Loyal Vassal · 23d
I’m back at it again with a random ass question!! I was thinking of writing a sex work plot recently, so I tried to do research on Reddit, but that of course brought me to a lot of odd radfem/Marxist feminist arguments against sex work at a fundamental level. Mainly arguing inequality and that paying=coercion, therefore paid sex=rape. I feel like these abstractions are not helpful, but I also feel like, very wary of in person sex work (as opposed to digital content creators) as the chance for exploitation is so high. Do you know of any arguments against this idea that paying=nonconsent? Whenever I google something like that, all that shows up is arguments in favor of that idea! Additionally, I see a lot of arguments to the tune of: egalitarian cultures and tribal cultures of the past did not have sex work, but I know for a fact from some of my anthro classes that is false. Additionally, I think even in a non-patriarchal world sex work would still have a disproportionate amount of men paying for sex with women due to biological factors (sex for women is a bit more dangerous and taxing, with risks of pregnancies and STDs being higher for cis women). Does this belief like…make me a ‘bad’ feminist? Am I craycray? Sorry!
I don't really feel qualified to answer the more specific aspects of this directly since it's quite a lot out of my range of knowledge! I've seen lots of contrasting stuff written and I can see where a lot of ppl r coming from. I guess if I were to give like my personal opinion, it's mostly ig a pragmatic one...rather than really debating whether or not "is Full Service Sex Work Moral or Feminist or Not" (seems to be the conundrum) I prefer to think "How can we best support sex workers?" I guess it's similar to how I personally approach "is Being A full time Mother Feminist or Not" is like, well while we debate it, how do u support the women working in that role right now. Maybe that's "short sighted" of me ideologically but it's something I think about a lot, that while the debate rages on Abt whether or not the Madonnas or the Whores are feministing enough, they still are very much existing and working (and are often the same woman!) and will continue to have needs regardless of ideological disgust with their positions . I haven't read much scholarly stuff on this, just anecdotal from ppl on here and some acquaintances, so I'm just firmly of the belief that we don't need to make sex workers' lives and control of their livelihoods harder even if it may be ideologically uncomfortable for some ppls personal codes
