Thinking about this because of a greentext I saw earlier complaining about OF models.
It feels like a lot of the stigma surrounding sex work in the modern day (that doesn’t just boil down to misogyny/gender norms/religion) is based on the fact that selling intimate aspects of one’s self places a set value on something that many see as sacred; something that shouldn’t have monetary value.
Not to say anything about the economic validity of a society without currency, but I think that, hypothetically, if that were to exist, sex work would be less stigmatized since this would no longer be a factor. Those engaged in sex work would be more likely to be seen as doing it because it’s something they are good at/enjoy, and less because it’s an “easy” way to make money, as some think. It would also eliminate the fear of placing set value on social, non sex-work related intimacy (not that those fears were well-founded to begin with).
If you get paid for it you are a whore, if you do it as a hobby you are a slut.
The stigma is there, regardless of the money aspect. They will just use a different word.
a lot of the stigma surrounding sex work in the modern day (that doesn’t just boil down to misogyny/gender norms/religion) is based on the fact that selling intimate aspects of one’s self places a set value on something that many see as sacred
The fact that most of the times the stigma only clings to the person selling and not the person buying makes me think that this is actually a negligible part of the stigma.
I don’t think you’d have prostitution in a currencyless society. They wouldn’t be prostitutes at that point.
So if I paid in chickens then it’s not prostitution?
Chickens would be the currency in this scenario.
Some bang for your buck-awk, if you will.
Chickens aren’t currency. Trade and currency are two different things.
I’d counter that prostitution is sex work in exchange for something of value, and chickens still 100% qualify. I don’t think splitting hairs on currency vs. chickens changes anything here
There are more forms of sex work than just prostitution, though. Porn, sex surrogacy, etc. People can find those rewarding outside monetary incentive.
It wouldn’t really be “sex work” if they weren’t doing it in exchange for something would it?
Yes, we have currency as a placeholder for trading goods directly but people who perform sex acts for other goods like drugs are just as stigmatized and no currency was involved.
And if people are just having sex with a fun of it then it’s not sex work either, it’s just sex, which is less stigmatized now then it was 30 years ago but it still has a stigma attached to it, otherwise slurs like “skank” and “slut” wouldn’t exist.And if people are just having sex with a fun of it then it’s not sex work either,
No, labor stays labor no matter the reason it is performed - people perform labor when they doodle or blow their noses… it doesn’t stop being labor just because they’re not doing it in exchange for something tangible.
With sex it is the same - nobody engages in it for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
True, but there are more aspects to sex work than just exchanging sex for something else. Creating pornography, for instance, is something some people already choose do just for fun, even without economic incentive.
And making porn is stigmatized. That’s why 99% of the porn made “just for fun” is intended to never see the light of day by anyone but the people making it.
Really, I’m not directly sure what your argument/belief/whatever is here in this post.
If there’s no exchange or barter, then there’s no sex work. The stigma behind sex work is that you’re selling your body to someone for a price tag, and if you weren’t getting paid you otherwise wouldn’t be doing it with that particular person. In other words, if you aren’t getting compensation out of it, you’re just like anyone else with a tinder account.
People who have sex with people just because they enjoy it already exist. It’s not new and it won’t meaningfully increase just because a society becomes currencyless.
Without an economic incentive, sex workers will stop existing entirely. It won’t be work, and they won’t have any need to do it. They won’t be compelled to have sex with you just because you have money now. There will still be people at a bar, club, or whatever who will have sex with someone they like for little or no reason, but again, that’s not new.
Well, this is the weirdest shit I’ve ever read.
places a set value on something that many see as sacred; something that shouldn’t have monetary value.
I’d say it’s the other way around - because it’s labor that is (mostly) being performed by women (or stigmatized as something “only women do”) it’s considered to be of no value whatsoever. How many women do you know that performs work such as housekeeping, child-rearing and/or marital sex essentially at own cost because this type of labor carries no monetary exchange value in our society?
I’d say sex work falls into that category - but it gets stigmatized because sex work can actually allow women to escape such labor and not be locked into literally playing housewife to the capitalist mode of production (ie, wiping a company man’s arrse so that he can concentrate on making capitalists richer).
We are talking about the world’s oldest profession here. Prostitution far predates the invention of currency, as transactional sex goes farther back than recorded history.
Currency is not needed for prostitution. All that is required is payment, in any form. This occurs during transaction, which constitutes trade.
I don’t think making prostitution more difficult by requiring barter solves anything at all.
I assumed OP was talking about a post-scarcity economy, not one based on barter. I didn’t think anyone wants to go back to a barter system considering the overwhelming popularity of currency everywhere it has been used.
You’re looking at this as an economics issue. But I think it’s a fundamentally a biological or evolutionary artifact. Evolutionary biology has intraspecific competition for access to mates to mating opportunities as a driver for change.
Organisms work to prevent the resource from being exploited just like water, habitats, space, etc. It’s other women that would lose if access to mating opportunities are tied with monetary transactions, and a few would benefit. Minimizing prostitution helps the female of the species be more selective about their mates, and increases the “value” of their interactions.
Huh? Are you just talking about like a girlfriend?
not all people deflate (traditional) intimate relationships into communistic sex work.
difference is you can operate a sex-for-everyone-booth or have sex with someone you deeply trust, know and care about (gf).
(i also hope that you don’t assume the readers are all heterosexual men, because then you would have much bigger problems with your gender politics)
I don’t think unpaid public sex slaves exist, they always pick their mates.
There will always be exhibitionists and people who just like to fuck, but sex work is, by definition, transactional. You’re not going to see a society with free communal whores who aren’t being compensated in any way.
transactional
I prefer “tit for tat”.
I was more thinking any and all forms if sex work, however you want to transpose their equivalents in a post-scarcity society.
You’re just delusional.
