@Kitty62862 @Virusb23 I think most women can agree that we get the most attention, catcalling, street harassment etc. from men when we're between the ages of about 14-16. And the men are almost always much, much older.

I think it really needs to be talked about more than it is.

@Museek @Virusb23 Yeah, agreed on all counts.

FYI I'm completely supportive of decriminalizing sex work, and dislike how trafficking is used as an excuse to write laws that punish consenting adults. That said, no one who is under age should be in sex work, and certainly no one who doesn't want to be (of any age!).

@malice @Virusb23

Agree entirely

@Museek @Virusb23 @malice See? I have a different take on that. I feel like until we completely, 100% destroy misogyny & have complete financial and social equality to men? We will never really be able to say that sex work is 100% completely and fully 2 consenting adults as long as one of them is female.

For example, if as a woman I can only expect to make 74 cents on the dollar in the "legitimate" workforce as a man can make, there is always going to be a market force pushing me towards ->

@malice @Virusb23 @Museek -> the "illegitimate" workforce of sex work in some form. (Indeed, some people would say that both men and women also would go so far as to even *marry* not just for love, but also for financial support nowadays due to cost of living being so high!)

If a person can talk themselves into consenting to marriage as a lifetime commitment, how many women are talking themselves into being "consenting adults" going into the sex work trade? I'd wager it's a non-zero number.

@Museek @Virusb23 @malice Sorry, not trying to be a thread killer, just always a thought I've had about true consent and societal forces.

@AvaSpeaksUp @malice @Virusb23

excellent points I hadn’t considered.

I was just thinking that government has no business involving itself in peoples’ sex lives unless someone is being harmed ... so i am pretty hands off where that is concerned .. as long as they are consenting adults, i feel it is their business, not mine or the government’s but I can see how if it were legalized then there would be additional issues.

@Museek @Virusb23 @malice I just don't know how you could 100% adjust for that market force. Perhaps full legalization, but keep men 100% out of the business. If it is fully owned, operated & all profits are realized by women, then maybe that equalizes it enough? I'm not sure if even that is enough.

@AvaSpeaksUp @malice @Virusb23 @Museek

No one solution to the problem of human trafficking is around, but I think prostitution legalization is a heck of a lot better than what we have now.

@AvaSpeaksUp @malice @Virusb23

Having worked with victims in the past, i can’t imagine amy healthy person wanting to go into that line of work but they must have their reasons..

I really hadn’t considered this, much. I don’t particularly like it but it fulfills a need in society.

@Museek
Honestly, I can't either. But I can't think of too many jobs we force a psych eval before we hire a person to do it. Cops and who else? And a hooker (I hope) isn't carrying a gun.

@Virusb23 @malice

@Museek @Virusb23 @malice @AvaSpeaksUp They don't seem to have this problem in Europe. Sex is normal. You can buy sex toys in the supermarket, and you can arrange a visit with a sex worker who is regulated by health authorities.

@AlphaCentauri @malice @Virusb23 @Museek

I'd like to interview them & see long term social studies on them. Find out where they came from & compare financial conditions of that area compared to financial conditions in the area where they now work. I'd like to compare their long term mental and physical health to people with similar demographic features. I'd especially love to study things like self esteem, drug use & long term relationships in sex workers in a less repressive country.

@AlphaCentauri @AvaSpeaksUp @malice @Virusb23 @Museek In 1996 I installed a 1.2 meter steerable satellite dish on my house in London, and began to watch TV channels from all over Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. I also found NFL feeds into Europe.
One thing that rapidly became apparent was that in most of Northern Europe, sex has been normalized. They get up, they go to work, they come home from work, they have sex...they see sex as normal, not a Dangerous Topic.

@gshevlin @Museek @Virusb23 @malice @AvaSpeaksUp
Thank you, Calvinists, for the US/UK tradition that anything that is pleasurable lead one straight to hell.

@AlphaCentauri @gshevlin @Museek @Virusb23 @malice @AvaSpeaksUp
Again I remind my dear friends that "Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial."

@AvaSpeaksUp @Museek @Virusb23 Saying that adult women cannot consent to sex work is extremely infantilizing. I know a lot of people in the sex work industry who are totally normal, healthy people. I did a research paper on sex work in college, and was stunned to find exactly ZERO major studies in the US about sex work that didn't focus on drugs, abuse, underage prostitution, or trafficking. The information is literally just not out there. So of course everyone has a skewed view.

@Virusb23 @Museek @AvaSpeaksUp And to put it mildly, nobody ever asks well-adjusted sex workers for their opinions, because nobody wants to hear it. It's an inconvenient angle.

Also I favor decriminalization, not legalization. Legal brothel work like in Nevada is extremely restrictive and exploitative - they're not even allowed out of the building to go to the store during their week+ long stay in house, for fear that they might fall on a dick and get HIV on the way. Yes, really.

@malice
That actually wasn't me that was saying that. I am wondering about it. And I did work with dominatrix sex workers for my final thesis in college who were all in it consensually, but one in particular planted that seed of doubt about the economics of patriarchy in my head. She had a brilliant philosopher type of mind & not many to talk to about it. I've wondered about it ever since. She's a big part of why I think women only legalization would work better. I hope.

@Virusb23 @Museek