I was talking about sex workers. The ones you're not listening to.

Edit: Specifically, if the goal is to help sex workers who want help, the solution is... to help sex workers who want help. It's to perform research into the barriers to seeking help, and try to remove those barriers. It's not to prevent consensual trade between a person who has few issues with their job, and someone seeking their services.

If, on the other hand, the goal is to eradicate sex work against the wishes of those sex workers for reasons of morality, punishing people who participate in it is a wonderful idea.

The goal is to eradicate sex work for reasons of "morality," exactly how the slavery abolition movement had no other reasons besides "morality."

OK. Exactly what about sex work is immoral, when the sex worker can choose their clients? Is it that sex is inherently something special that other work isn't?

The sex workers aren't the ones whose moral choice is in question here; the sex purchasers are the ones who should feel shame and whose behavior is for society to condone or to curtail. Slaves weren't the bad actors in that peculiar institution, either.

You're missing the question. Slavery is immoral because it's immoral to curtail the rights of people indefinitely.

Which rights does consensual sex work curtail?

The right of a person to not have sexual access to their body be reduced to the object of purchase with the purpose to gratify a person who holds economic power over them. Purchasing sex is an abuse of power.

This isn't really an opt-out right; surely there are people who would "consent" to situations of slavery or apartheid. This doesn't mean we should make those things legal.

That's a very specific right, and very very based in a specific morality, isn't it? There's certainly a good many people who don't think sex is as magical or special a thing as you obviously do. Many think of sex work as nothing more special than being expected to perform labour for several hours a day for a pittance.

No, it's not based in any other morality than having bodily autonomy free from exploitation.

If you want to disambiguate it from sex, consider whether someone should be able to sell (and thus another person to buy) an organ.

Then consider that the demand for purchasing sex massively outstrips the demand for purchasing organs.

Selling an organ implies the loss of something necessary for a full life. Not having an organ results in shortened lifespan and lower quality of life. If you could grow back the organ in a matter of seconds, we wouldn't have an issue with it. It'd be sore and likely physically demanding, but so's a lot of work.

Selling sex doesn't imply the loss of anything.

> Selling sex doesn't imply the loss of anything.

Literally thousands upon thousands of current and former prostitutes disagree.

And literally thousands and thousands of current and former sex workers agree. They have conferences, and industry groups, they lobby Governments, they have systems by which they can ensure the safety of themselves and each other and pick out their own clients. This isn't the situation of somebody who was trafficked half-way across the world and forced into sex slavery.

The solution is not to make sex work illegal, or to make seeking it illegal. It's to help the people who don't want to be performing sex work. It's to give them food, and shelter, and training to re-enter the job market. But that's expensive, and it's difficult to explain to people with Christian moralities about sex why you'd allow people to perform sex work if they wanted to.

Which is to say, it's about imposing morality. You want to force these people into options they've already decided are worse than having sex for money because you're more comfortable with them earning money that way, and your moral judgement is more important than their freedom.

No, I want men to stop thinking that exploiting the economic and social disadvantages of women is an acceptable way to get sex. Because I'm a decent human being and would like other men to be decent human beings.

WTF, you're so ridiculously one-sided about this in both thought and action. It seems you dont know what decent means either. Stop thinking you know better for the entire industry.