The Darker Side of the News

[Ginger]

Cigarettes are bad for your long-term health and cost money.

So is drinking wine. So is cheating on your partner. Both of these things can be made illegal re: Not allowing 19 year olds to drink when I personally think they are old enough and. Not allowing cheating on your partner through religious laws. So if we wanna ban young women from cigarettes then we might as well made true ironclad laws prohibiting risky sex behaviors with peoples not your partners, all drinking for all ages beyond... maybe taking a strict test to determine, "adulthood and maturity levels?" We might as well do all those things because they are all morals laws and shouldn't be pushed by social workers and therapists to their unwilling clients. In my opinions YEMV?

[Yablo]

Therapists are in the business of giving advice, and social workers are in the business of helping people better their situations, but neither should be in the business of preaching.

[sardia]

And I regret responding to you already.
The therapist has a point but you are an adult who likes cigarettes. You don't need to justify your smoke sticks to me. If you need bad advice, go eat a mint and say you quit smoking.

[Ginger]

Oh whatever. Can't say nothing without getting people "regretting their decisions" even when I WASN'T TALKING ABOUT THEM. Go eat a mint and say you quit arguing online friend. :) <3

[Chen]

Oh whatever. Can't say nothing without getting people "regretting their decisions" even when I WASN'T TALKING ABOUT THEM. Go eat a mint and say you quit arguing online friend. <3

Expect that if you say things, on discussion forum that people disagree with, you're going to get responses to it. Also Im not sure why you likened advice from someone paid to provide advice to enacting a law that would implement that advice.

[Ginger]

Then in a public discussion I need to be allow to be a snarky goth woman w/o being lectured so much. It makes a girl wanna scream, like Lady Gaga says. Anyways, perhaps my comparison was extremist? I suppose it was. I just feel like... therapists and social workers... try to push their beliefs onto families and daughters esp. Because... they pure virginal women who cannot stand, like, cigs or whatevers? Just my opinion. Love it or leave it like I love all of you. <3

[Chen]

Then in a public discussion I need to be allow to be a snarky goth woman w/o being lectured so much. It makes a girl wanna scream, like Lady Gaga says. Anyways, perhaps my comparison was extremist? I suppose it was. I just feel like... therapists and social workers... try to push their beliefs onto families and daughters esp. Because... they pure virginal women who cannot stand, like, cigs or whatevers? Just my opinion. Love it or leave it like I love all of you. <3

Disagreement with a position you post isnt, always, lecturing. And while I can agree that therapists pushing their beliefs on others can be problematic in some cases, pushing that cigarettes are unhealthy isn't really one of those. Theres no question cigarettes are bad for you, theres plenty of data that shows that.

[Ginger]

Spoiler:

Yes, it totally. Is. I am in... official treatment re: marijuana and meth addictions. NOT cigs addictions. Woman needs to get off my back about unhealthy second-hand smokes killing off the kids, or me, that I don't give two f bombs about. They MY kids and it's MY body, step off, right now lady. </3

And it's not just me. I've had family members mistreat by social workers and therapists and mental hospitals. Girl friends and boy friends. It's practically a scandal at this point.

[addams]

Ginger; Where did we get you?
And; Why?

Off to the intro Thread.

edit:
I can't find you there.

[Ginger]

No one got me I just have feels and am like femininely expressing online?

[CorruptUser]

Ok, now I have another personal question.

Spoiler:

Do sex workers make more if they don't smoke?

[Yablo]

Ok, now I have another personal question.

Spoiler:

Do sex workers make more if they don't smoke?

It's not my thing, but if it were, it would be all the same to me. Of course, that's assuming they're not doing it during, and it hasn't messed with their voice to the point I think I'm with Clint Eastwood.

[CorruptUser]

Smokers do age much faster though...

[Ginger]

Ok, now I have another personal question.

Spoiler:

Do sex workers make more if they don't smoke?

I assume they do? Men like some of their dates to have no bad habits like smoking or drinking, it turns them on to believe they are controlling their temporary dates' lifestyles choices.

[elasto]

Spoiler:

I'd have thought being in close proximity to anyone with a less than pleasant odour is not going to be appealing whether that's BO, ciggy-breath or anything else.

(If they smoke but don't smell of anything I assume it would make no difference to the vast majority of clients)

[natraj]

(If they smoke but don't smell of anything I assume it would make no difference to the vast majority of clients)

yeah, like, if you advertise as non-smoker, drug-free, these are some things that are pretty typical classist signifiers (among a host of other stuff) that people use to try and sort who is Upscale from who is not so people do look for a number of things like that in who they think is "worth more" but it's 500% nonsense.

i don't at all mean that there are no legitimate reasons that people don't like the smell/taste of smoke on their partners or what have you, but by and large what is actually going on is there's just a laundry list of garbage that clients think separates Classy Women from Trashy Women and that you shouldn't have the gall to ask for more money if you don't meet these arbitrary lines so. but whether you smoke or not just SAY you don't and never smell like it at an appointment, it's not like they're going to know better.

[CorruptUser]

I don't think it's just classism. Ok maybe it partially is in the sense that beauty itself is classist. I'm under the impression that it's also the assumption that non-smokers and non-addicts are less likely to have diseases. Not always true, but, well, stereotypes.

Also the whole morals issue of using the services of a drug addict, but I'm not really under the impression that the johns do more than pretend to care. Which admittedly pretending is sort of an improvement, in that it means that people know they are supposed to care.

[natraj]

I don't think it's just classism. Ok maybe it partially is in the sense that beauty itself is classist. I'm under the impression that it's also the assumption that non-smokers and non-addicts are less likely to have diseases. Not always true, but, well, stereotypes.

you say this as if the stereotype of disease riddled addicts is not inherently entangled with classism itself. the way society looks at drug addiction when it occurs in poor people vs. rich people absolutely is tied up with classism. you aren't wrong! people are always concerned about getting diseases from sex workers (even tho clients are allllways the ones pressuring not to use protection) but the assumptions they make and stereotypes they have of what things like drug users even look like in the first place are entwined with classism in the first place.

i have literally had clients MANY TIMES after asking my "high end" profile persona if i am drug free proceed to show up and take out cocaine or heroin and ask if i want to get high together trust me they literally do not give one single shit if we're actually doing drugs they just want the signifiers of The Right Class Of Person

[CorruptUser]

Now I'm interested in stats.

What percent of clients pressure for no condoms? What percent of the ones that first ask about disease vs the ones that don't ask?

Same, but for asking about drugs and themselves using drugs.




Also, adding that I really despise johns that try to forgo condoms. I mean, if they are trying to pressure you, they pressure others, and it's a fairly safe stereotype that those johns are the ones with diseases.


Also, just had a thought. Do sex workers sometimes refuse African American men not out of personal racism, but to signal to other clients that they are upscale?

[morriswalters]

Such is the price of being a commodity. Welcome to retail. Sure its classicist, but the motivation might be upside down. The customer has to feed their ego, you know, make themselves feel superior in the transaction. A lot like Apple snobs.

Also a long term smoker might have tells no matter what kind of sanitation they do. It turns your lungs to shit. I speak as a 25 year smoker who quit. There is a difference between face to face and the average social distance.

Therapists are in the business of giving advice, and social workers are in the business of helping people better their situations, but neither should be in the business of preaching.

Exactly what do you think the function of those two particular jobs are? I suggest that you don't ever use them. They preach by default.

Now I'm interested in stats.

See if you can get through this 187 page report. TL;DR.

[natraj]

i was about to say jeez do you think SWers keep spreadsheets of all our clients so that we can do statistical analyses but actually, i keep a spreadsheet of all my clients with a pretty detailed number of stats.

it's unlikely there are many people refusing black men as a way to signal status to other clients though i am sure it occurs sometimes; everyone i have known (as with so much of racism) doesn't advertise that they don't see black men, they just refuse all black men who try to book them.

ninja edit: mw, what you just said is disgusting. i am not a commodity. i sell a service, not myself.

[CorruptUser]

i am not a commodity. i sell a service, not myself.

Do you think it's any different for lawyers and doctors?

[natraj]

do we have a society-wide trend of talking about other professionals like doctors as things that are being sold? lawyers and doctors are also selling their services. i have worked in other service industry professions (dog walking, house keeping) where people seem to readily understand that they are paying for my time and services and don't talk about it as though i, myself, am the "thing" being sold. sex work isn't different. i provide a service.

[CorruptUser]

A service that depends on the person providing it, like an artist. When Logic signs a contract to do one concert, he can not subcontract the concert to Ja Rule. When Joe Roofer enters a contract to replace one roof, he absolutely CAN subcontract that out to Ja Rule, but if Ja Rule doesnt provide the roof Joe is still liable. When you enter into an agreement with a client, in the world where sex work is legal, you may agree to "two handjobs and one blowjob", but you can't turn around and subcontract that out to Ja Rule.

You might provide a service, but it's you that is for rent.

[natraj]

no, it absolutely isn't, and you're being completely and utterly disingenuous if you try for a second to pretend that the way people talk about sex workers being "a commodity" has any relation at all to the legal facts of other workers providing a service. my services are for rent. that's what i said. you're right that i can't just let someone else show up in my place, because it isn't their services on offer!

but i am not the commodity either. me being a commodity implies that i am for sale, which implies that i can't at any point before or during the encounter decide what i want to do with my own body during that encounter. it's exactly that attitude that leads to a pervasive culture of thinking sex workers are totally okay to rape, up to and including judges ruling that literally raping sex workers at gunpoint isn't rape it's just theft. it's disgusting, and not true.

[elasto]

@CU

I dunno: If someone hires a roofer, they very often want that particular roofer - because they have heard through word of mouth that that roofer does a good job. Likewise a person would often seek out a specific doctor or lawyer.

I'd argue it's actually more the exception than the rule that a person would be happy for the person they hire to subcontract out.

In coding jobs, for example, it's quite frowned upon for a Western freelancer to win a contracting job and then hire an Indian coder to do his work for him for pennies on the dollar.

So I'd say sex workers are actually the norm here, not the exception. But for some reason language singles out sex workers as people buying them rather than their services. Very odd.

[Ginger]

I don't think it's just classism. Ok maybe it partially is in the sense that beauty itself is classist. I'm under the impression that it's also the assumption that non-smokers and non-addicts are less likely to have diseases. Not always true, but, well, stereotypes.

Also the whole morals issue of using the services of a drug addict, but I'm not really under the impression that the johns do more than pretend to care. Which admittedly pretending is sort of an improvement, in that it means that people know they are supposed to care.

Yes, it is just classism. Addicts and diseases be mostly poorer peoples' problems. Rich ppls go to doctors and stuffs and don't get mistreat chronically by medical staffs. Beauty can be classist, like expecting girls and women to look like English and French Princesses yet beauty can be: Healthy, it can be affirming, and it can be odd, bizarre and even... scandalous. So some things to think about at least? And I've had some very caring johns. And Janes.

[CorruptUser]

Oh I agree with most of what you are saying, and I always cringed at the jokes that raping a hooker is just "theft of services".

Just that in some sense, you are a commodity. MW isn't saying you are some car for rent, where ignoring consent is morally equivalent to using a rental car as a taxi. In terms of the deal you make with clients, your clients are not looking for "one rimjob".

I have a dirty little secret about men for you, or at least my projection on to other men, personal bias. All sex is physically more or less the same, but not emotionally. Men are only as good as the people that they fuck, or at least are willing to fuck them. Orgasms? There's toys and hands available if it was only about that. So yeah, the guys are going to want the best woman, the woman who went to college and plays instruments and doesn't do drugs, even if it's all pretend.

That's probably my biggest hangup with using the services of a sex worker even if it was all legal and safe and all; I can't pretend.

[elasto]

I have a dirty little secret about men for you, or at least my projection on to other men, personal bias. All sex is physically more or less the same, but not emotionally. Men are only as good as the people that they fuck, or at least are willing to fuck them. Orgasms? There's toys and hands available if it was only about that. So yeah, the guys are going to want the best woman...

I don't get how that'd be a secret though. Isn't there exactly the same dynamic occurring for women? A penis is a penis is a penis; Physically it makes little difference (within limits). But emotionally it makes a huge difference depending who it's attached to.

Men seem more capable of ignoring who the sex organs are attached to - at least for short periods - but over the medium to long term both sexes are pretty picky about who they have ongoing sexual relations with.

[morriswalters]

do we have a society-wide trend of talking about other professionals like doctors as things that are being sold? lawyers and doctors are also selling their services. i have worked in other service industry professions (dog walking, house keeping) where people seem to readily understand that they are paying for my time and services and don't talk about it as though i, myself, am the "thing" being sold. sex work isn't different. i provide a service.

But it's what they are selling that is different. If you sell sex then you are selling access to your body. And there is nothing wrong with that, if it is your choice. A doctor sells his intellect, a plumber sells his training. And we won't talk about lawyers. And all of them preen and try to give an impression. Would you use a doctor who smelled and looked like a homeless person? Primarily you sell an image to increase your return. A plumber paints his truck and hires a graphics artist to buff his business web page. I have to be careful because it isn't my intention to demean, but it is a commercial transaction.

but i am not the commodity either. me being a commodity implies that i am for sale, which implies that i can't at any point before or during the encounter decide what i want to do with my own body during that encounter.

This is an emotional position. But once you turn sex into a transaction then you've blurred the lines. I don't want to be the asshole of the day, but once a surgeon starts to cut, he can't just walk away. If you can criminalize the transaction once it has begun how do we draw the lines? It isn't fair. And I'm not smart enough to have an answer.

[Ginger]

Sexy jobs do not mean Johns and Janes get accesses to bodies whenever. It isn't a special kind of transaction. Even doctors aren't on call twenty four seven. So expecting a woman or a man doing sex work to just give up accesses to his or her bodies whenever? Classist, ignorant at best and malicious at worst. It isn't a special deal it's just a taboo, scandalous, illegal one... and johns and janes, do not have access to you, whenever and like they need to learn that now. And so do you morriswalters. :) <3

[elasto]

I don't want to be the asshole of the day, but once a surgeon starts to cut, he can't just walk away. If you can criminalize the transaction once it has begun how do we draw the lines? It isn't fair. And I'm not smart enough to have an answer.

Well, a surgeon is a bit of a special case, because a person might literally die if the surgery is halted halfway through.

If we compare to other trades - a roofer, say: If a roofer half repairs a roof and then gives up, the person who hired them would be entitled to sue for their money back - plus extra money if they needed to hire someone else in a rush. But they wouldn't be entitled to kidnap/imprison the roofer until they fixed the roof.

Likewise, if a sex worker decides to halt halfway through their service (because they don't feel safe or whatever), the person who hired them might be entitled to sue for financial recompense, but that would be the extent of it.

Going back to the surgery example, likewise it would be wrong if the patient's family held a gun to the surgeon's head and forced him to carry on against his wishes. Sue him? Fine. Imprison him? After due process, quite possibly. Force him to cut against his will? Not a chance.

[CorruptUser]

I don't want to be the asshole of the day, but once a surgeon starts to cut, he can't just walk away. If you can criminalize the transaction once it has begun how do we draw the lines? It isn't fair. And I'm not smart enough to have an answer.

The sex worker is, like any other person, entitled to withdraw consent. If the client continues, it's rape. If the client stops, depends on who breached the contract, e.g. was the client talking innapropriately, etc etc. Not that difficult.

[Quercus]

but once a surgeon starts to cut, he can't just walk away. If you can criminalize the transaction once it has begun how do we draw the lines? It isn't fair. And I'm not smart enough to have an answer.

You draw the line exactly where you do in any other sexual encounter. At the withdrawal of consent.

The comparison with a surgeon is specious, because a surgeon who walks away will likely cause serious harm to the patient. A sex work client is not physically harmed one jot by the sex worker waking away.

Being able to walk away is a normal expectation of many business relationships. Lawyers resign from cases, bartenders refuse service, shopkeepers ask customers to leave. A customer who nevertheless forces the completion of a transaction world normally be breaking the law. I would argue that the surgeon is the exception here. Of course, there may be financial consequences to walking away, but that's a separate question.

[natraj]

This is an emotional position. But once you turn sex into a transaction then you've blurred the lines. I don't want to be the asshole of the day, but once a surgeon starts to cut, he can't just walk away. If you can criminalize the transaction once it has begun how do we draw the lines? It isn't fair. And I'm not smart enough to have an answer.

"I don't want to be the asshole of the day, but since you're a whore how can we really call it rape?" literally morriswalters, right the hell here.

[Sableagle]

That's probably my biggest hangup with using the services of a sex worker even if it was all legal and safe and all; I can't pretend.

Sex workers don't cater to my fetishes.




Her actually wanting it and her enjoying it a lot. Two big fetishes of mine that just aren't on the menu. That and, well, meaningless and emotionally empty sex is meaningless and emotionally empty, you know?

[Ginger]

Some sex workers do wanna have the kinds of sexy times you wanna have.

Spoiler:

Anyone like BDSM? 'Cause I do like a lot. Anyways, for example: If a man likes BDSM... or a woman likes it... then so do I? So 'she really wants it and is into it' is on the menu for BDSM and straight sex and lesbian sexes... for me at least. :)

[Dauric]

re: commodification.

I don't think doctors or lawyers make the best, or most interesting comparison here with regards to the treatment of human beings as commodities. Now janitors. fast food workers, I.T. technicians... people with little to no savings, probably college loans that they cannot discharge through bankruptcy. credit card debt with insane interest rates and abusive penalty fees...

Anecedote: (spoilering it as I get a bit rambly...)

Spoiler:

I finally quit a job doing I.T. work for a company with absolutely horrible management. Morale on the site was abysmal in large part because of management getting in a hissy twist over some task not getting done, while failing to provide any actual tools to do the job. In my position one other new-hire and I were hired to do a task, they didn't provide computers to do it until someone demanded to know why our task wasn't getting done two months later, and then finally an additional seven months later after sending someone from another site to help with the project it was noticed that we'd never actually been trained to complete the task (neither for that matter had anyone else on our site). The task was arcane and byzantine, yet they'd just thrown us at it without bothering to show us how it was supposed to be done.

That's the better part of a year that I'd felt like -at best- a monkey banging on a keyboard, other times absolutely useless, doing work that in no way advanced my career goals, and generally feeling like shit about myself not seeing an end in sight.

I can think of three incidences where I was one action away from never being able to annoy you all with my posts again.

I'd started my search for another job about the time they finally gotten around to issuing us computers, when I knew that my longer-term career goals were not served by this position. Less than a year doesn't sound like a long time but while in the middle of it when you can't see the end... well you can't see the end.

Now to the relevant bit of the anecdote: I would have quit this job in a heartbeat -If I didn't have bills to pay-. Keeping a roof over my head, keeping food in the fridge and electricity to keep the fridge on. Paying those damn student loans, and the credit card debt that covered the deductible costs for my medical expenses.

The job was slowly destroying me. My depression was getting worse, my physical health was suffering, I found regular game-nights with friends to be increasingly difficult to manage.

But everyone has choices, right? By the divine I've always hated that aphorism. Sure there's choices, shooting yourself in the head is a possible choice.

So sure I could have quit that job, lost the house, lived out of my car, put myself in a different flavor of high-stress/high-depression circumstances, but it's a less viable choice than the one I was already in.

Grand upshot: I was in a position where I was more resources than human, inefficiently wasted and horribly maintained resources at that, and on top of that I went along with it not knowing how long it would go on while trying to find a functional way out, because while I may have legally had the right to walk away from that job, doing so would have left me in a worse situation.

The TL;DR of it: Some of us are in a position of commodity ourselves or (effectively) die, and it's not exclusive to sex work. We might have the legal rights to determine what happens to us, but effectively exercising those rights comes with consequences, some of which may be worse than being treated as things rather than people.

It's also entirely possible that I'm still in my two-weeks notice period at this horrible job and seeing the light at the end of this particular tunnel I'm somewhat more inclined to vent emotions that I'd been bottling up for a while, and the commodification of human-beings was a thought that ruptured the seal. Take my rambling for what it's may or may not be worth

[Weeks]

This is an emotional position.

What do you mean? Is it somehow less relevant given we're talking about people's bodies?

It isn't fair.

What isn't fair? Not getting sex if you paid? It's very, very simple: the sex worker's consent has priority.

[Soupspoon]

I dunno: If someone hires a roofer, they very often want that particular roofer - because they have heard through word of mouth that that roofer does a good job. Likewise a person would often seek out a specific doctor or lawyer.

Maybe (s)he does a good job by always subcontracting to good people (indeed, maybe better roofers than themself, but this 'roofer' knows how to organise things. Mostly present on-site, maybe, but who could tell that it is the one or other 'assistant', always there, who is the craftsperson of note. Doesn't matter to the person hiring the service, if the service gets done. Doesn't matter to the servicers, so long as recompense is perceived as being fairly received.

But I mean no analogy in this. Especially in the field of work that introduced his diversion. Just talking about roofers. Extending to other professions depends upon 'face-worthiness', possible division of labour and how personal the service provision is.