages of conversation I haven't read, which, from a glance, look kind of painful to read.

I'm just really curious; you said your opinions have changed a lot in regards to sex work and said that that came from conversations here and your own research. I'm wondering what they changed FROM, what they changed TO, and what was the compelling feature that you came across that made that change happen?

When I came here, I believed that sex work can be empowering. I thought that sex work is simply providing a service that fills a need, and that it can be provided as a safe, sane, consensual exchange between equals.

Now, I believe that while under ideal circumstances the above would be true, those ideal circumstances are so unlikely as to contribute negligibly to the overall reality of sex work, and that sex work as it exists in reality contributes negatively to human equality, particularly gender-based human equality. The compelling feature that I came across, or rather which came into focus for me, was isolating the concept of the commodity being sold, and what it is sold for. The commodity is human bodies, and it is sold for physical gratification... consumption, after a fashion. It is peddled like a consumer good. I think this is harmful both to the consumer and to the consumed.

Should it be illegal?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Nigel; Really sorry if you addressed this already but it's midnight and there's 24 pages of conversation I haven't read, which, from a glance, look kind of painful to read.

I'm just really curious; you said your opinions have changed a lot in regards to sex work and said that that came from conversations here and your own research. I'm wondering what they changed FROM, what they changed TO, and what was the compelling feature that you came across that made that change happen?

When I came here, I believed that sex work can be empowering. I thought that sex work is simply providing a service that fills a need, and that it can be provided as a safe, sane, consensual exchange between equals.

Now, I believe that while under ideal circumstances the above would be true, those ideal circumstances are so unlikely as to contribute negligibly to the overall reality of sex work, and that sex work as it exists in reality contributes negatively to human equality, particularly gender-based human equality. The compelling feature that I came across, or rather which came into focus for me, was isolating the concept of the commodity being sold, and what it is sold for. The commodity is human bodies, and it is sold for physical gratification... consumption, after a fashion. It is peddled like a consumer good. I think this is harmful both to the consumer and to the consumed.

Should it be illegal?

It shouldn't be illegal, it should be unnecessary.

[hunter s.durden]

It shouldn't be illegal, it should be unnecessary.

Care to elaborate?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Like any vice, you can't legislate or enforce it out of existence. Plus, the more illegal you make it and the more harshly you enforce its prohibition, the more you contribute to the overall problem of disenfranchised people with nowhere to turn having to resort to extremely self-destructive behaviors just to survive.

The sex trade is ancient -- it's existed for as long as people have been able to trade things for other things. But in today's world it is largely a product of a culture that expects males to dominate females; a society that shuns sex as almost always dirty and invariably secret; and it is reinforced by the fact that we make it damn near impossible for anyone to make anything of their lives if they're not born into privilege and opportunity. All of those factors need to be eliminated just because they tend to make our society a shitty one to live in for millions of people.

The sex trade could be seriously reduced, if not eliminated, just by having a culture where women are equals instead of objects, where sex (in all of its consensual forms) is accepted as natural and healthy, and where opportunity is ubiquitous. If the sex trade were to survive cultural shifts like these, it would certainly be less of a trap and carry less of a stigma than it does now.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Nigel; Really sorry if you addressed this already but it's midnight and there's 24 pages of conversation I haven't read, which, from a glance, look kind of painful to read.

I'm just really curious; you said your opinions have changed a lot in regards to sex work and said that that came from conversations here and your own research. I'm wondering what they changed FROM, what they changed TO, and what was the compelling feature that you came across that made that change happen?

When I came here, I believed that sex work can be empowering. I thought that sex work is simply providing a service that fills a need, and that it can be provided as a safe, sane, consensual exchange between equals.

Now, I believe that while under ideal circumstances the above would be true, those ideal circumstances are so unlikely as to contribute negligibly to the overall reality of sex work, and that sex work as it exists in reality contributes negatively to human equality, particularly gender-based human equality. The compelling feature that I came across, or rather which came into focus for me, was isolating the concept of the commodity being sold, and what it is sold for. The commodity is human bodies, and it is sold for physical gratification... consumption, after a fashion. It is peddled like a consumer good. I think this is harmful both to the consumer and to the consumed.

Should it be illegal?

No.  Just because something's wrong doesn't mean it should be illegal.