Does Sex Work Empower Or Disempower Its Providers?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Please discuss

[seabeyond]

1. body is a thing to be used without any control or power...total give up of the human, sex worker is

for the time paid, he/she is no longer of possession of own body. it is the property of the person using it.

empowerment would come in .... how?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. I Don't Know

I saw an essay that was titled "Prostitution Is Empowering To Women" and that prompted my question.

[seabeyond]

7. i see. anyone doing sex work has to adjust mind to validate it. to feel an empowerment

in order to even be able to do it. every stripper i have talked to, or person using body for pay has told me in conversation at some point they have to put a wall around themselves (or in other ways suggest they protect self, spirit, the fiber of who they are) before committing the act.

if a person has to protect emotional self before doing something (or spirit if one wants to believe in that) then it suggests there is something playing against the act.

i get lectured from the men saying how they respect the hooter waitress and the job is respectable. just yesterday on a thread about a baseball player getting a 75 dollar blow job, why pay it? get a hooter waitress. a mere cum receptor

there is no respect. whenever listening to a guy just talking about the hooter, stripper, prostitute, it is crude, vile, disrespectful. when justifying their use of these women they will defend until forever how respectable the choice is

[WinkyDink]

2. If porn paid what the Dollar Store does, and the Dollar Store paid what porn does, where would women

rather work?

[gkhouston]

21. Good comparison, considering that women are treated like shit in either place. n/t

[Gwendolyn]

25. For some sex workers, having access to nine to five work doesn't make a difference.

There are people who simply can't hold down a regular job, are not equipped for it, don't want to work regular hours and not a single thing in the world will change that. Give them the opportunity to work in an office and within two weeks they'll be fired. Over and over again. There are people who are into drugs and so a "normal" lifestyle is out. There are others who aren't into drugs but still can't be bothered. They don't mind making money off their looks and would much, much prefer that to slogging it out on some assembly line or working a boring clerical job. Just the way it is and there's no sense in trying to "save" these people from themselves, as they don't want to be "saved," and don't particularly think they need "saving."

[Bucky]

4. There are some situations where it empowers and some situations where it abuses & exploits

There's a huge range of activities and employments lumped under the single category called "sex work." To treat them all as a single nature for the purposes of a purely academic discussion is dumb.

[Deep13]

5. Depends who's in charge of the business. nt

[MineralMan]

6. I suspect that the answer to that is not applicable in

all situations. There are rarely single answers for such questions.

[WillyT]

8. Depends...

:scared:

[MercutioATC]

9. Does accounting work empower or disempower its providers?

[unabelladonna]

10. it all depends on the attitude of the community

as long as sex workers are looked upon with contempt in society they are not empowered. if it changes (the attitude) it's just another job.

[90-percent]

11. Hooter's

Where is the Hooter's located that offers $75 blow jobs? That is a tremendous value for a hummer from a Hooter!

Sex workers have a peculiar hierarchy. Strippers consider hookers to be low life.

I feel sorry for strippers that are not well equipped to be prosperous in other lines of work. Real tough to retire from a lifetime of exotic dancing at the age of 65.

Are Hooter's girls sex workers?

If there was a "facetious" emoticon it would be placed here.

-90% Jimmy

[Motown_Johnny]

12. this has always been a way for men to exploit women. You can argue the opposite

but I won't buy it.

[TransitJohn]

13. Well, the money they earn through the work certainly empowers them.

The work itself? Not so much.

[Posteritatis]

14. Yes (nt)

[cynatnite]

15. Ask Iceland...

They recently banned strip clubs.

[951-Riverside]

16. Why should you care?

Prostitution/Marriage is harmless if both parties are responsible. I don't understand why prostitution is illegal anyway, people are going to have sex with who they want and when they want regardless of laws.

"but but but what about the children?"

Don't kid yourself, they weren't flown in by a stork. :)

[Hello_Kitty]

17. It's empowerfulizing, as Twisty Faster says. eom

[branders seine]

18. yes, and neither

[datasuspect]

19. i don't know

if the money can pay rent, buy food, drugs, or whatever the person deems necessary to survival, then yes at one level.

there are other nuances to this and it just depends on the level the person operates.

it's not a line of work for everyone. though lots of people get pushed into (in the US) because of crack, heroin, or meth addictions.

in other parts of the world, people are sold into sexual slavery. sometimes they just get captured and taken prisoner and they are forced into sexual servitude.

it just all depends.

your question only assumes that the issue isn't complicated. this is where smaller minds of flourish: in the creation of false dichotomies and black and white thinking.

[Edweird]

20. It depends.

[proteus_lives]

22. Depends on the situation.

[DailyGrind51]

23. I guess it depends on whether or not the worker does this voluntarily.

And, keeps 100% of the proceeds.

[Odin2005]

24. Depends on if it's legal or not and the socioeconomic situation of the individual sex worker