@Virusb23 I get what you're saying, though I had to read it like 3 times 😂

My point is that we fetishize underage girls, explicitly and implicitly, and anything "close" to it is considered kinky by a hell of a lot of people. When we sexualize people who look underage, it stands to follow that a lot of people will feel like it's not so different to stake it a couple years younger. A *lot* of people don't consider 15-16 a "child".

@malice
Agree and its not just us and it leads to an enormous world-wide human trafficking problem. In Japan it is JK. In China they kidnap girls from Myanmar.. In Thailand and Laos they are transported to other wealthier Asian countries. In India, over 50% of trafficking victims are children. Latin America is one of the largest centers of exploitation. In the middle east, it is one of the fastest growing crimes.
It is a centuries-old, world-wide problem that must be stopped 😢
@Virusb23

@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.

@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.