• captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I ain’t gonna judge how one chooses to sell their body, time, safety, health, etc. But we do need to treat sex workers like other workers and ensure they have safe working conditions and the freedom to leave their employment at will. Heck while we’re at it we should extend it to agricultural labor too

    • RoquetteQueen@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Farm workers in Ontario, Canada are not entitled to:

      • minimum wage
      • daily and weekly limits on hours of work
      • daily rest periods
      • time off between shifts
      • weekly/bi-weekly rest periods
      • eating periods
      • three-hour rule (if you show up for work and are sent home before you’ve been there for three hours, most jobs are required to pay you for three hours)
      • overtime pay
      • public holidays or public holiday pay
      • vacation with pay
      • Fogle@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        Are you suggesting we don’t give it to sex workers because farmers don’t have it or we give it to farmers too.

        Technically I think most farmers are their own business so if they want to have holidays off they can. The alternative is state run farms which I support fully and completely.

        • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          Think they were referring to the last sentence from the comment they replied to:

          Heck while we’re at it we should extend it to agricultural labor too

          So most definitely just supporting agricultural workers rights.

          Technically I think most farmers are their own business so if they want to have holidays off they can

          Only 47% are self employed actually, and 30% are temporary foreign workers that can get screwed pretty bad

          • Fogle@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            Only 47% are self employed

            Does this count family members?

        • RoquetteQueen@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          I’m just saying what farm workers don’t get. Farm workers and sex workers both deserve better than they get. This is specifically for people employed on farms and not for people who own farm businesses. Most of our food is grown by people making less than minimum wage. The people who own the farms aren’t the ones doing most of the work.

    • CarlCook@feddit.de
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      9 months ago

      Especially agricultural work, as there is equally as much (sexual) exploitation happening!

    • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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      9 months ago

      I feel people who equalise sex work with other jobs downplay (immensely) the toll sex work has on the majority of sex workers.

      It is really not comparable to construction work or any other job. Even in countries were sex work has long been legalised, there is no other job, by a long shot, which has so many people suffering from PTSD, drug and alcohol abuse.

      • JamesFire@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        To be blunt, that’s not at all relevant to the fact that they should have the same rights as everyone else if they do choose to do it.

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          That’s why I was not saying they shouldn’t have the same rights as everybody else. But instead I said what I said?! That this type of comparisons to other jobs downplays in my opinion that sex work is not just like any other job.

      • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Are you aware of any sources specifically evaluating participation in sex work as a causal factor in mental and substance disorders (as opposed to sex work represented more prominently in populations already affected)?

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          Yes, this study corrected for reports of CSA, lower income, etc. in people who are drug addicts. For those who are additionally sex workers they found:

          increased rates of mental and physical health problems (eg, suicide attempts, anxiety, STDs, and bloodborne infections) and use of some health services (eg, emergency department visits for women and mental health services for men)

          https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/482625#SEC2

          There aren’t many studies done which correct for mental health issues before someone starts as a sex worker. Even less which achieve a long-term study over a cohort of sex workers where not ~80 % can’t be found anymore for various reasons.

          But there are a few on how to protect the Johns sex workers from STDs. I leave the interpretation of this inbalance in research to you. :-)

          • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            If two effects are correlated, then three possible causal relationships are possible.

            A first effect may cause the second, or the second may cause the first, or a so-called third variable may cause both.

            It is possible that an individual who has been afflicted by certain difficulties is more likely to participate in sex work.

            It is also possible that individuals from certain populations are more likely to participate in sex work, and also, due to being associated with the population, are also more likely to be afflicted by certain difficulties.

            Both possibilities must be considered as alternative to sex work causing such difficulties, to explain the correlation.

            • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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              9 months ago

              I do know how correlation works. The study above shows that, when you correct for previous mental health issues, for lower socioeconomic status, low income, drug abuse, etc. sex work increases various mental and physical health risks and mortality.

              • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                Right. The remaining possibility is the third variable. Membership in certain populations may be associated with increased likelihood of becoming a sex worker and also of experiencing difficulties that you are suggested are caused directly by being a sex worker. Such difficulties may appear after someone has become a sex worker, even while having an independence cause.

                • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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                  9 months ago

                  Sure, but that is true for ever job then. An unknown and hidden confounding factor explaining job choice and the problems of the job can always exist.

                  Police officer or fire fighter aren’t actually dangerous. It is simply that people who are more likely to make bad decisions that get them killed also are those that choose to be police officer or fire fighters.

                  Burnout does not affect teachers with higher probability than it affects hairdressers. It is because people who get burnouts are also the people who choose to be teachers.

      • uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 months ago

        Um, law enforcement comes to mind.

        Not to say PTSD and unhealthy coping problems aren’t a valod concern, but if we’re going to try to reduce jobs based on how taxing they are on the human psyche, there are a number of fields that are respected that also qualify.

        Off the top of my head, schoolteacher and service industry worker. Cooks amd wait staff.

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          No, apparently not even war veterans have similar high rates of PTSD.

          For sources you can look here, for example: https://bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12905-017-0491-y

          Or here: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-459170/v1.pdf

          When you consider that even in countries like Germany it’s almost exclusively poor women from other countries, often single mothers and/or already with mental health issues, who do sex work, I think it’s very naive to believe the job is the same like flipping burgers or construction work. Or that these issues only stem from stigma and working conditions.

          • Syrc@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Unless I missed them, I don’t see comparisons to war veterans, at most the second one compares them to civilian survivors.

            In any case, I don’t think anyone is questioning the fact that sex workers need way safer working conditions, it was the very point of the first commenter. “Treating them like other workers” was meant in a good sense, as they’re currently treated worse.

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          These jobs don’t come close, though. They also don’t attract primarily people who are already poor and mentally unwell to put them into a situation hard to leave that further increases their problems.

      • Sklrtle@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        That’s the point, isn’t it? If the term wasn’t specifically coined for this, it’s been long used to shame sex workers. Which is sort of funny, considering all labor involves selling your body in some form or another.

        • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I am not following your explanation. The phrasing is extremely unclear.

          The idiom is at least somewhat derisive, both historically and intrinsically.

          • Sklrtle@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Like I said, that is the point of the idiom. It’s historically been used specifically towards sex work in a derogatory fashion.

            However the reality of the phrase, “selling your body,” is that it’s true for all labor. One could argue it is especially true when it comes to something like construction work, which can be very hard on your body and impart long term health effects.

            I think there’s plenty of use in taking an idiom that’s been used to harm others and flipping it back the other direction.

            • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              The idiom is not “true”, or false, for particular varieties of labor.

              An idiom carries the meaning understood from broader usage patterns.

              Your analysis is not particularly accurate, that the intrinsic content of the phrase describes particular labor better than other, especially in the way you have argued.

              At any rate, sex work is the context of the discussion, and how the phrase was employed specifically, from which my objection was raised.

              As such your emphasis may seem to be misdirection, perhaps seeking pedantry or virtue signaling, more than engagement that is honest and substantive.

              • Sklrtle@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                Good lord, you must be fun at parties.

                I’m well aware of what an idiom is and how they’re used. I understand that traditionally the phrase, “selling your body,” is employing the idiom that means to engage in sex work. I also understand that this is what you’re referring in the initial comment I replied to. I understand the idiom itself doesn’t refer to other forms of labor because that’s not how idioms work.

                My point is that if you take the literal phrase “selling your body,” you can very easily construe it to be just as true about any labor. Like I said, I’d argue this point is illustrated particularly well manual labor. You are commodifying the physical use of your body to achieve a task, often at a heavy cost to your body if done in the long term.

                This is not me changing the context of the discussion. I’d very much argue that this is actually a very useful point to make in the context of sex work. We are taking an idiom that has been historically used to harm people, and deconstructing it. The intent being to point out how sex workers aren’t any more, “selling their body” than people in other forms of socially accepted work.

                Again I understand the idiom refers specifically to sex work, but if we deconstruct it we can use it to point out a hypocracy in the thought process of those using it.

                • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  This is not me changing the context of the discussion.

                  We are taking an idiom that has been historically used to harm people, and deconstructing it.

                  You were deconstructing the idiom, and in doing so, you were erasing the context.

                  The comment that initially invoked the idiom employed it as a reference to sex work, following the original usage of the idiom, which is understood stigmatically.

                  I raised an alarm, and indeed, an exceedingly mild one, but instead of meeting my remarks on their merits, you preferred to engage in pedantry and virtue signaling, by attacking a straw man.

                  More, no one sells one’s body, taken as the “literal phrase”.

                  You can’t do it. You can sell a car, a house, the shirt off your back, but everyone has exactly one body through life. I have mine and you have yours.

                  It is not particularly meaningful to analyze which labor is described accurately versus not by the phrase of the idiom, because the phrase has no coherent literal meaning. Hence, the phrase is understood only idiomatically.

        • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          It would be a more direct and accurate metaphor, though of course still potentially stigmatizing for the same reasons.

          Unfortunately, others are often unwilling to engage thoughtfully or sensibly.

          They lurk on the shadows, ready to pounce on a straw man, in order that they may claim they slew Goliath.

          Their tactics are successful in the same way as clickbait.

  • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    I believe that all work under capitalism is coercive and workers do not fully consent to wage labor. Sex work is work under capitalism, therefore many sex workers are not fully consenting during sex due to the coercive nature of capitalism. Sex without full consent of both participants is rape.

    • InputZero@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      workers do not fully consent to wage labor

      This right here! Okay so to consent to something you need to be reasonably informed. There is no such thing as perfect knowledge so the standard is what a reasonable person (the legal definition, not the colloquial one). I’ll bet you that very few people are actually reasonably informed when we take and work out jobs. How much value does your individual labour add to the economy? Not what you’re paid, how much money does your work make total? Do any of us know, or even have an idea? We negotiate away our labour without knowing what that labour is actually worth. Worse than that, the person who does know will never tell you because they also pay you and it’s not in their interests to tell you how much your worth.

      Workers do not fully consent to wage labour because we literally can’t. We’re giving concent without being informed, any other aspect of civil society that would be a crime. For employment it’s just the way it goes.

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        This is one part of it. I also think it’s important to think about how all labor under capitalism is coerced under the implicit threat of starvation and homelessness. Decisions made under duress cannot count as full consent.

        • IndefiniteBen@leminal.space
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          9 months ago

          ALL labour? I don’t think someone getting their job as CEO in a 4th company is choosing that job to avoid starvation.

  • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    If sex work is bad because a woman’s sexuality should be saved for her husband,
    And if the husband’s role is to provide work in turn for his wife’s sexual access,
    And if being gay is bad,

    What does it make you when you go work for another man?

  • essell@beehaw.org
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    9 months ago

    Meh. That’s not inevitable. Some jobs are empowering, constructive and contributing.

  • jackpot@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    sex work should be banned cause the ‘clients’ are rapists, all work is coerced