Here's a possibly-controversial take, but joining the army isn't really even close to the best analogy for a male-dominated industry where you "sell your body".
Being a labourer is. Working in industries like construction, but not as a skilled tradesman. It doesn't carry the same moral weight riley was going for though.
Labourers sell their labour, but they effectively have bodily autonomy, they get to walk away if they want to. That's largely not true for hired murderers.
True, but it's not just about labor.
To join the US military you have to literally sign over your bodily autonomy to join. Once you do then they can pump you full of experimental drugs, or run whatever other ungodly experiments, all they want. I know someone who considered joining then backed out when this allegedly happened.
Anyway, never heard of Riley before but seems nice. Hope she supports our troops and offers military discount for her OnlyFans.
To join the US military you have to literally sign over your bodily autonomy to join. Once you do then they can pump you full of experimental drugs, or run whatever other ungodly experiments, all they want.
Doesn't that just come with being a US citizen. Or being any other citizen
Any form of physical labour is selling your body sex work is selling your right to refuse sexual consent. I think that makes it a worse situation for the person doing the sex work than other work
If you are doing only fans or similar how are you not consenting? It's fully on your terms.
I doubt most people in the military would consent to getting their dick blown off by a mine if given the opportunity.
it's not fully on your terms because if you refuse to provide sexual content for the only fans subscribers you stop getting paid which means that with the coercion of the market you stop having full and uncoerced control over your ability to refuse to give sexual consent to sharing provocative images of yourself
In the same vein are you not selling your right to consent of your bodily autonomy by being a laborer?
yes but your right to refuse to consent type out emails, or stack boxes is less intimate and personal than your control over your sexual consent
it is for example perfectly socially acceptable to pressurize and even insist that people do various chores which would be deeply immoral in the case of sexual consent. For example your roommate could insist that as a condition of your living arrangement you have to clean the house (which is a bodily autonomy sacrifice as you have to use your body to work potentially against what you want) but they would be out of bounds if they insisted you do sexual favours for them
Onlyfans models generally have the option to apply for a job at McDonald's instead.*
People working for the military generally do not.
* Ok, there's actually more nuance here because a large percentage of sex workers are disabled, and lack of accessibility and general ableism prevents them from working most other jobs. But while that's important to understand, it's a different discussion.
This is why we are socialists and want to disconnect labor from work
There's a reason why people who join the U.S. military are disproportionately poor.
You're describing a problem that is common across "industries" as if it were unique to sex work, when it's not.
It's unreasonable to posit that somehow Onlyfans models have less bodily autonomy or more coercion than members of the U.S. (and probably any other) military.
I encourage you to take some time to interrogate why you were so easily able to make this leap of logic, because to me it seems (consciously or not) motivated by moralized "disgust" of sex work rather than rational consideration.
There's a reason why people who join the U.S. military are disproportionately poor
This isn't true, theyre wealthier on average.
You keep on making points that I know you must know don't apply to capitalism in practice.
There are so many jobs that don't NEED to exist, and yet they do. And chances are that you'll be coerced into doing at least one of those jobs in your life, especially if you're poor.
I guess I am also coming at things from the practical perspective of:
There will always be sex workers. What can we do in practice to keep them safe?
"Solutions" based on moralizing sex work as inherently "bad" end up being things like:
Making directly providing sexual services illegal, which is "intended" to stop "sex trafficking" and punish "pimps" but in reality forces transactions underground and in the dark, facilitating sex trafficking and leading to victims being harassed and prosecuted far more than perpetrators.
Sex workers of all kinds want sexual services decriminalized because they understand that criminalization makes everyone less safe:
Providers of sexual services need to advertise on shady websites and meet in non-public spaces, rather than openly using Craigslist on their own terms. Is Craigslist a good example of a safety-focused platform for sexual services? Absolutely not! But providers of sexual services were much safer before Craigslist cracked down than they are, by far. Police regularly harass street workers, very much including sexual assault.
Clients risk getting arrested, and are similarly forced into more dangerous situations.
All people, especially poor and marginalized women, are less safe. The large underground market for sex work makes it much easier for humans to be trafficked. Children sexually abused (child sexual abuse absolutely must be criminalized, and CSAM a long with it). Undocumented immigrants trafficked for sex work, as well as non-sex work.
I believe that the moralization and criminalization of sex work is absolutely fundamental to institutions like the Catholic Church being able to facilitate the sexual abuse / rape of so many children, for so long. And it's not like its over, especially in fundamentalist Christian churches but also in all major institutions and parts of our society.
So, I mostly care about the unique moralization and criminalization of sex work because I regularly listen to sex workers themselves talking about what needs to change to make them, and everyone else, safer.
And they regularly use analogies to other physical and emotional labor.
I'm not sure that I can defend that notion to you articulately, but I also very much don't care.
I support listening to and learning from marginalized people. I support the notion that marginalized people generally know what is best for them better than the random old white dudes that declare themselves to be experts without any real connection to, or respect for, those communities.
I know that policies decisions led by those that are most vulnerable almost always end up helping everyone else too.
I think if you look at it that way, you could also say working for the military is selling your right to a safe workplace. Like, a lot of other jobs (including sex work) can be dangerous, and often are due to a lack of care from those in power. But the military is necessarily dangerous by its very nature.
yeah which is why I wouldn't join the army and would advise anyone not to
although sex workers are far more likely to experience PTSD than soldiers
also sex workers are substantially more likely to be killed in a violent attack than soldiers are at 112-225 per 100,000 for sex workers and 51 out of 100,000 for the branch of the army with the highest mortality rate so being a sex worker is more than twice as dangerous as being a soldier
Yeah those sorts of facts are unsurprising to me, and they're why I brought up the fact that other jobs often are dangerous in practice.
I mean the joke in the military is literally you can't kill yourself because it's destruction of government property.
I agree with the point but you can tell your boss to fuck off and stop being a laborer whereas your ass gets thrown in prison if you decide you don't want somebody else fully in control of what you eat when you sleep where you live and who you kill.
Both are selling your body but one of them you can't decide to stop selling it.
Doing "unskilled labor" is at the very least creating something. Even if that thing is socially useless like a Starbucks location that's across the street from another Starbucks location, that's a better outcome than bombing or shooting something.
I wasn't interested in making any value judgments. Simply in coming up with what job is the purest expression of "selling your body".
Being a laborer is about selling your labor value. Not selling access to your body
You fucked hearted the guy saying 'fighting for your country' equals saving people?! If you're killing people for profit, you are just a murderer. Even if it's someone else's profit.
Yea even the most doughy eyed liberal would have a hard time arguing that anybody in the military is "saving" anyone.
They even normally stop at something about defending the homeland (from goat farmers who have never left their province half a world away)
I once had someone argue that soldiers in ww1 died for my freedom. Freedom from what? Losing African colonies to Germany?
What I hate with this is that is defines that the army itself is good or bad. But in reality it is what it is used for. If its actually used for defence, then it's very honorable. When it's used as a tool to exploit resources to the rich, (aka generally being the aggressor), it's not.
joining the army in the Imperial core will always be bad and make the troop/vet complicit in the countless deaths and destruction
Many would rate the USSR as an imperial core country, while I guess you and I maybe won't. Stop assuming privilege of those you talk to and demean them with willful ignorance. There is always something more that may be learned about an issue and people should not be vilified if their attempts to learn more are genuine (and I think you can not determine it was not from this interaction, comrade).
I think your response was unwarranted. Hardly makes me a "concern troll" (had to look it up because I've never seen the term before). I am obviously an alt for calling you out though. Made this account 5 months ago and interacted with myself for the first time in this post just because you are so fucking special.
Calling people pos is also uncool, even if they invade other people's safe spaces. Their comments on the post you linked didn't even seem aimed to be hurtful or invalidate anyone else's experience, though ill placed for sure.
No, I said fucking special with regards to how much time I would spend talking to you. Almost didn't even bother responding, hence your "theory" about alt being ridiculous.
I might be somewhat arrogant for sure. Not going to apologize to you for being arrogant after your vilifying claims of alt and concern trolling though.
Whose post history is dubious?
EDIT: Also, how the fuck is calling you fucking special ableist?
A little bit of a stretch to add the "needs" in "special needs" in order to make me out to be ableist. I do not believe you will admit as such though, but let me ask you this: Is it not reductive to the actual experiences of those with special needs who experience actual ableism, whenever someone makes up context so they can claim being subjected to it on internet forums?
Oof, now we are getting to the real questions. Not going to post it here, but will tell you in a message.
Countries that are doing the marxist definition of imperialism basically.
You best start believing in Imperial cores... you're in one!
Can you explain why some of the nordic countries, i.e. Norway, Sweden, Denmark are part of the imperial core while Finland, Iceland, Greenland are not? I can put color on a white map too, doesn't mean it portrays a real issue adequately. Also wtf, why is Portugal not part of the imperial core?
The map is a reference to the one you see whenever just about any international issue comes up and the same crew are all in agreement, I'm not actually positive what specific issue this map was taken from.
The website has a more serious explainer (with a couple versions of the map) but I'm with you, Iceland and Portugal and Finland are core countries probably. The real answer is that it's fluid and historically contingent, not set in stone. It's a question of how your economy develops and how it relates to 'peripheral' countries that are primarily extracted from, not a literal list pulled off an emoji.
I looked through that article and found it somewhat problematic. Especially the description of core countries as:
They have strong state institutions, a powerful military and powerful global political alliances.
For example, Iceland does not even have a military, but can still be part of capitalist neo-colonialism as part of the "imperial core". Even so, one should also keep in mind that Iceland historically had been under Denmark's dominion and it is wrong to say that it has been a primary benefactor of classic colonialism leading to the rise of western powers in modern history. On the other hand, Portugal has been a strong colonial power historically. Still, the development index of Iceland is way higher and I would argue there are lots of factors in play as to why, and one cannot say that there is a direct equivalence between development index and imperialism. Both Norway, Iceland and Finland gained independence in the 20th century, never had proper colonies and are part of the economic elite. Norway is still in large an economy based around export of natural resources, which is atypical for being an imperial core member. I often feel that many facts like these are overlooked in discussions of imperial cores in favor of simplistic ideas such as equivocating HDI and imperialism. Can we not have better discussions around the mechanics of modern imperialism than throwing around a map and calling out people for not being intimate with the idea of an imperial core, an idea whose simplicity makes itself highly flawed?
I agree that I gave a simplistic answer, you can read literal books about it. But Iceland, as an example, does actually have a history of being closely tied to the military of the US and the UK voluntarily, I think Greenland is actually a better candidate for peripheral than Iceland. And realistically it's going to be more of a spectrum than a binary, you're usually going to fall somewhere in the middle rather than being on the extreme end like the US and Israel.
And even then you might have internal dynamics that complicate it. Parts of the US (Appalachia, "Indian Country") are clearly peripheral within the US economy and subject to exploitation that other areas are not. So agreed, it's complicated.
Dialectics as a method warns us against assumptions that "the state of things" is static, these things are always changing. But I think there's value in the basic observation that world economic systems work in tension, where opposed interests are not equally met in a mutually beneficial exchange a la neoliberal dogma. Even if you have to acknowledge that it is much more complicated than "it's the same map every time" I think the concept is useful.
What would you say is a better way of talking about this sort of thing?
I think what bugs me (generally, not you so much specifically) is what I perceive to be so many ideas conflated into one. One can talk about a lot of different issues under the "imperial core" label, but I think one should be careful about considering who one talks about as imperial core according in context of the issue in question, since the imperial core is not a homogeneous group in a lot of matters, much like any other collection of countries. In particular, I think it is important to allow for some more varied terms of imperial core, else risking falling into a false dichotomy. I see that it might look pretty similar from a global south perspective, but I believe it is helpful to be more nuanced in the approach about who are imperial core to better analyze and understand the mechanics of the imperialism in play.
I think you're probably right, at least when the participants are all familiar with the concept and prepared to get more detailed. On a forum post where someone is ostensibly being introduced to the idea for the first time I worry that trying to get into all of the nuance might be overwhelming when the other person most likely just needs 'the basic idea' to get what someone means. Given that the left is full of nuanced jargon I feel like this is a perennial problem of balancing accessibility and thoroughness.
Totally get that. I was probably just being a little bit of an ass because I had seen some similar things earlier that I thought missed the mark.
Unironically yes. The development in the imperial core came at the expense of the rest of the world, that's what the term is referring to, the part of the world economy that is accumulating through imperialism the wealth and resources of the whole planet.
Yeah peaceful militaries like Korea's or China's or Cuba's are ok. Anyone joining the US military though if just in it for the war crimes.
I wouldn't call North Korea firing missiles over other sovereign countries very peaceful. As well as China doing troop exercises that obviously prepare for the invasion of Taiwan. I'm sure there are more examples.
The DPRK had literally never been to war outside its territory; it's not a dove but at least it hasn't invaded multiple sovereign countries like its southern cousin.
China does troop exercises like every single other country in the world.
I mean as long as you consider South Korea part of their territory, sure. There was though the Korean War, where North Korea invaded South Korea. Of course it's not on the same level as South Korea, but I would imagine that's more because they literally can't, they have no resources for it, not because they're amazingly peaceful people.
The north didn't invade the south though, no Koreans agreed that the US supported parallel was a permanent division of the country, both North and South fully intended to create a united Korea. Tens of thousands of Koreans were already dead from purges and suppression of uprisings in the south when the operation started. It was literally an ongoing civil war that had momentarily frozen.
I'm not sure on what information you base this claim, but as far as I know the 38th parallel was agreed upon because both the udssr and the US wanted total occupation of Korea for themselves, but they both wanted to potentially avoid an armed conflict so tried a compromise.
Then the north korean part, supported by China and unofficially by the soviet union, invaded the south to establish total control.
No North Korea claims descend from the People's Republic of Korea and like in Germany, the US and UDSSR agreed upon an eventual neutral zone. The North invaded the South after the US sponsored regime began killing socialist uprisings, essentially protecting its citizens.
Are you talking about that time they launched a missile over the least populated possible part of Japan as part of a test? What are they supposed to do, just not advance their tech? They're surrounded, they've got to launch them over somebody and they did it the safest way they could.
It literally is, it harms no one and acts as deterrent from the US having another imperialist adventure where they kill 20 percent of Koreans.
it harms no one
well, pollution, but libs aren't ready for that conversation
So boot camp, as it is full of military exercises, would count as not peaceful?
No, obviously perfectly fine. They are literally doing exercises for a potential invasion to Taiwan though, which is a difference.
You can't invade your own territory. By Chinese and Taiwanese law, internationally recognized by the UN (and even the US, as asserted by Blinken the last time he was in China to pretend to be sorry), Taiwan is Chinese territory.
peaceful militaries
Korea’s or China’s or Cuba’s
Not sure if joking or not
OK I can see how you can twist reality to call China or the DPRK's militaries nonpeaceful even though you'd be wrong, but Cuba's? Really?
you'd be wrong
I bet. Especially if you don't count saber rattling, threats and border skirmishes. If you don't count those then I'm wrong and they're very peaceful.
Cuba's? Really?
Cuba got quite a reputation during the Cold War. It's pretty interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_Cuba
and border skirmishes.
find me three chinese border skirmishes where the most advanced weapon used wasn't a stick or a rock.
see, the last time i had a conversation like this somebody posted some "list of chinese border conflicts" without reading it and it was mostly diplomatic stuff, the time the PLA ate shit against vietnam decades ago, and some literal fistfights with nepal.
Compared to, say, the US military, which I assume the OP is talking about?
Hey, im not trying to be rude or anything I just wanna quickly say that honor is a fiction typically used by the rich and powerful to manipulate the young and well-meaning into becoming fucked up stormtroopers for capital.
In modern context, sure. In a wider anthropological historic context, no. My understanding of honor as a social concept, though I do not have proper academic sources to back this, is that it works in lieu of a central force of government enforcing laws and common rule. I.e. non centralized governance such as that of say the Norse people of old, had very strong etiquette of honor, the lack of which implied social status that would be worse to the one living than them dying. That meant weird things like a story of a man who robbed a house, realized they were doing something dishonorable (read illegal), went back and challenged the man who owned the house, killed them in combat and then stole their stuff. Just like laws it imposes rules on people, in this weird case murder in combat is better than theft, but still a rule. I would argue this notion of honor has existed across different societies for a long time, due to general absence of centralized governance, and has in modern times, relatively speaking on an anthropological timeline, been adopted and exploited by centralized powers to further control the populace, in the very real way you talk about.
Point 2 on your source: American forces liberated concentration camps including Buchenwald, Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenbürg, Dachau, and Mauthausen.
They all helped. Your comment doesn't invalidate mine.
In that case I might respectfully suggest looking into an introductory course to logic if you're at all interested. http://intrologic.stanford.edu/chapters/chapter_01.html
Lol can't think of a single western country that's had an "honorable" war post 1945. The US army is unequivocally bad
In general I think you are right, but I was also under the impression that the NATO intervention in Bosnia helped prevent ethnic cleansing, which if true is a honorable thing.
Even simpler than that. People trying to slot sex work/army/any job into “good/bad” columns aren’t worth your attention.
Except for health insurance CEOs, those definitely bad.
Cops and troops are bad. You might even say All of them AB
How much Kool aid do you need to drink to think a soldiers job is "saving people"? Except for medics that's pretty much the opposite of the point.
I would never compare, being a sex worker is obviously incredibly more honorable
But...saying that something is more honorable than something else is comparing them?
EDIT: to be clear, her point is absolutely valid. This isn't (to misquote a replier) "But I must find way for sex lady be dumb". Her actual point is spot-on. This particular linguistic evolution just feels weird to me - feels like the new "literally".
They don't mean "I'm not making a comparison, but "There is no comparison to be made, one of these things is clearly better"
Besides it being a joke, fuck the troops. Fuck the troops. Fuck the troops. Fuck the troops.
That's all that matters about what they said
Found out my work is getting a new chemical. The chemical is so volatile that if it splashes on you, it will potentially burn you into nothing.
I am fodder for the machines of industry.
Same, but that also goes for nightfill at the local grocery store and dishwashing. :(
I am confused, do you believe STEM science bro to be a real thing or do you project this on the 🔬-man? Either way, I am concerned if people think or there really are "STEM science broos" out there.
Don't know your experience, but that is exactly why we have business school where I am from. To have a place to put those people. In all seriousness, the people I have met in my time studying math for many years now are really great progressive people, the stark opposite to what you have described. I am talking about every single one I have met that kept going past the first year.
Some of those exist, and there is a meme about who shits on who in science community going something like this: math > physics > engineering, which is somewhat true. Again, what you are talking about sounds to me like a business school in STEM suit rather than a university focused on basic research.
That guy looks exactly like what you would expect someone saying that to look like
It sounds like the implication here is that sex workers are complicit in rape culture or something. Boilerplate swerf bullshit.
You can criticize sex work from this angle without implying that the sex workers themselves are complicit.
I have no idea what you mean by that. Do you think sex workers benefit from the system that tries to exploit them? Do you or dont you think that sex workers are complict in rape culture? Because accusing sex workers of being complicit in the system that exploits them is what makes it SWERF bullshit, not the mere criticism of sex work. Thats where the line is.
This growing animosity makes me sad
But yeah im not going to pretend lemmygrad doesnf have a debatebro problem going on, even if i think its a minority
It is a minority, but as usual such minorities are enough to make spaces unsafe for women when they have official backing or at least tacit acceptance of their behavior. That's what turns it from just a minority that can be dealt with into a structural flaw of the community. The recent controversy about transmysogyny and liberal civility politics on lemmygrad unfortunately isn't the first example of women complaining about their mistreatment on that instance. Just look at the reasoning of the guy you're arguing with - his problem isn't exploitation in sex work or coercive material conditions that pressure women who otherwise wouldn't do so into sex work, it's that he views it as dishonorable to perform sex work. He makes a moral argument against the woman where he puts the blame squarely on the sex worker because he's a sexist pig who poisons a leftist space with reactionary ideology.
Like the average reactionary, you're doing the "my black friends agree with my racism" thing, too.
It's you who is trying to silence women here, you fucking debatebro incel pig. You're talking to one.
Either start explaining your position or shut the fuck up dude. Nobody is going to learn what the fuck you're talking about if you just keep choosing to be a vague dickhead about it. At best all you're doing is alienating potential understanders.
I dont see how this article backs up CountryBreakfast's point at all. It doesn't implicate sex workers as being implict in the system that takes advantage of them. It also makes a point of making it clear that they're only talking about "prostitution" and not other forms of sex work (OnlyFans, which is being discussed here).
I didnt read the whole thing in detail, but the tl;dr at the end, the main points, I find nothing to disagree with there. And I feel like most hexbears agree with whats there. But it doesnt back up what CountryBreakfast was saying.
People on this instance tend to rail against the sex trade as a whole pretty hard. You'll sometimes see people get so caught up in hating johns and pimps that they'll disregard the perspective of sex workers.
Yeah therein lies my problem. Glad you can see it though.
free
no it costs money. free sex is when somebody is dumb enough to love you
Not what I said.
ETA: I said the sex workers arent complicit in that.
braver than the troops
fuck the troops
fuck the troops' spouses
