• jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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    10 months ago

    Would like there to be less stigma around sex work.

    As with all work, I want better work protection. Unions. All that.

    Specifically, I’m really tired of the “step-” stuff that the major free sites seem to push a lot. I don’t know why it’s trending but I don’t like it.

    I think in a couple years ai is going to be good enough to make video, and that’s going to be weird. Like today you can type “big tit redhead” and hope you get results that do it for you, but in the future it’ll probably be able to create results. That will open whole new fronts in ethical debates.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Unions for sex workers is going to be so weird. What if they enforce seniority? If you show up to a brothel first you get Ethel and if you show up later you can finally get Skylar and if they are really packed you can get Jayden.

      Fellow fluffers. We are fluffing many dongs but are we fluffing enough?

  • SomeGuy69@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Sex work needs legislation and job regulations like every other job. That’s what helps sex workers the most and reduces sex trafficking. Porn industry the same. We should stop treating it any different than other jobs. The time to be silence about it are long gone, everyone has Internet and most consum internet pornography. Hiding and criminalizing makes things worse, always has.

    • 1984@lemmy.today
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      10 months ago

      I dont think selling your body is like any other job…

      Imagine going to work every day and doing porn. I can’t really see how that makes you a healthy individual psychologically and emotionally. Personally I think it’s pretty disgusting, all of it, and absolutely a gateway into a very sad, dark lifestyle.

      • Leg@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I worked 5 years at a job that sucked the soul out of me as I devoted all available energy towards making sure I never got laid off, developing an entirely seperate personality that was better geared towards sales and customer satisfaction at the cost of my self-respect and personal relationships, dreading every day as though it would be the one to finally push me over the edge and convince me to end it all.

        Work isn’t meant to make you healthy. The two often have a negative relationship with each other, in fact. Work is work. Let’s not pretend we’re above sex workers just because we’re not on camera while we get fucked.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Meh at least it’s a skill. Most of the “engineers” I deal with are corporate shits who have no skillset whatsoever. And take a preverse pride in not having one.

        • 1984@lemmy.today
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          10 months ago

          Ok that doesn’t sound like a good job, but how is that an argument that sex work is just like any other job? Have you ever had a good job? I hope you have, so you know the difference.

          • lud@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            Why do you think that sex workers can’t enjoy their job?

            • 1984@lemmy.today
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              10 months ago

              Because nobody wants to have sex with ugly people, or people you despise, and who treat you like shit.

              That’s the simplest way I can express it.

              • stembolts@programming.dev
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                10 months ago

                You need to escape your own perspective. Your comments, while seemingly well-intended, come across far more egotistical than I believe you realize.

                You clearly place a lot of value on your thoughts and views, but then you don’t seem to realize that this perspective restricts you behind the lens of your own mind’s limitations (and biases). Most of the people you will encounter in your life do not think like you.

                TLDR, You need to spend more time envisioning the world through the eyes of others, erasing your own existence and views. It would be enlightening if you succeeded.*

                • Note, some people are literally incapable of changing perspective due to how their brain functions, if that is you, please disregard.
                • 1984@lemmy.today
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                  10 months ago

                  Yeah I actually don’t understand why it’s egotistical to think sex work is not like a normal job. Seems perfectly natural to me.

                  Why do you think it is egotistical? Maybe if you explain, I will see the errors of my thinking.

              • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                The people I’ve known in sex work tend to avoid working with those they don’t want to.

                And as someone who has slept with people I didn’t find attractive with no money involved, it’s not the end of the world. If I thought I could make a living doing that, I probably would, and I would absolutely refuse service to anyone who repulsed me or that I despised.

      • noli@programming.dev
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        10 months ago

        I see, so I’m assuming the same goes for regular actors? And musicians? And basically any performer ofcourse? Oh and also anyone who does manual labour because you are literally renting out your body for that. Well, and technically anyone with an office job too because they are still renting out their time.

      • leftzero@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Having to work for a living is already an extremely sad and dark lifestyle. It’s inherently monstrous and inhumane, and antithetical to being a healthy individual psychologically, emotionally, and physically.

        Compared to that, any hypothetical negative effects from sex work are as irrelevant as spitting into the sea.

        And, frankly, sex work seems healthier, easier, and less emotionally taxing than most other alternatives, buck for buck, so if you’re gonna get fucked anyway it might as well be non-metaphorically.

        • cone_zombie@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Having to work for a living is already an extremely sad and dark lifestyle. It’s inherently monstrous and inhumane, and antithetical to being a healthy individual psychologically, emotionally, and physically.

          Can you elaborate on this? This seems to be a popular notion with some people but I just can’t grasp the reasoning behind it

          • leftzero@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            We’ve got an extremely short amount of time. A mere few decades, if we’re lucky. And only a fraction of those with our full faculties. For most of our lives we’re children, old and decrepit, sleeping, doing basic maintenance chores required for living (eating, shitting, cleaning ourselves and our environment, etc.) or sick (if we’re lucky the later is a small fraction… but a lot of people aren’t that lucky).

            That leaves us precious little time to actually live our life. To enjoy ourselves. To share with our loved ones. And then we have to go and spend a vast majority of that already insufficient fraction earning the right to keep surviving (or more than a majority; an increasing percentage of people have to spend not only all their available healthy free time working, but also an ever larger amount of the time we’re sick, or old). That includes not only the time wasted working as such, but also the time spent going to work and back (for which most of us don’t get paid), or acquiring the tools needed to be able to work and get to work (car, gas, work appropriate attire, and so on; which also come off of our surviving another day budget).

            That is evidently horrible. Monstrous. Inhumane.

            You can argue that we should find jobs we enjoy, but that’s only possible for a statistically irrelevant lucky minority… and even then most of said minority isn’t able to choose what portion of their time to spend working, so they’re still not free to enjoy themselves as they should.

            You can argue that it’s the human condition, that it’s just how we’re made. But it’s not. We evolved to be hunter-gatherers, not office or factory workers. And hunting and gathering are hard work, sure, but they’re healthier, they can be done on your own schedule, and they leave a surprising amount of free time, much more than we can afford now. Our bodies and minds didn’t evolve to be able to support our current lifestyle (or workstyle, rather, since it can hardly be called life) without breaking down. We’re not only wasting what little time we have, but we’re hurting and killing ourselves in the process.

            You could argue that tough luck, there’s nothing we can do about it, and going back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle is obviously not possible given the amount of people on the planet. But while it’s true that we can’t go back, it’s also a fact that we’re producing much more resources than we’d need to be able to comfortably sustain every person on the planet (and throwing a vast portion of them away). We have the means to automate practically every job. We could become a post-scarcity society if we wanted to. But our society isn’t built around people (much less around people’s wellbeing), it’s not even built around corporations; it’s built around the blind pursuit of short term stockholder profits (have you never considered how utterly monstrous and dehumanising the term “human resources” is? we’re not people, we’re not even workers… we’re mere resources to be ground and processed into profit, and discarded once all profit has been extracted from our carcasses.

            It’s monstrous. It’s Inhumane. And if left unchecked it will continue until the time we can physically dedicate to earning our right to exist isn’t enough to pay for the cost of our survival (which might take a while; the bastards are looking for ways to exploit lucid dreaming to make us work in our sleep), and either society collapses or we are forced to rise and fight for our right to exist and be human.

            • cone_zombie@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              I didn’t expect such an extensive reply tbh. My writing skill doesn’t compare to yours, but I kind of feel compelled to answer.

              The initial thought was that it’s “inhumane” to work for a living. I agree with you on most points that you brought up, but they don’t really support this idea.(imo)

              Our bodies and minds didn’t evolve to be able to support our current lifestyle (or workstyle, rather, since it can hardly be called life) without breaking down.

              That much is certainly true, and thus we haven’t really come far from our ancestors. We have evolved as social creatures, where it was essential for everyone to contribute to a society to ensure mutual survival. It’s wired in our brains, as we naturally like those who help us and dislike selfish individuals.

              That leaves us precious little time to actually live our life. To enjoy ourselves. To share with our loved ones.

              This is true as well, but closer to wishful thinking. We have been able to even entertain this thought only for a small fraction of human history. This is not inherently natural, but more of a perk of human progress.

              it’s also a fact that we’re producing much more resources than we’d need to be able to comfortably sustain every person on the planet

              Who is “we” in this case? It’s certainly made possible by millions of people working these jobs. And not only agricultural, because this efficiency couldn’t be achieved without the modern economy, science etc.

              Look, I agree with what you’re saying. It’s just that saying “having to work is bad, unnatural, inhumane, monstrous” is a little bit over the top, that’s all. Anyway, thank you for taking your time to explain your point. I appreciate it.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        What’s the difference between selling your body to be used and abused, and doing sex work? Either way, you’re selling your physical form and mental energies to someone else, but at least with sex work you get to get off.

  • ultranaut@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    It’s huge and diverse so hard to generalize about. I think it has many serious issues and much of it could really use more regulation. There’s a lot of very unethical people involved. It’s maybe not as bad as the old days but it’s also a much larger industry now so the scale of the issues are much larger now too.

  • Landmammals@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I honestly don’t understand how they make any money. Outside of whales paying for parasocial relationships on onlyfans, who is buying porn?

  • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I’m a bit biased, because I know some people that were involved in both porn, camgirl, and OF work, so their opinions largely shape my own.

    Surprisingly, “normal” porn is still viable as a career, with camgirls and OF creators often having an agency behind them to do shit like promote, book studios, hook them up with other girls for collaboration, etc. Some of it extends into porn too, and while I don’t know how much my friend was making from a mix of all three, she drives a BMW in the UK despite having a day job as a volunteer at a pet charity, so she’s probably doing fine. The way she described camgirl work was basically no different to call centre work.

    It was all still thriving as an industry because people have their favourites, and (weird or not) some people like to find their creators so that they do more stuff.

    Honestly, seeing how porn is (still) thriving has radically changed my view on legal prostitution. While I don’t know anyone inside that industry, my friend knew plenty of OF girls that were also on sex work websites, and it was crazy how many of them would pick up “extra work” to make more money - with basically zero protection that they would get from their agencies because they don’t want any involvement or knowledge of what’s going on.

    Don’t get me wrong, the internet is constantly changing the industry, but it’s an industry that everyone assumed would die out for 20ish years now, and it’s stronger than ever. I think “traditional” porn will still be strong a decade from now.

    • TheMurphy@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I can’t see why porn would ever fade away. “Traditional” porn is by far the most viewed still. Camgirl or OF businesses are just more direct in terms of earning your money.

      Also, porn has driven the Internet and it’s inventions. Video streaming is perfected today because of the groundwork from the porn industry.

  • Twinklebreeze @lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I think that it almost all looks and sounds so fake that I couldn’t find it sexy if I tried. I mostly find amateur performers that I like and follow them. Sometimes if they gain a following it starts getting fake, too. :/

  • macrocarpa@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Sex work is work. Decriminalise it, legislate it, create a sex workers employment category and taxation, require licensing and health checks, give copyright protections to content creators, to their images and likenesses.

    To me porn is no more fantastical than acting is.

      • Andonyx@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I’m guessing the same reason there are professional certifications for stage combat coordinators, stunt choreographers, and firearms instructors even for movies. If doing your job poorly could very likely result in harm to others on the job site, there should be some standards and practices that are explicit and measureable, and like the SAE, maybe a trade group who assists their members with certs and continuing education.

        Handling sexual activity on a set can definitely result in harm if done poorly or negligently.

      • macrocarpa@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Provides safety and rigour for the environments in which people work and provides a professional standard which indicates a person is trained / experienced / aware of the “right” way to do things.

        Like at the very least, sexual health management, consent, grievances, injuries, comprehension of working conditions, rights, copyright, prevention of sexual slavery etc.

        I know it’s onerous but the core of this is the worker and their health right.

  • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    I have no problem with porn, at least in theory.

    The reality of the industry is that large swathes of it are built on abuse, trafficking, and use of drugs for coercion. Not a fan of that. But I don’t think criminalizing sex work has done anything to help, and generally I don’t like taking economic opportunities away from people who are already historically disadvantaged.

  • RachelRodent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    For individual workers, there shouldn’t be any stigma sround for them, they should be respected as much as any other worker. And the industry itself should become less predatory and workers should be protected more, I hear workplace sexual assault is common in the industry and people should be protected against that. Also another question in my mind is “If people depend on money to survive and if that money is made trough sex than is, sex work, rape trough coercion?”

    • noli@programming.dev
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      10 months ago

      To answer that question it might be useful to ask a different question: “If people depend on money to survive and if that money is made through manual labour. Does this imply that manual labour is slavery through coercion?”

            • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              If you tried to live on fruit you would die. You need animal protein (or some other means of getting vitamin Bs) and grains and vegetables.Wheat/Rice/Corn/Potatoes/Carrots/lettuce don’t want to be eaten. That’s why they are full of shit that can kill you that only things like cooking, milling, and leaching can get rid of. Cabbage, even after thousands of years of selective breeding, alone has something like 14 different posions that can end you.

              This whole argument is so freaken stupid. You are not a slave because you don’t want a lifestyle of living in welfare. Calling yourself one because you work part time in a gas station is an insult to every real slave in human history.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      You don’t really need to work to survive, you will be miserable but you can survive. Heck like half of my family decided work wasn’t their thing decades ago. I am the moron for working.

  • TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    As it currently exists it is awful, but it doesn’t have to be. If sex work was recognized as legitimate work with pay, benefits, and regulation it could be great.

  • HipHoboHarold@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I think it’s like a lot of things in life. Especially when capitalism is concerned.

    There’s a seedy, underground section of it. Women get trafficked and forced to make videos. It’s disgusting and something I don’t ever see going away. If it’s not porn, it’s prostitution. Sex trafficking makes a ton of money, and a lot of rich people are sociopaths.

    However, outside of that, it’s fine. Watch it in moderation. We’re human. Most of us like sex. We like watching other people have sex.

  • kinther@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I will preface this with I worked for an adult website in an infrastructure support role for several years. I really don’t have any problems with streaming camgirl sites or porn videos if the performers are doing it of their own free will. Camgirls can set their own schedule, it’s safer than doing the same in person, and there’s more privacy for them as well.

    That said, many people get forced into doing things they don’t want to do when it comes to porn. The industry is rife with abuse and human trafficking. I’m pro regulation, taxation, and ensuring that things are above board with independent audits. The same goes for sex work.

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Yeah, one of the things the “it should be illegal due to human trafficking” crowd never seems to understand is that if you legalize it, you can regulate it and the the human trafficking aspect would become harder to pull off. While making all of it illegal just makes it easier for the villains to hide in the shadows of the industry.

  • qooqie@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    It’s an industry that has inherent public drama. I think it can be a voice for positive societal change when it comes to sex. It’s also easily abused as we have all seen with CSAM on pornhub. If it weren’t for the humans it’d be a positive industry lmao

  • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    If you believe that laws forbidding gambling, sale of liquor, sale of contraceptives, requiring definite closing hours, enforcing the Sabbath, or any such, are necessary to the welfare of your community, that is your right and I do not ask you to surrender your beliefs or give up your efforts to put over such laws. But remember that such laws are, at most, a preliminary step in doing away with the evils they indict. Moral evils can never be solved by anything as easy as passing laws alone. If you aid in passing such laws without bothering to follow through by digging in to the involved questions of sociology, economics, and psychology which underlie the causes of the evils you are gunning for, you will not only fail to correct the evils you sought to prohibit but will create a dozen new evils as well.

    –Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government

    I think that there’s probably a lot of exploitation, ranging from human trafficking, to exploiting people who have no other options, to roping people into pseudo-pyramid schemes, to garden variety encouraging potentially harmful conduct stemming from untreated psychological issues (which can apply to both porn actors and porn consumers).

    But I also think that for any possible harm that a legal and properly regulated sex industry could do, an illegal and stigmatized sex industry is a thousand times worse. So the key is to recognize that there is an undeniable demand for porn, so we might as well do everything we can to minimize the potential for harm for all possible parties involved.

    Also some of those Rule34 artists are just… they’re both some of the most amazingly talented artists and some of the most depraved perverts on the goddamn planet, sometimes at the same time. Bless their weird little hearts.

  • squid_slime@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I’m a hypocrite but I do watch porn I also see why it’ll cause issues with loneliness, or it being used as a quick dopamine fix while doing little to improve ones life. Also the industry can be grim