I can only imagine that the negative perception of prostitution as "selling" your body is coming from mainstream religions which are the great society moralizer.
Beautifully put!
> Sure, prostitution is shameful and sinful and whatnot
Only according to some. Imo it's much more immoral to work in fossil fuels or the police/military (where you abandon morals to execute orders).
Haven't some OF creators come out admitting they were pressured into it, or at least doing it more than they'd like.
In principle I agree.
We have a society praising a soldier for killing and risks losing limbs and life (basically selling his body) during military service, but demonizing a sex worker.
This society needs to take a good hard look in the mirror. We have people admonishing sex work and marijuana use, while its most "successful" members are in arms dealing, fossil fuels, workers exploitation (amazon), and gambling with the livelihoods of people (banks/wall street).
Probably because its not the same at all. Getting naked and spreading your legs is neither as productive nor difficult as serving your country. Neither should it have the same social status.
We have different moral compasses, I guess. To me, obeying military orders (which often result in killing people) is neither productive, nor difficult (as a big part of thinking/initiative is replaced by blindly following orders). Military personnel basically outsource a large chunk of thinking and assessing good/bad to a "higher power". In a way, that's very easy and comfortable life for a specific type of people: all higher order judgments are deferred to higher ups in the military chain. Besides, I wouldn't say military personnel are "serving" their country more than, say, plumbers, electricians, railway workers, postal service, healthcare workers, or, even sex workers.
> Neither should it have the same social status
I disagree. The fact that somebody who has no other skills and initiative but to be a death machine/robot blindly following orders, doesn't warrant them to be a hero, and sure as hell doesn't qualify them to a high social status in my book. And, at least to me, calling military service "productive" is just plain hypocrisy. Their only function is to either destroy things during war, or sit around looking menacing when there is no war.
Imo, money spent on weapons and the military could be better spent to build more social housing, solve healthcare problems, etc.
In an ideal world, 100% yes.
In our world, where every now and again a crazy power-hungry dictator appears and wages a war against a weaker country and is killing civilians - unfortunately it's a comfort we can't afford.
We don't give high social status to killers, thugs, murderers and hired assassins, but when it's institutionalized killing, (which is the military) that's okay? The fact that an "official" gives the word, and the victims are not citizens of your country doesn't make the military be less about killing.
There also is nothing "productive" about paying for salaries, equipment and training to a bunch of grown men in the anticipation that you have to send them to do violence to your bidding.
If the military was not under the veneer of "official", wrapping it in an "institution" and all the language of "serving your country", we'd not been able to distinguish between military, militia and armed thugs.
Yet, our society at large reveres them as some heroes and they are mainly socially acceptable.
I bet that if we had a "Department of pleasure", with ranks, hierarchies, rules, promotion paths, etc, sex workers wouldn't be as marginalized as they are now. In fact, in many civilized countries, prostitutions is both legal and taxed, and less stigmatized than it is in the US, who are too puritanical/religion influenced in their views to want it to be otherwise.
Well the same could be said of social media, mobile phones, netflix binge, computer games (although I don't agree with the violence part). So why single out sex then?
For example Google is abusing their position by feeding a stream of right-wing and related stuff to my mother because she clicked a Trump video a friend(?) sent her so that she watches more of this stuff, gets more negative emotions, and continues to spend her time on their site. Trying to regulate these things is terribly hard and whatever idea you come up with, the folks at big tech will find a way to go around them.