Which is worse? Sex work or sweatshop?

Because of the horrible effects it has on the psyche of the sex workers.

Both are bad, IMO.

I hate this question.

@marina

Assuming that sexual intercourse in exchange of money is the ultimate loss of dignity. Alot of people believe that, but I question this assumption. Certainly in this society, a woman who is a sex worker is going to be psychologically damaged, if not only for the reason that society severly looks down on these individuals as morally deprived and sick.

Honestly, I doubt anyone commenting on this thread can accurately vouch for the “horrible effects” sex work has on anyone. I’m not saying it’s the classiest profession in the world, but United States laws and stigmas make it A) less valued and appreciated than it should be and B) truly unsafe and potentially damaging. I’d be willing to bet many people find the profession a good way to make a living – without terribly damaged psyches.

I think I would prefer to define sex work more specifically.

Something such as telephone sex is basically the same as acting so I don’t see that as tremendously damaging (except maybe to the bank accts. of the guys who are calling in) :)

And from what I’ve read about it, I would imagine that being a Dominatrix might also be fun rather than tedious. I mean, if the woman is in charge, she doesn’t have to do anything she would find distasteful, right?

It depends on the person. The real question is, what alternatives did they have. Could they have done something else for equal pay? Were they forced to do it? Did they make an informed choice, and can they choose to quit and move on anytime they want to?

What makes sex work degrading, in my opinion, is that society places a relatively high value on a woman as an object of fantasy or a receptacle for sperm compared to the value it places on women as mothers, assembly line workers, or office workers.

@Snarp

Society does not place a high value on a woman as an object of fantasy or a receptacle for sperm, if it does, they would protect the safety of sex workers instead of criminalizing them.

@airowDee That’s not entirely accurate. Society expresses value in many ways. Women can often make far more money stripping, hooking, or making porn than they can assembling engine parts. That says something about the value we place on women.

But what’s wrong with the question is that it implies sex work is so darn terrible. I think that’s a judgmental and closed-minded perception.

@Snarp

I would agree that society places a high value on the sexual needs of the male, not on the woman who performs those acts. After all, an old hooker, pardon my language, is the most bitter woman you would ever know because her work is no longer required even if she is able to do the same thing as she has done before.

Being a mother or a grandmother is not paid work and devalued, it doesn’t pay in the short term, but society looks very highly on these self sacrificing , endearing, cookie making women who expresses the ultimate womanhood as desired by all that is moral and pure to the human imagination.

Ask someone from a woman shelter, or a local church or a businsss person, who would they hire or help, a hooker or a mother? ( i suppose a church would help if the sex worker announces her profession as a sin and she is a born again woman)

I don’t think there’s anything necessarily degrading about sex work, but working in a sweatshop is, by definition, working in poor conditions for little pay, and that is necessarily degrading.

Sex work can be degrading but then so can any job. And frankly I don’t see much difference between a waitress, a stripper, and a prostitute: all are capitalizing on sex, on their bodies, and all are in a service position.

Your questions makes a good point, airowDee. Any type of poorly paid physical labor could be categorized as selling one’s body. In answer to your question, would say that both sweatshop work and sex work are equally bad, although the risk of disease would be greater with sex work.

@RedMosquitoMM I think the OP is trying to say that sex work is not as terrible as people think.

Depending on what type of sex work it is, my answer varies.
If someone is an independent prostitute, I would not consider that to be so bad. Certainly better than a sweatshop. I could never do it, but it’s really not that bad at all. I mean, I don’t consider a prostitute much different than a stripper, and they seem to be fairly acceptable in society.
However, if someone was anything close to a sex slave, even if they do make money from it, then I would consider pretty much anything else to be better than that, including a job in a sweatshop.

@lonelydragon

Good point, STDS is a huge issue for women who do sex work. Unfortuantely, many working conditions are horrible on the health of workers as well.

Few, if anyone, here knows anything about how a prostitute lives and feels. And there are so many types of prostitution that it’s kind of a blanket statement. Now, tell me you have been a prostitute, and I’ll listen to that.

@Marina What about the horrible effects on the psyche of the sweatshop worker?

@Buttonstc If it just comes down to being under someone else’s charge and doing distasteful things, I can tell you my decade as a waitress was just like that. Many jobs are. Like any other job, some sex workers are in that position, some aren’t. It doesn’t have to do with sex work, just with work, period!

@Snarp
@airowDee
I agree with arrowDee that money isn’t enough if we’re going to think about how society values a worker: we have to consider the conditions of work, too. Sex workers aren’t protected in our society at all. Sure, they can make a lot of money, but who is looking out for them? At least the female engine-assembler is covered by certain laws that protect her as a worker. What this comes down to isn’t which vision of woman is more valued (whore or mother): it’s that neither is valued. We live in a patriarchy.

@lonelydragon The sweatshop presents the risk of all kinds of accidents and injuries too. The whole point about sweatshops is the terrible working conditions. Is it so much worse to be at risk of an STI than of a dismemberment, or a repetitive-stress syndrome, or being caught in a fire, or heat stroke, or so on and so forth? Anyway, responsible sex workers protect themselves: they’re less at risk of contracting an STI than your average non-working promiscuous person.

My friend is a prostitute. You can make alot of money but she is not happy and i think the hardest part is it is very difficult to find a good mate if you have been in that line of work.

More men than women beleive prostitution should be legal, but most men do not want a former prostitute to be his wife. There are many social ideas about sex that makes the sex work occupation undesirable for women.

Of course, I don’t think it is a healthy job for any PERSON to per take but there is alot of money to make and in this economy, jobs are hard to come by..other than a MCjob, which i guess, is better than sex work….right?

@airowDee Any mate that would reject her for being a prostitute isn’t a good mate, IMO. It doesn’t make it harder to find a good mate, just easier to weed out the bad ones! And I don’t get how a McJob is better than sex work… you’re just dishing up burgers instead of blow jobs!

@nicobanks

You are funny! I love it. My boyfriend definately don’t agree with you. I think i would choose a McJob over a blowjob as long as I get paid minimum wage which is 9.50 per hour (not that bad)

@airowDee Thank you! $9.50 isn’t a bad minimum wage, it’s true. I would also probably choose McDonald’s over sex work because I’m in a monogamous marriage, also I’d have to lie to my family about my job (well, I’d choose to lie, to avoid conflict). But I think it comes down to personality: we don’t choose McDonald’s because it’s better, but because it’s better for us.

Is the “sex worker” job damaging to the psyche, or is it how sex workers are perceived in our society that does the damage?

If being a prostitute had been considered a glamorous job (which it may have, in ancient times perhaps) and was still considered a glamorous job where the workers didn’t have to worry about being persecuted, prosecuted, looked down upon, considered “filthy,” or any of the usual stigma’s that are attached to the profession, would they be better adjusted than they are now?

As far as I see it, being a prostitute doesn’t mean that you’re just using your money to make a buck but also that you’re kind of useless, talentless, and unable to do anything but lie on your back for a living. These are things that we, as a society, tell them.

If they were treated with respect, or publicly in demand, or otherwise treated in a positive light instead of a negative one, I would have to wonder how different, mentally, they would be.

I don’t think this actually answers the question so I’ll say for the proper bank roll I’d be more than happy to do the research on this question.

@mrentropy

That is what I am saying, unfortuantely, we are living in a society that treats people in general with little respect. I am bias but i think corporate greed is the biggest problem facing humanity, and if we can’t solve that, than we have little hopes left for anyone.

@airowDee Having thought over your response, I will modify my remarks. Society sends a dual message about the value of women as sex workers. On the surface, society wants to believe that it doesn’t value sex workers, therefore prostitution is illegal, stigmas are attached to “milder” kinds of sex work, prostitutes are prosecuted while johns walk, etc. But underneath, we send a different kind of message about how we value women. While there may be some prostitutes who feel empowered and think it’s a great career choice, I expect the majority do it because it is the way they think they can make the most money, and that choice says something about our values. I really don’t imagine, much as men might like to imagine it, that there are very many prostitutes who really find so much satisfaction in having anonymous sex with random men for money that they would choose it over another opportunity that they found equally rewarding financially.

@nicobanks Female assembly line workers have protections because men are also assembly line workers, and both the men and the women have fought long and hard and at great personal sacrifice to obtain those protections. Women achieved workplace protections at a much slower pace than men did.

For me personally, I would find sex work of any kind, prostitution, stripping extremely degrading.

I have never found hard work degrading. There have been times when I didn’t make as much salary as I thought I should have so I found another job where my skills were more appreciated.

I would rather make less money in a job I was proud of than one that degraded me.

Sex work would be psychologically intolerable for me, because of my gender issues. Aside from anything else I’m too old and ugly, no-one would want me anyway. Sweat-shop work – well I’ve had to do that before and due to my physical disabilities I was physically incapable of doing the work and I lasted three days. I can’t think of any kind of sweat shop work that I could physically do, without screwing it all up or being much too slow.

So the bottom like is, either of those options would drive me to suicide if there was no way out.

@nicobanks I wasn’t trying to minimize the horror of the other conditions you listed. I think that both sex work and sweatshop work are horrible in their own ways. But some of the conditions that you mentioned would end one’s life relatively quickly, whereas STI’s like AIDS and Hep C bring on a slow, painful death (particularly if the person can’t receive treatment).