When I was younger, I supported full legalisation of sex work because I thought that to disallow it would be to remove the agency of sex workers who had chosen that path as their profession.
Then I got older and read accounts of sex workers trafficked to European countries where prostitution is legal I realised that some (but not all) sex workers are actually participating in "legal" transactions under duress. In my mind that invalidates the necessary consent required when the activity involves sex work of some kind, making it unethical from the buyer to acquire such a service despite it being legal locally. While trafficking is of course still illegal, I am unclear about the laws protecting trafficking victims from their "buyers" in non-consenting transactions.
Since it is practically impossible to confirm if a given sex worker is participating under duress or not, especially when it occurs "remotely" as in this OnlyFans situation, I would say it is always unethical to purchase such services.
In addition, what I would consider "under duress" is fairly broad, not only under threat of violence from traffickers, but also including economic duress where an individual feels that it is the only way to earn an income to put food on the table. In this vein, I would consider sex tourism to poorer countries a form of exploitation and thus unethical, even though one could argue the individuals from the poorer countries selling such services do so "willingly".
This article writes that one of these women feels that she must engage in sex work through OnlyFans because it is "the only way she can support her family...". It leaves a bad taste as I would not consider that she is participating in the transaction without duress, and thus actually consenting in the transaction. Would you be okay with it if you knew that the woman you were buying lingerie pictures "had" to do it? How would that not be a form of exploitation?
However, one can extend this argument to any type of work. "She says her _____ work is the only way she can support her family...", replace with an arbitrary line of work and activity (woodcutting/marketing/basketweaving). Is there any thing that makes sex work special (apart from some puritanical opinion which are not actually applicable), that would make such a transaction inherently more unethical than say being forced to work at McDonalds because it's the only way to make ends meet? Why would the latter more "ethical" than the former, when an individual is still "forced" to sell their labor to survive, what ever form that labor is?
I would have thought the exact opposite. Wouldn't the current elite rather believe that they are on top because they worked hard and earned their place? That way they can look down on the rest in good conscience while gutting welfare systems that only benefit those who "didn't" earn their own way.
True, you could let the market dictate their salaries, but then you run into the issue of paying one gender more money for the same amount of work, a practice outlawed under the Equality Pay Act of 1963.
Educational outreach is an important part of what NASA does. For the low cost of a letter they most likely encouraged a kid to have a career in the sciences. In my mind that is peak efficiency.
That's the thing though, they don't. And why would they? These cabbies made a bet that the medallion would not lose value until they sold it, and they lost that bet. How is this different from any other small-time business going bankrupt?
Then I got older and read accounts of sex workers trafficked to European countries where prostitution is legal I realised that some (but not all) sex workers are actually participating in "legal" transactions under duress. In my mind that invalidates the necessary consent required when the activity involves sex work of some kind, making it unethical from the buyer to acquire such a service despite it being legal locally. While trafficking is of course still illegal, I am unclear about the laws protecting trafficking victims from their "buyers" in non-consenting transactions.
Since it is practically impossible to confirm if a given sex worker is participating under duress or not, especially when it occurs "remotely" as in this OnlyFans situation, I would say it is always unethical to purchase such services.
In addition, what I would consider "under duress" is fairly broad, not only under threat of violence from traffickers, but also including economic duress where an individual feels that it is the only way to earn an income to put food on the table. In this vein, I would consider sex tourism to poorer countries a form of exploitation and thus unethical, even though one could argue the individuals from the poorer countries selling such services do so "willingly".
This article writes that one of these women feels that she must engage in sex work through OnlyFans because it is "the only way she can support her family...". It leaves a bad taste as I would not consider that she is participating in the transaction without duress, and thus actually consenting in the transaction. Would you be okay with it if you knew that the woman you were buying lingerie pictures "had" to do it? How would that not be a form of exploitation?
However, one can extend this argument to any type of work. "She says her _____ work is the only way she can support her family...", replace with an arbitrary line of work and activity (woodcutting/marketing/basketweaving). Is there any thing that makes sex work special (apart from some puritanical opinion which are not actually applicable), that would make such a transaction inherently more unethical than say being forced to work at McDonalds because it's the only way to make ends meet? Why would the latter more "ethical" than the former, when an individual is still "forced" to sell their labor to survive, what ever form that labor is?