There are a disproportionate amount of trans women who are prostituted compared to cis women. We know that women do this to support themselves, however that does not mean that this was a freely made “choice”. When the other option is starvation, the concept of “agency” is an illusion that is peddled by capitalism. Women should not be told that the trauma of repeated paid rape can be reduced down to “choice”.

The sexualisation of trans women, with the equation of women’s sexual abuse and exploitation as practiced prostitution, makes trans-positive and prostitution-critical positions seem in tension.

Once examined through the feminist critique of sexualised misogyny, one is unable to see these positions as contrary to one another. Many trans people are sexually violated in institutionalised forms and discriminated against based on sex and gender in both the labour market and health care.

To break this down: there are feminists who are anti-trans and anti-prostitution, on the other there are pro-trans and pro-prostitution. Both sides fail to recognise how their analysis supports positions they reject:

Pro-trans and pro-prostitution feminists believe that being trans is not chosen and therefore dignified and legally protectable, while incorrectly arguing that prostitution is chosen and therefore dignified and should be legalised.

When doing this they ignore that prostitution is a key institution of sex inequality, that is male dominance thriving off depravation of real choices.

I don’t think I need to explain to y’all why this is wrong but in case I do, buying a service from someone and following their rules as a client is not a breech of consent.

A lot of the danger that comes from being a prostitute has to do with its illegality. If a client breaks the rules and the service provider can’t file a complaint without risking imprisonment of themselves and/or their client, that’s not a safe work environment.

The idea that nobody would willingly sell sexual services unless they’re desperate is just false. There’s also a lot of other jobs people do when they’re desperate and they don’t like doing. For me it was working retail.

The difference between me pretending to be happy for clientele while working retail and someone pretending to be happy while selling sexual services to clients is that while I was working retail I at least theoretically had sick leave, health insurance, and a way to file a complaint if a customer assaulted me.

YOU CANNOT BUY A HUMAN BODY.

not even if it's female or transfem.

we are fucking REFUSING to allow sex to become a cog in the capitalistic machine. we are REFUSING to allow female bodies and fetishized transfem bodies to be used as products.

YOU CANNOT BUY CONSENT.

YOU CANNOT BUY CONSENT.

YOU CANNOT BUY CONSENT.

johns and pimps need to be beaten the fuck up.

sex workers do need to be helped & uplifted. not shamed out of the industry and left to rot with no other way to get money, but gently helped out of an industry that objectifies their body and commodifies their orgasms - or, usually, lack thereof. someone's pussy or asshole can never be a product that a random businessman can be selling, and even if you try to girlbossify it... you're still talking about someone's pussy, tits, and/or asshole being used as a product to sell for money.

how fucked up is that? people are only anti-capitalistic when it doesn't involve a female body, or any body they deem as fuckable.

those who are just doing it in a kinky way with those who they're genuinely attracted to are the ones making the industry bigger but not the ones impacted the most. we need to obliterate the sex industry because rape is treated as entertainment. allowing a john to sue a prostitute for not taking his cock also wouldn't make it better. we're already seeing the impact of that in the parts of the world with it.

you cannot buy consent.

you are feeding a machine that rapes teenagers and anyone in deep poverty or vulnerable situation. you call it Sex Work instead of prostitution because, like i was as a camgirl, it's triggering to call it what it is. sex workers are some of the most abused "workers" out there. if you're doing it as a kinky polyam thing on the side, you're not our fucking target here, though it can still 100% traumatize you.

you cannot buy consent.

Disgruntled and confused porn users demanded the hard research data, so I went into the basement to find my dusty copy of Zillmann and Bryant’s book. It will take me a while to screenshot, caption, and post it all.

The two photos above reference a 1982 experiment which measured the effects of prolonged pornography consumption on test subjects’ recommendations for rapist prison terms.

Male and female subjects were divided into three groups and exposed to either 6 regular films (control group), 3 regular films and 3 porn films (intermediate exposure), or 6 porn films (massive exposure).

Three weeks later, they took a variety of questionnaires and inventories. One asked them to recommend the prison sentence for a hypothetical rapist. The chart above shows the difference in what they recommended by group. 

Conclusion: both men and women exposed to porn recommended reduced sentencing for rapists compared to those in the control group.

Consider that in 1982, watching 6 porn films was considered “massive exposure.“ 

Also consider whether the judge and or jury members deciding your rapist’s fate may have watched more than 6 or more porn films.

It’s very simple: This is transactional sex; any sex not premised on enthusiastic emotional and intellectual consent is being performed under coercion; ergo all transactional sex is rape and its existence is anathema to humanity.

idk abt u op but i constantly see ppl on this platform call food delivery ppl the exploited underclass or even slaves & judge costumers for ordering food instead of making it knowing abt the working conditions they have to work under but never apply the same logic to the sex industry, esp prostitution. now if the delivery ppl were paid adequately, had insurance, were employed instead of self employed etc the working conditions here could be alleviated. the issue with prostitution is that no amount of regulation can change the fundamental fact that at the end of the day its mostly economically disadvantaged & disenfranchised ppl who end up in prostitution with little to no real alternatives, having to tolerate sex they dont want to make ends meet.

the issue with recognising it as a job like any other can be seen in germany: direly needed exit programs are not receiving government funding. cos why would u help workers exit their job? the two big unions in this country that claim to be the voice of sex workers have brothel owners as members & are very pro brothel. which on first sight seems logical cos u can implement a panic button, security kicking ppl out etc, but brothel owners act as both boss & landlord & they take a daily rent to use the room, meaning the prostituted ppl have to pay to work essentially, & have to take on a minimum amount of sex buyers a day to break even, & thats before taxes & insurance. brothel owners & ppl who run escort & porn websites are the real winners financially of recognising it as a job, not actual sex workers.

& again, no regulation changes the exploitative nature of sex against payment.

now one thing feminists have been fighting for is for consent to be enthusiastic. for women to have sex they actually enjoy, not sex they feel obligated to have. sex as a job is an obligation & therefore at odds with this principle.

consider additionally, again for the case of germany, that the majority of prostituted ppl come from economically disadvantaged countries, esp since the eu east expansion, while the sex buyers are german or sex tourists from countries with stricter regulations such as the nordic model. i dont see how making it safe would make it less exploitative & harmful for the psyche to force urself over & over to have sex with ppl u dont wanna have sex with cos u were born into poverty & try to get out.

there isnt one simple solution to this cos its a very very complex social issue. personally i think we need a cultural shift more than we need to look at the law. but for me this means shifting the focus to the sex buyers who willingly & knowingly use economic power to get sex with ppl that otherwise wouldnt have sex with them. i know ppl like op come from a good place, but just as the cries for criminalisation, in my humble opinion, treating it as a job like any other is also a bit shortsighted considering how much systemic oppression (of women & transfems, single mothers, immigrants & poc, addicts, impoverished ppl, mentally ill & disabled ppl in particular) plays into who finds themselves on the demand & who on the supply side. & i hope we all agree that sexual exploitation is different to lets say, the exploitation of delivery drivers or farmhands.

It is not always misogynistic, but often is. What it always is is anti-sex and pro-rape. It’s rape culture to construe sex acts as punishment or something to extract from someone you hate or have defeated.

At minimum, however we intend them, they all share a common heritage. Which is the idea is that certain sex acts are degrading — specifically getting fucked is degrading — and others are worth bragging about — specifically fucking someone is brag-worthy. And not the reverse. And there is an element of tying these acts to violence as well. This can even be seen in the etymological roots. Fuck itself meant “to hit, to strike”.

Looking at the degradation involved, you wouldn’t try to insult someone with something beneficial or pleasurable, right? You wouldn’t say “Get a surprise party!!” to the idiot who stepped on your foot, but you would say “get fucked!!” ... what does this say about our attitudes toward sex? Particularly for the party who is fucked (penetrated) or made to suck (orally penetrated)? And so it makes it seem like we have a long history of viewing the receiving party to a dick, regardless of gender, as lesser and degraded. Why is that?

Going back to the original post, yes we can read the “I fucked your [relative, most often female]!” insult a lot of different ways. And it is fair to point that out, and also look at some of the variations people have come up with to try and mask or avoid the rape-y or sex-as-conquest associations. It’s also fair to point out how who is saying the insult matters, and to who, and with what level of genuine anger, to some extent.

But at the root of it all is the reason why I am bothering to explain, and be concerned about this: sex as degrading or sex as an aggressive competition absolutely is at the root of any possible reading of these insults. Especially the effect of sex involving a dick on the penetrated partner. It’s why when you see women try to leverage these insults, they often go for “I pegged/fucked your dad/mom/etc!!. They don’t say “yeah well I had your dad/mom/etc fuck me!”. There’s a reason. And it’s in the implicit dominance and prestigious conquest of fucking and the submission or degradation in being fucked.

Meanwhile, if sex is good and worth consenting to, and not bad, and not rape, none of that should make sense! In good sex, where sex is morally good and loved, all acts chosen are pleasing and desired! And yet, to just about all of us, these insults relying on us thinking getting fucked is bad do make sense. And the idea of bragging about the fucking, or “seduction” of the relative or partner of enemies as a conquest to lord over them does make sense to nearly all of us. Why?

We have deeply internalized a sex negative, exploitative, harmfully competitive, hierarchal, domineering, sexist, homophobic, and sexually violent and sexually commodifying culture.

2)Haven’t read homestuck, so no opinion

3/4)Yes

5)Everyone is taught misogyny. Trans men are no more likely to be misogynists than anyone brought up experiencing it a lot.

6)Fuck off, no matter how much you don’t believe it, trans men are oppressed.

7)Sure

8)So you’re just ignoring the inbreeding (avoiding inbreeding is not eugenics, yes I’ve seen this take before) and guaranteed predatory/unhealthy relationship.

9)It always has been, but I feel you don’t mean that in a ‘it’s hard for children to get help from anyone outside their family if they’re being abused’/‘many people don’t actually view children as people way’. Also I don’t think youth liberation is more important than undoing institutional sexism/racism/ableism/transphobia/etc…

10)I partially agree with the unwanted contact bit, but children are stupid and likely won’t agree to a life-saving low/no risk medical procedure, so sometimes it’s more complicated.

11)Self harm is not healthy, it’s very dangerous, and you saying this could put people in even more danger of seriously hurting or killing themself.

12)Not quite sure what you mean by this, but suicidal people should be given help - they shouldn’t kill themself (ignoring MAD for terminally ill people).

13)If this is about systems (not sure on what the word means exactly), then sure?