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Comment by BarryMilo | Hacker News Reader

Is it worth continuing to push sex workers into illegality, thereby putting them in danger?

Put another way, do we have a right to sacrifice one population to protect another? Allow me to doubt it.

Is it really the case that most OnlyFans girls would turn to more dangerous things like prostitution?

It kinda feels like OnlyFans has somewhat normalized/popularized young women going from Instagram 'influencer' (sometimes starting underage unfortunately, HS kids use it) to pornstar, for young women who otherwise probably wouldn't have entered the world of porn if it weren't for the fact that the hot Instagram girl -> monetize IG popularity via OnlyFans porn pipeline hasn't become so normalized.

Think of it the other way around. Sex workers can finally go “legit” via OF and can stop fucking random people.

On the street, sex workers compete with the local availability and even the most expensive workers are limited by time alone. On the internet, the have (had?) to compete with the prettiest and best people in the business and these people can have far more customers. So I honestly doubt that there is much mobility between these two jobs.

I have personal experience: the fan base starts with ex clients and there are all sorts of promotional techniques.

A friend of mine did exactly that. She isn’t rich but she can pay her bills.

Most of them can’t do nearly as much as of when fucking people full time, and most of that part can’t even make a living on OF. It is unlikely “the other way around”, considering insights available out there.

I think those are young women, going from webcam and porn studios to their own indie production, receiving more money from their work and removing shady guys who organized porn studios both from production and their cut.

Everybody won there.

If a girl goes from Instagram to OnlyFans willingly and is getting paid...why should anyone judge her or care? How is that any different from her making videos about video games or revising books and making money?

You are asking the difference if my 18 year old daughter posts pics of her butthole that will be on the internet for life, versus making videos about video games?

I think she is more likely to potentially regret the butthole pics vs the video game videos being out there on the web for life.

If your 18 year old daughter posts pictures of her butthole that's her choice. My question was why is porn somehow worse than videos about video games or book reviews. What if your daughter makes videos about games while wearing skimpy clothes? What if her book reviews are about trashy lurid romance novels? Where's your line for prudishness? Individually you may not want your daughter doing it but if she chooses to, or more importantly someone else's daughter chooses to, who are you, I, or other random people to shame them for doing so? It's their buttholes (and bodies) and they can do what they like with them.

The reason she'd regret the latter is because society would shame and bully her for it.

Sometimes morals are the devil, and it is so in this case. Logically, there is no physical or mental harm, unless others choose to inflict it as a result of doing something they consider immoral and want punished.

Even in the case of CSAM I read this is often used to blackmail the child into continued exploitation. They'll get one photo out of pretending to be someone of the same age and all that, and then they'll get more by blackmailing the child that if they don't they'll send the photo to their parents, friends, and all that. The child has already learned that what they did was wrong and that people will make a big deal out of it. They fear the moral repercussions more than to continue along with the exploiter. That's messed up.

In my opinion, this same morality is also responsible for the illegal market around sex work and its bad conditions. Because it puts the workers and/or the exploited into a corner, with everyone against them, on one side there's the exploiter, and on the other side the moral police. That makes it that sex workers have no way out.

If sex work wasn't moralized, and was just work like any other, you'd be able to see the clientele improve, since more normal people would pay for the service, where as now it's only people willing to break through the morals that do so which tend to be sleezier. And you'd see the work conditions improve, as workers could mobilize, freely hop from one employer to another, go to the police when they need to report bad conduct or abuse, file a lawsuit against their employer, etc.

But it would take more than legalization, it would need to become morally inconspicuous and accepted as just another normal thing. Until that happens, well, yes, you're totally right, it would be regrettable to post a photo of your butthole online, as society will shame you for it big time. In fact, it doesn't care if you post it yourself voluntarily, or if you are exploited into posting it, or if your ex-boyfriend posts it out of revenge, you'll get shamed and punished by society equally on all cases for it. That's where I feel society is responsible, we create the opportunity for harm by making it shameful.

And she might say something homophobic in her video game video. Which is more embarrassing?

Have you considered that she might live a full life without regretting the decision?

The fact that someone is likely to have regrets after doing something is no reason to outlaw that thing.

I mean, I'm sure half of us have stupid actions at 18 that we regret.

I wouldn't necessarily want to make those things illegal/more regulated tho. As I've seen and experienced, that doesn't stop 18 year olds from being stupid. It may even enbolden some.

Human psychology

It's natural to not want your 18 year old daughter posting butthole pics on the internet. She could very well come to regret doing that later in life.

Then you should educate your daughter. At 18 years old is a bit late. And last but not least at 18 years old is her life (age of maturity/consent) in a lot of (european) countries.

>do we have a right to sacrifice one population to protect another?

You're doing that one way or the other. The question is merely which one should be protected and which sacrificed.

I think it’s more about whether shutting down adult content on sites like OnlyFans actually does anything to reduce sex trafficking or abuse.

We know this is the case because there are some documented cases. It's just a matter of whether this groups size and weight is worth sacrificing the other.

> Is it worth continuing to push sex workers into illegality

If that's the price to pay in order to rescue vulnerable people who are being exploited and trafficked, very much so. Sex work is a decadent luxury at best; human freedom and agency are worth so much more.

> thereby putting them in danger?

There's no proof that legitimate sex workers are being "put in danger". They might be de-facto forbidden from engaging in that line of work, but there's a solid rationale for such a policy; it might just be the best we can do given our broader circumstances.

Companies can barely be expected to protect your personal data.

Now imagine you’re a cam girl who has provided your drivers license picture to a website and now it has leaked and thousands of thirsty lonely men have your home address.

This isn’t even a made up scenario, it has happened with multiple cam sites.

The question is, is criminal regulation better than legal regulation? Are sexually trafficked victims truly helped when this work is criminalized rather than heavily regulated ?

To me it’s like how some states try to combat Teen pregnancy and abortion by teaching abstinence instead of proper health education and provide accessible resources.

There's no known way at present to regulate sex work in a way that keeps traffickers from coercing their victims to work for their benefit. Many countries outside the U.S. have tried and failed to do this. Maybe you can make the case for a teeny tiny niche of specialty services, too specialized to ever appeal to the traffickers; but even if that was in fact viable it's extremely hard politically to argue for such a thing.

>There's no known way at present to regulate sex work in a way that keeps traffickers from coercing their victims to work for their benefit. Many countries outside the U.S. have tried and failed to do this

yes, much like many other modern companies and how they abuse workers, or turn a blind eye to abuse.

I'd rather be able to report my company to some labor board and get them sued than render my work illegal and have me arrested for snitching on myself.

> Is it worth continuing to push sex workers into illegality

I find this argument perfectly compelling with regard to 'traditional' definitions of sex work. Legalize and regulate prostitution, just like the Dutch.

But I also have no problem with strict regulation of platforms for user-generated explicit content. The argument that Onlyfans performers constitute a group that needs protecting from regulation holds less water than the argument that kids need protection from exploitation. And I don't just mean trafficking - I consider a platform that attracts minors and enables them to monetize sexual images of themselves to be exploitative.

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