On the other hand one could say it “strengthens” relationships because it’s a release valve for relationships which otherwise may be under pressure to break up.
Boss pays you for the power to direct your energies.
Taxes.
Customers pay you to do things.
Just because it’s related to sex does not make it more of an imbalance.
And no - don’t get it twisted, I’m not advocating for this specific power imbalance.
Clearly there is something distinguishing some power imbalances from others.
If the entire relationship is premised upon sexual favors or sugar daddy style relationship, there is definitely a different power imbalance than one where you are being blackmailed/coerced into something you didn't originally sign up for.
Are you saying the relevant important factor is that they are an employee and not a contractor?
> wrong (and illegal in the US).
Sure, but prostitution is also generally illegal in the US as well.
Because, unlike a sugar baby, that's not what the employee signed up for.
Perhaps there is something unique about sex and how it interacts with power dynamics? I want to capture the intuition that we generally all share around stuff like this.
A statement like
> Just because it’s related to sex does not make it more of an imbalance.
does not seem to capture this intuition that most people hold.
...which is also generally bad if the role is materially different and goes on top of what was signed up for, with little to no extra compensation.
> Perhaps there is something unique about sex and how it interacts with power dynamics?
Suppose that your boss asked you, in addition to your current duties, instead of giving sexual favors, you follow him home and do all his laundry - with the same implication that your career hinges on it. Would that change the power dynamic? I don't think so. The only thing that "sex" changes is that it arouses attention.
Both are bad, but I disagree with your moral intuition - and suspect most people would as well.
The key moral fact here is more than just "it's not what you signed up for"
Vice versa may be worse, but either is bad. We wouldn't consider it fair just because it doesn't involve sex. In either situation, the power balance is the same. Your boss doesn't get more power just because he asks for sex instead of laundry.
If you are hired as a coder, and the boss asks you to start also joining sales/marketing calls with them (not in your job description) is that of equal moral ickyness as if the boss asks you to have sex with them or a third party (similarly, not in the job description)? I think not, but the explanation provided definitely doesn't capture that intuition.
But it comes down to personal comfort zone. Someone who tries to get a coder job is comfortable with coding, but may not be comfortable with doing electric installations, which clearly is not in the job description - and I would expect any of my team to tell me to go fish when I come to them with 400 meters of copper cables and a screwdriver.
Women who are on that platform obviously are comfortable with the idea of exchanging sexual favours with clients. They may have limits on certain practices, and they probably would not be comfortable doing something icky and morally corrupt as coding.
Moral is something very subjective, and I consider it pretentious for someone to push their own morals on others. If the people involved in that platform are ok with this, if they do these transactions out of their own volition, it is obviously wrong to send a sharia morality police after them because some grandma or some priest might be offended.
Who's been messin' up everything...
Serfs.
Selling of children.
Communism.
Give me the power imbalance that rewards me instead of forced labor any day.
All of this precedes "capitalism" and also existed in non-capitalist economies. What were gulags and other such mechanisms if not enslavement with added mortality?
I thought there was evidence that money was invented fairly early to be able to keep track of what goods or services had been exchanged.
By that standard, any employment arrangement would constitute a power imbalance, which would raise the question of whether such a power imbalance is at all problematic.
It's harder (but not impossible) to define legally, but it would fix edge cases like Indecent Proposal and A Teacher.