Edit:

Here is a list of resources to learn about sex worker from actual sex workers who are engaged in the struggle for worker's rights:

  • https://www.nswp.org/resources/types/nswp-briefing-papers-248
  • https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/white-mans-burden-revisited/
  • https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/from-brothel-to-sweatshop-questions-on-labour-trafficking-in-camb/
  • https://titsandsass.com/the-massage-parlor-means-survival-here-red-canary-song-on-robert-kraft/
  • https://medium.com/purplerose0666/the-af3irm-agenda-b5ec31216904
  • https://medium.com/@katezenjoy/dear-esperanza-5aa7db4d501a
  • https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/decriminalising-sex-work-in-new-zealand-its-history-and-impact/
  • https://www.mayamorena.com/anti-equality-model-campaign/2021/5/22/pscegcnr680fh4oazlmwe8i5527o9j

Bigger repo of theory / resources:

  • https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oWxx3yodCJJGxTmqgCeB6csVAeRkllSQq_VUe78MJA4/view

Books to check out:

  • https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36224357-sex-lies-statistics
          • KollontaiWasRight [she/her,they/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Or maybe your argument is stupid. There is nothing ahistorical about asserting that the demand for sex work has existed as long as we have records. Like all labor, it has included exploitation. But you now say that the specific class of labor specialization which is related to sex is somehow special compared to other forms of specialized labor. You never justify this distinction, you just wave your hands and say "YoU'rE HoRn1111" instead of actually establishing why that specific form of labor specialization is specifically worse than any other one. You don't do that, because the only appeal you could make is to cast sex itself as somehow more dehumanizing, which is just stupid puritan pseudointellectualism hiding behind bad marxism.

            • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
              ·
              3 years ago

              I did make the disntinction. Unlike preparing food, shelter or textiles, sex does nothing to make that surplus greater. You can't eat sex, you can't plow a field better with sex, sex will not keep the rain off of you. Sex work came after that labor was specialized and certain people had control of that greater material wealth and could use it in exchange for sex. There is no way out of the fact. You said it's necessary labor and I am giving a pretty tight historical reason that it isn't.

              • KollontaiWasRight [she/her,they/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                No, you're demonstrating a complete failure to understand any form of materialism. You know what else doesn't make surplus greater? Art. A sculpture doesn't make you plow a field better. It might keep the rain off of you, but it isn't particularly good at it. Is being an artist as a profession now just as bad as being a sex worker?

                What you're engaging in here is crass producerism. It is unmaterialist and unmarxist.

                • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  A great deal of art is enjoyed by a lot of people over a long period of time. It has socical value. Sex work is enjoyed once by the person paying for it Artist also wasn't a specialized job at all for quite a long time as well, they dually had to farm or make pottery or some shot

                  • KollontaiWasRight [she/her,they/them]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    Oh, so every musician who existed before recording technology had no social value? Social value only exists in the creation of a product? All sex work is enjoyed by just one person? Stripping and erotic dance are only enjoyed by one person? Or are we now carving up sex work into the sex work you consider adequately worthy?

                    If you think sex workers in the early world only had to have sex to make a living, you need to actually familiarize yourself with any history. As time progressed, labor became more specialized. Cobblers don't emerge at the same time as subsistence farmers. You start by making your own clothing. Then, as the social surplus increases, some people stop having to farm, and instead make shoes. This argument by order of emergence is, again, bad materialism that demonstrates a failure to familiarize yourself with Marx or with history while sneering at sex work based on a very shallow understanding of it.