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The accepted use of the term "sex worker" instead of prostitute. Tell me if/why my stance on this is wrong.
- Thread starter DragoonKain
- Start date
Mistake
Member
The only reason why sex worker is used is to remove any stigmatization involving sex. It falls under the umbrella of the body positivity movement, much to the detriment of public health.
But seeing as it's one of those things people are going to do anyway, it might as well be regulated. Like a brothel. Then you know there are certain standards and regular testing
But seeing as it's one of those things people are going to do anyway, it might as well be regulated. Like a brothel. Then you know there are certain standards and regular testing
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simpatico
Member
I would say we learned our lesson about sex work much like we did about slavery. Maybe some open minded youngsters will give it another go in the coming years.
E-Cat
Member
I think the stigmatization of sex work is due to the risk of STDs. The moral reasoning is just after the fact to make it more digestible for the masses
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Without trying to read your mind, I think the majority of your issues with this terminology come from personal feelings and annoyance about your language being policed, not actual logic surrounding definitions and linguistic utility.
"Work" at its most basic definition is exchanging labor/time for money or some other form of compensation. Legality or the wholesome nature factor of that work is not relevant to the inherent definition. Legality is also subjectively objective, depending merely on the jurisdiction you happen to be under. Danger factor is also variable depending on how it is practiced.
simpatico
Member
It can destroy family life too. The family structure gave men a reason to work and hold up the societal contract. Without that you're left with rampant hypergamy, which we're starting to see the effects of now with men just dropping out. STDs are really the least of my concerns with it.
DragoonKain
Neighbours from Hell
This is accurate I'd say. I have more issue with the policing of language than the term sex worker in itself. I don't take offense to it. Like I mentioned in the OP I prefer prostitute and it's my choice, but I don't get mad when people use sex worker. There are people who do take issue with the use of prostitute though. But maybe I should just not pay them any mind and treat them with the same level of neglect like I do when people take issue with the term fat.
Sounds a bit puritan tbh, if you're trying to blame modern issues on it then you're turning away from the facts that prostitution and other forms of sex work have been around since the dawn of time no matter how much people have tried to ban it or make it illegal. It's just one of those time old traditions, some people want sex, some people sell it, some people will buy it.
nush
Member
FunkMiller
Member
This is categorically not true, and I'm not sure how you could arrive at such a supposition?
simpatico
Member
Which one did I overlook?
Roll Fizzlebeef
Member
Its what the word implies that makes the importance and that cant simply be changed with censorship. Its the same reason trying to change the R word is useless. Special, challenged, handicapped.. So you use a new word, people(mostly kids) start using it as the insult instead. now you have new offensive words that are taboo, and create a new "correct" word.. the cycle will continue
FunkMiller
Member
Are you saying that cultures have supressed data on prostitution? Because a very quick search on Google proves that this is not the case.
Or are you saying cultures have supressed prostitution itself? Because that's not true, either.
simpatico
Member
Not suppressed data, but decided that it was a good thing to disallow it. Either legally or just with social shame. I'm sure we can find some poorly developed places that didn't have the structure to do it, but lets give 1980 as an example. How many developed countries were embracing legal prostitution in 1980?
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Very true, but to put that into context, there are probably zero people who use the term "sex worker" pejoratively, whereas there are a non-zero amount of people who use the term "prostitute" pejoratively. If your conversational partner has no idea how you specifically are using the term, then they're probably going to make assumptions based on the most common ways people use those words in conversation.
Bring Back Scalebound
Banned
It takes so long for conservative people to get to the point, because they spend the first paragraphs doing this phony attempt at fairness... It's so boring.
You can summarize this post with "Prostitutes are disgusting people, and are corrupting their femininity, therefore prostitution is evil". With your obligatory inclusion of "It affects men badly", without showing an alternative, or considering why sex workers exist in the first place. But that would require actually caring about men, instead of using them for a trojan horse.
Is just your same BORING insecure whining about non-pure women, slut-shaming shit that everyone has heard of already.
But again, always followed by a wall of phony fluff, to make it sound more nuanced then it is.
And if that's what you believe, that's fine.
Writing an essay about a group of people that have zero impact on your life, seems really unhealthy, but whatever, do what you want.
I call them sex-workers because prostitutes and escorts sounds stupid and outdated to me. And sex-workers is way more accurate of name for what they do.
You can summarize this post with "Prostitutes are disgusting people, and are corrupting their femininity, therefore prostitution is evil". With your obligatory inclusion of "It affects men badly", without showing an alternative, or considering why sex workers exist in the first place. But that would require actually caring about men, instead of using them for a trojan horse.
Is just your same BORING insecure whining about non-pure women, slut-shaming shit that everyone has heard of already.
But again, always followed by a wall of phony fluff, to make it sound more nuanced then it is.
And if that's what you believe, that's fine.
Writing an essay about a group of people that have zero impact on your life, seems really unhealthy, but whatever, do what you want.
I call them sex-workers because prostitutes and escorts sounds stupid and outdated to me. And sex-workers is way more accurate of name for what they do.
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John Marston
GAF's very own treasure goblin
The girls I've seen in the past couldn't care less what I called them as long as that enveloppe was on my coffee table when they arrived 
West Texas CEO
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
John Marston
GAF's very own treasure goblin
That always bothers me in TV or movies when the John pays the girl last just before leaving.
Hollywood needs to hire whore whisperers.
Hollywood needs to hire whore whisperers.
nush
Member
That's actually accurate in some places.
OverHeat
« generous god »
DragoonKain
Neighbours from Hell
I'm not a conservative. Speaking of phony, you just made up an entire narrative about the "real meaning" behind my take to fit your baseless projection about me. Not a single thing you projected there is a shred of what I believe or feel about women and/or prostitutes.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
I forsee a future in consulting for me!
John Marston
GAF's very own treasure goblin
Please explain to me like a 5 year old how this practice benefits the ladies.
West Texas CEO
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
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Dirk Benedict
Gold Member
Truly a man who knows how to divide his time wisely.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
After watching people share their eatables at public restaurants. I’d be in total favor of decriminalizing sex work.
FunkMiller
Member
Puritans trying not to sound puritan by using a hundred words when two will do will never not be funny to me. Bless them for thinking they’re getting away with it.
Anyway, legalised prostitution has been a roaring, positive success in New South Wales.
https://www.eswalliance.org/decriminalisation_improves_health_wellbeing_2022_scoping_review
There is no good reason, if you’re not of a religious persuasion, to keep prostitution illegal.
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Cyberpunkd
Member
Prostitution is not illegal in a lot of countries, what is illegal is making profit out of it, and most of the time this is still restricted to third parties (to not let women be forced by their "pimps" into providing sex services).1) It's consensual. It's two people mutually agreeing to exchange money for pleasure. This makes it different from drugs, which are illegal and also have severe health consequences. Ummm... prostitution is also illegal, so that argument isand prostitution also has severe health consequences so that argument is also
As for health consequences - chances are you are much more likely to get an STD from a hoe you met in the club than from an escort, since any STD is a direct threat to her income.
Mr Reasonable
Completely Unreasonable
Presumably the people doing the work?
West Texas CEO
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
"Working Girl" is another term.
clem84
Gold Member
I'm just curious if the one tasked with housekeeping was happy about it, or felt offended in some way?
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thefool
Member
OP this is simply language codification to try to normalize deviant behaviors. You'll see this everywhere these days, you change the language to normalize a behavior and then reconfigure the overton window.
Legal prostitution raises human trafficking rates and makes it much harder to prosecute.
op.europa.eu
This EU report has a summary of a few other studies about the subject
Legal prostitution raises human trafficking rates and makes it much harder to prosecute.
National Legislation on Prostitution and the Trafficking in Women and Children | Think Tank | European Parliament
National Legislation on Prostitution and the Trafficking in Women and Children
www.europarl.europa.eu
EconPapers: The Law and Economics of International Sex Slavery: Prostitution Laws and Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation
By Niklas Jakobsson and Andreas Kotsadam; Abstract: International trafficking in humans for sexual exploitation is an economic activity driven by profit motives, and up
econpapers.repec.org
The Relationship between Prostitution Laws and Sex Trafficking: Theory and Evidence on Scale, Substitution, and Replacement Effects
Sex trafficking is a pervasive problem in many parts of the world. This study investigates the relationship between different types of prostitution laws and the
papers.ssrn.com
The differing EU Member States’ regulations on prostitution and their cross-border implications on women’s rights - Publications Office of the EU
This Study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the FEMM Committee – after assessing the state-of-the-art of prostitution regulations in EU MSs and the current situation of sex trafficking and related data...
op.europa.eu
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FunkMiller
Member
National Legislation on Prostitution and the Trafficking in Women and Children | Think Tank | European Parliament
National Legislation on Prostitution and the Trafficking in Women and Childrenwww.europarl.europa.eu
This article debunks the research methodology of these articles:
https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com...-does-it-increase-or-decrease-sex-trafficking
The research you cite appears to be bad.
The Relationship between Prostitution Laws and Sex Trafficking: Theory and Evidence on Scale, Substitution, and Replacement Effects
Sex trafficking is a pervasive problem in many parts of the world. This study investigates the relationship between different types of prostitution laws and thepapers.ssrn.com
increases in the prevalence of trafficking that are caused by growth of the overall market for prostitution.
From the conclusion to this article:
Let me guess, you didn't spend any time researching papers that showed the benefits of legalised prostitution (of which there are many), and just jumped on these articles after a quick Google search, because you thought they appeared to support your preconceived notions of how bad prostitution is, and people's 'deviant behaviour?'
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thefool
Member
If you had actually looked what i posted, instead of trying to google an half-ass reply, you would have noticed that all of the studies I posted are actually from the systematic review of the section 5.1 of the Publications Office of the European Union Report. But perhaps the EU author assessment from such studies are also not good enough for you. To be fair, I was not expecting you to lack even the most basic understanding of research to bring blog opinions to try to discredit academic studies, and worse, cite studies limitations to try to discredit their conclusions.
I understand its hard to cope with reality and your preconceived notion has been shattered, but all the data points that legalization is not a good solution. Even a layman would understand that making the attack surface bigger will only create a bigger problem.
As for the deviant behavior, i would suggest you to simply open an history book.
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clem84
Gold Member
The OP's point was about semantics. Prostitution means something very specific. Money in exchange for real life sex. It is the correct term IMO.
Isn't it interesting that this stigma happened by itself? I'm sure that originally when someone came up with the word 'prostitution', the goal was not to stigmatize the activity, but to simply come up with a word to refer to it. The stigma happened because naturally, human beings know that it is problematic behavior that can lead to lots of bad stuff.
After googling a bit, it's not so clear to me that keeping it illegal is preferable. Laws are not meant to be perfect. Laws are passed because they will help society in some way. If the data showed that decriminalizing it is preferable, I would have zero problem with that. But this doesn't remove the personal cost that the prostitutes/sex workers will have to pay.
They open themselves up to violence from their customers or pimp, to the possibility of being human trafficked, increased likelihood of STD, of drug use, as well as a myriad of negative physical and psychological effects on their bodies. But hey you know, we should remove the social stigma around it because it's such a wholesome activity. Yeah, no thanks. The stigma serves a purpose.
I also find it interesting that the more that western societies seem to not value the family structure as they used to, the more these arguments seem to pop up. It's easy to have a callous attitude about prostitution when you have no skin in the game. If you're a father, you don't want your daughter to grow up in a world where prostitution is 100% legal, you want to keep her away from the bad stuff at any cost. It has nothing to do with religion.
Isn't it interesting that this stigma happened by itself? I'm sure that originally when someone came up with the word 'prostitution', the goal was not to stigmatize the activity, but to simply come up with a word to refer to it. The stigma happened because naturally, human beings know that it is problematic behavior that can lead to lots of bad stuff.
After googling a bit, it's not so clear to me that keeping it illegal is preferable. Laws are not meant to be perfect. Laws are passed because they will help society in some way. If the data showed that decriminalizing it is preferable, I would have zero problem with that. But this doesn't remove the personal cost that the prostitutes/sex workers will have to pay.
They open themselves up to violence from their customers or pimp, to the possibility of being human trafficked, increased likelihood of STD, of drug use, as well as a myriad of negative physical and psychological effects on their bodies. But hey you know, we should remove the social stigma around it because it's such a wholesome activity. Yeah, no thanks. The stigma serves a purpose.
I also find it interesting that the more that western societies seem to not value the family structure as they used to, the more these arguments seem to pop up. It's easy to have a callous attitude about prostitution when you have no skin in the game. If you're a father, you don't want your daughter to grow up in a world where prostitution is 100% legal, you want to keep her away from the bad stuff at any cost. It has nothing to do with religion.
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Lets just call these whores whores please.
Same goes for strippers, only fans whores, escorts, sugar babies, and anyone who accepts money/favors/gifts in exchange for sex. W.H.O.R.E. Pronounced HORE.
Same goes for strippers, only fans whores, escorts, sugar babies, and anyone who accepts money/favors/gifts in exchange for sex. W.H.O.R.E. Pronounced HORE.
thefool
Member
This news report has a first hand account of exactly what you describe. Women keep being abused, only now that falls under a very obscure legality. Pimps become entrepreneurs, and the asymmetrical legislation worldwide makes it that trafficking flocks to these places
It represents a moral decay that, also as you said, is absurdly hypocritical.
The 2021 EU report suggests that countries should limit penalizing women but criminalize the clients (this is already the legal framework of several countries), which is the sort of middle of the road solution that imo still leaves a lot to abuse but its still better than transforming countries into brothels.
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Bojji
Member
Vast majority of prostitutes I have encountered were super chill and positive persons. They didn't look abused or anything and if topic of this kind of work was discussed, what I learned is they wanted to do this kind of work and some even liked it very much (pleasure + money).
This is pretty accurate ^
"Sad, depressed prostitute" is simply not true most of the time. When prostitution is legal most of the women doing it are choosing to do it for various reasons. People that don't know any woman doing this kind of work are now experts on how bad legal prostitution is, hahaha.
This is pretty accurate ^
"Sad, depressed prostitute" is simply not true most of the time. When prostitution is legal most of the women doing it are choosing to do it for various reasons. People that don't know any woman doing this kind of work are now experts on how bad legal prostitution is, hahaha.
SF Kosmo
Al Jazeera Special Reporter
I don't think it's really a matter of stigma, I think the term was popularized because it's much broader/more inclusive. Sex workers aren't all prostitutes, the term includes everything from Onlyfans models, strippers, dominatrices, cam girls, anything involving using their bodies or sexuality to make money.
When people want to euphemistically refer to women who have sex for money in a less stigmatized they usually say "escort" or whatever. Sex workers is broader.
When people want to euphemistically refer to women who have sex for money in a less stigmatized they usually say "escort" or whatever. Sex workers is broader.
SF Kosmo
Al Jazeera Special Reporter
It takes its toll on the vast majority of people doing it, unless they're in a position where they can afford to be discriminating, and don't really need the money, which is not many people in that line of work.
Like yes, the mere act of collecting money after sex or having sex with strangers is not inherently traumatic, but being in a situation where you have to have sex with people you would never choose to because you have to put food on the table is something that fucks you up.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
Prohibitionism doesn't reduce human trafficking... We have prohibition here in the US and we're a MAJOR hub for sex trafficking victims. No state in the union has legalized prostitution... There's a city or two that has in Nevada and they seem to be safe there.