I moderate a handful of self-titled "social justice warrior" chatrooms, which are full of everyone from libertarian socialists to anarcho-communists. I'm reasonably aware of various strands of feminism. I've been having a discussion on the morality of sex work for much of today.
Sex work is immoral for the same reasons other work is immoral. It's not a special case, and shouldn't really be treated much differently. If you want to protect the sex worker from the necessity of performing their work, you should be similarly protecting the minimum wage retail clerk from the necessity of performing their work. Neither is worse than the other, and they have similar solutions.
Even under capitalism, purchasing e.g. food for your family that was somehow acquired under coercive circumstances is still less shameful than purchasing e.g. diamonds that were somehow acquired under coercive circumstances. What you're purchasing matters; it's not all the same.
The solution is to get rid of the system which is coercive. It's not to tell everybody who ever wanted to buy a television not to within the context of capitalism.
The purchase of sex inherently demeans and degrades another human being because it places one's own sexual gratification over another person's bodily autonomy.
I'm a contractor, and I get to choose my clients. If I don't want to work with someone, I don't. Why would it be "inherently" demeaning in sex work, if they got to choose their clients and there were better protection and regulation?
Why is it an implementation issue with your TV purchase, and an inherent issue with sex work? I don't follow the logic.
TL;DR no prostitute can "choose" a john that isn't going to sexually exploit her (and thus violate her human rights) because that's the nature of purchasing sex.
A direct quote TL;DR
Does the 'right to prostitute' exist?' Clearly prostitution cannot exist as a right because it usurps and negates already established human rights of the prostitute woman to human dignity, bodily integrity, physical and mental well-being...Human rights are universal and inalienable. They cannot be reduced to the instrumentality of individual choice alone because individual choice can and does include the right to harm or propagate harm on others or inflict harm on oneself.
There are people in the sex industry who enjoy their industry. There were no people on the receiving end of the holocaust who enjoyed that.
If you can't grasp the difference you should not try to discuss anything.
You think prostitution is not a violation of human rights. I do. It's pretty much that simple. But clearly what specific individuals used to think about freedom from slavery, or the right of Jewish people to exist, or the right to basic dignity and access to food and livelihood, has no bearing on whether or not these things are human rights. They just are.
It's morally acceptable to sell a service but not to purchase it? That's asinine.
The "economic transaction" model is in almost all cases a fig leaf for the abuse of women, even in jurisdictions where prostitution has been legalized or decriminalized.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/sex/i-clutche...
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/pdf/Prostitutionin9Count...
"Just-so stories," k bud. Tell yourself whatever lies you need to in order to condone johns and pimps; I can't stop you.
This isn't germane to the issue, which is that purchasing sex is a reprehensible act. However, there is indeed a strong strain of anti-capitalist thought in radical feminism; it surprises me that you don't know this.
> Also, I assume you don't actually mean bodies, as that would imply you're similarly against non-sexual modelling, acting, etc etc, where people employ people directly for their bodies, to varying degrees.
I meant literally their bodies, not images of their bodies, or actions that their bodies perform. I meant direct access to their mouths, rectums, vaginas for the purpose of sexual gratification. I suppose if purchasing that kind of access had other purposes besides sexual gratification, "sex" wouldn't seem like such a special case.