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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   33901 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025

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"Legalized prostitution is good"? For every independent escort charging rich businessmen $5000 for a dinner and a gentle romp there's multiple women turning tricks for their pimps in exchange for a small cut of the profits and a daily dose.

This sounds like a strawman. What about the middle of the curve—the prostitutes who are neither desperate streetwalkers nor luxurious escorts, but merely work for reasonable wages in clean, legal brothels?

Oh gosh, years back I read something about a woman returning to prostitution because it was a good way for her to make a living, and she discussed working in one of the legal brothels in Utah Nevada (I think). She was one of the prostitutes who didn't mind taking black clients, so she was always able to get customers. I think she preferred to go independent if she could, because the brothel takes a cut of everything by charging for laundry, condoms, etc. on top of the cut they take from the transaction, so they nibble away at the fee the prostitute gets from the client. Which is why a lot of prostitutes try to arrange "and if you want, I'll do X for Y charge cheaper" with a client without the house knowing, so they can make more money.

she discussed working in one of the legal brothels in Utah Nevada (I think)

But the situation in Nevada, where prostitution is restricted to sparsely-populated areas and is largely drowned out by the illegal trade in Las Vegas, presumably is a far cry from the situation in the metropolises of Melbourne and Brisbane.

She was one of the prostitutes who didn't mind taking black clients, so she was always able to get customers.

According to forum discussions that I've seen, many Australian prostitutes refuse to serve Indians.

presumably is a far cry from the situation in the metropolises of Melbourne and Brisbane.

Possibly. This was years back and I'm nowhere near familiar enough with how legal prostitution works. But the impression I carried away was that brothels will nickel and dime the prostitutes, because it's a business and it's all about making the maximum profit for the owners (same with strip clubs where the dancers are encouraged to get the marks to buy overpriced watered-down alcohol and to spend on buying lap dances etc. because if you're not turning over as much money for the owners as possible, you're out and a new dancer gets her chance).

I have never understood why some women go on about how sex work is empowering for women. The real money and profit and power accrue to the owners and operators of such businesses, who generally are men not women. Sure, the strippers and prostitutes get to manipulate the johns for money, but the pimps/madams/owners get to manipulate the prostitutes.

I have never understood why some women go on about how sex work is empowering for women.

Presumably, as a luxury belief.

I imagine this is likely to come from OnlyFans-type sex workers, who have a different dynamic to brothel employees and club dancers.

some women go on about how sex work is empowering for women

Perhaps the most obvious conclusion is that they're genuinely asexual (or just uncritically repeating asexual talking points), so sex work to them is legitimately not meaningfully distinguishable from any other work.

This doesn't prevent them from responding to other incentives, of course- for instance, a prostitute might prefer prefer porn be banned if they believe it would lead to greater demand for their services. Whether or not they're aware they're prostitutes is another matter.

The way I've seen it presented is "hah hah I am using my sexuality to manipulate men, these suckers pay me lots of money and I don't have to do anything except jiggle my tits in front of their faces" (though if they're prostitutes, they do have to perform the acts requested). They present this as "I'm in control, I know what's going on, nobody is using me" (except, as I said, the majority of owners of brothels and strip clubs and so on are men, and they are the ones getting the profits). And this selling of sex only is possible so long as they're deemed attractive and youthful enough to get high prices; as they get older, their options also dwindle unless they're smart enough to get out early and find a line of work to go into.

Look at Stormy Daniels. What is her career now? Mostly trying to squeeze the final drops of blood out of the turnip of "I had an affair with Trump" by peddling her story to whoever will pay to broadcast it. Without that link, she's just another former porn actress who aged out of the industry. Whatever money she first got paid off with, clearly she blew through it and needed to get more by the traditional "mistress/whore of famous man tells all" method. Then she got cheated by Michael Avenatti, so you can't really take her career as one of "powerful strong independent woman uses and discards men", it's really the other way round.

How can we determine what the modal prostitute is like?

I don't have any statistics in front of me.

Wikipedia cites studies showing that 90 percent of the prostitution in Nevada (including Las Vegas), USA, is illegal, and presumably most of that is streetwalkers. But on the other end we have Victoria (including Melbourne), Australia, where there are zillions of legal brothels that even are allowed to advertise their services online. Is it reasonable to say that the typical prostitute in those locations is a streetwalker? I don't know, but I feel doubtful.

Most US prostitution is not streetwalker (estimates range from 10-20% streetwalkers). The dominant forms of prostitution are call-girls/escorts and pseudo-brothels (e.g. massage parlors, etc.). Both claim the fig leaf (with varying seriousness/success) that the payment is nominally for other legal services and any sex is just happenstance.

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