Sex work will never go away. The only way forward is to make sure it can be done safely and legally.

Consider the sex workers who deal with mentally or physically disabled adults. Most people have sexual urges, and those who are unable to participate in society in the usual way of addressing their urges with a romantic partner or a one-night stand still have them. There are a good number of very professional sex workers out there who can provide these people with sex (often with specific expertise for the relevant handicaps) and generally significantly improve the wellbeing.

Are those sex workers doing something they shouldn't be doing?

Would you be happy if your daughter was a sex worker?

Think honestly about what this means for your view on this.

If she's safe, successful, healthy, and doing it of her own free will then why not be happy?

That would depend entirely on her circumstances. Is she a professional helping disabled people like my example above? That's laudable. A self-employed dominatrix with a select clientele? Sounds lucrative. A popular OnlyFans starlet just making some money on the side during her studies? Clever. Participating in explicit forms of BDSM porn? If she does so of her own volition, with the consent of all parties involved, for a fair pay and without lasting harm? Cool as long as she's working with professionals with a good reputation.

In all of those cases I would council her to the best of my abilities on safety and long-term planning, if she'd let me. And of course, as any parent, I would worry about her safety. But hey, I'd worry if she went paragliding or mountain climbing too.

Honestly, I would be more disappointed if she became a lawyer in the pocket of, say, Amazon or AirBnB. Or a politician for some extreme right political party.

Would I be happy if she was a sex worker in some seedy part of town with a pimp hovering over her? Of course not. But that is not dismissive of sex work as such, rather of exploitation and coercion. All of the examples above avoid that.

Well said, and unnecessarily downvoted for such a thoughtful comment.

Would I be happy if after the education I paid my daughters they decide to work in public sanitation?

Think honestly about it. Do you think I have anything against sanitation employees?

Bad comparison.

Public sanitation workers keep our society functioning, they're a cornerstone of civilization.

Online prostitution, on the other hand, ranges from providing 0 value, to extreme negative consequences, such as the current porn addiction epidemic, or the loneliness epidemic.

The GP, trying to show how 'bad' profession A was, was making the argument that the average HN reader would look badly on his progeny participating in profession A. I simply made the argument that the average HN reader would also look badly on his progeny doing profession B. Obviously, my point is not to throw shit on profession B but rather show that GP's argument simply does not work.

The fact that you think profession B > A only reinforces my point and shows, precisely, that GP's argument does not work.

Your moral compass is truly fucked. One makes a mess of their own life and contributes to making a mess of many other lives. The other cleans up messes.

> Are those sex workers doing something they shouldn't be doing?

You are asking a binary question for which there isn't a binary answer. Better to ask are those sex workers doing something they will get a pat on their backs for from other members of society? In a way a builder, chef, firefighter, and even a prison guard would.

Perhaps the lack of a "pat on the back" is society's fault.

Why? it’s so easy to make content

Well folks appreciate different things and to different degrees. Some are born with natural talents and others work hard for it. Regardless, folks generally get at least some respect for doing the work to produce things others appreciate. Stigmatizing OF work seems unfair when so much praise is heaped on creators and workers of all other kinds.

It is not unfair if it clashes with cultural values. It is like coming to HN, going against the majority sentiment, and expecting likes

For what? For opening your legs and getting paid for it? Without criminals and sleezy execs as clients prostitution would cease to exist. The edge cases mentioned before are tiny

I would like to see a future where people shouldn't have to do any work they don't enjoy to make ends meet. As far as I can see, working fast food (and many other badly paid service jobs) is not much different from prostitution, except in that there is no social stigma attached, and you earn much less.

> but prostitution is still degrading

Why? Especially compared to e.g. advertising/marketing? At least in the former case, all parties to the transaction are there voluntarily, for an honest, mutually beneficial exchange of value.

It's not "to make ends meet". OF work allows people with no skills to get income in line with the top 10th or even 1st percentile of the population.

Would you rather be flipping burgers all day for 30k or would you rather take a few nudes every week and make 300k?

I wouldn't be surprised to find out an absurd fraction of those 300k is just straight up money laundering. Who is actually gonna be able to verify the value of someone allegedly showing their tits to a whale at 3am? The fact this all passed through traditional financial networks with a clean and reportable earnings report at the end is just pure gold.

OF is like the wet dream of a drug dealer or whoever else with a baby momma and some kind of scam/fraud/counterfeit operation.

I agree with what you say but we know enough about youtubers and mobile gaming to safely assume that the numbers in this space are wild. I remember on Pewdiepie's first ever charity YouTube stream he was printing thousands per second via donos

But you can't compare with top performers in a power law / winner-takes-all setting. Comparing random youtubers or OF-ers to PewDiePie is like comparing the guy owning a fruit stand down the street to Jeff Bezos. Owns business, owns business; the same thing, right?

I agree that power laws are in play, but 1000 subs paying $10 a month is already a six figure income and 1000 users isn't a big number on the internet, especially when as TFA mentions you can go on reddit and advertise cosplays on subs that have audiences in the millions

1000 users isn't a big number. 1000 paying users is.

Who would have thought that all those big numbers in TV deals were actually underestimated by the billions. The general public is even more desperate/gullible than we ever considered possible. And OF and YT are just the beginning.

Source? Like all entertainment sold with near zero marginal cost, why should only fans work also not follow an extreme power law formula for compensation.

> prostitution is still degrading and dangerous for those practicing it, especially for the women;

degrading: no. I've met prostitutes who very much like their work and find it empowering

dangerous: ...yes, because it's illegal and they don't have access to proper legal protection.

> degrading: no. I've met prostitutes who very much like their work and find it empowering

It is called delusion

> It is called delusion

It's, of course, much better and far less delusional, to go flipping burgers for $30k which barely covers your housing, less alone food.

Or to go to the military to lose an arm and a leg, defending a just cause, of course.