And the porn industry seems designed to wash guilt. The directors just make films. The sites just host content. The viewers just watch content.

But in aggregate, this system creates a huge financial incentive to exploit anyone you can.

I'm all for regulation, if done in a non-puritanical, individual freedom-promoting way. People should be able to choose to be involved in producing porn. No one should feel forced into producing porn.

If we, as a society, aren't willing to ban porn (and I don't think we should), then we have a moral obligation to prevent workplace exploitation in its production via regulation, investigation, and social support resources.

Maybe the solution is to pursue a society where people are not so unequal that they feel tempted to degrade themselves for money? Maybe we should have minimum income to at least a level where everyone is capable of meeting basic needs, basically "fuck you money" for everyone.

IMHO doing obviously unethical work for money is also degrading and is much more common than porn. It's one thing if someone wants the money and doesn't care, but there are millions of people around the world in e.g. scam call centers that do this kind of work to stay out of the worst of the slums.

I know you propose it with a maybe and i do not mean to attack you. That said, it is so simplistic to think people only do degrading things because they need money, that if they had money it would not happen. I think we are so more gray than that.

"fuck you money" is undefined. I am pretty sure that there are people that do not care about the amount, they care how they are compared to their peers. Just for these people, arguably most people, your solution already fails.

The other simplification is the assertion that degradation is a universal concept and that the threshold is the same. This is extremely difficult to define and i am pretty sure a catholic priest's definition of degradation starts at anything else than marital sex. We can define something more liberal but then we need to take the great step of saying what is acceptable regarding one's sexuality. Seems to me most liberal societies decide to bail that discussion, just deciding that if you did it without coercion it is fine. I also find that position objectionable by the way, as there are work contracts which are by definition illegal(eg, a contract for work of more than 40 hours per week), and i do not see why we could not go further.

All and all, maybe giving these people social security, requirements for mental and physical tests, a subsidy for change of employment, could help lower the chance of unfair and dysfunctional societies. At the same time if someone wants to do, distribute or consume this stuff, then we get the benefit that the chain is legitimate. I think that is really worth it. Sex workers do really important social work.

Absolutely. The problem with sex work isn't that it's sex, but that it's work.

It's both. All wage labor is exploitative. But that doesn't mean all wage labor is equally abusive. Even without the cultural biases against sex work, there's a tangible difference in the vulnerability of selling intimacy.

I caught the pre-edit phrasing and agreed with it too. ;)

But agreed that the greater good would be looking at the structural facts that force people into unethical work and addressing those.

That observation has nothing to do with the porn industry. The agricultural and meat processing industries have been aware of this for centuries.

Its an avenue for people who consistently make bad decisions to monetize that trait.

Brutal take, but I would argue it's just as valid as the opposite take:

"People who helplessly fell through the cracks become victims of those preying on the weak"

In reality its a mix of both and would come down to arguing over which is more prevelant.