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If you've been on twitter in or around the tpot space the last few days, you may have seen Aella blowing up and deciding to go private. I won't recount the whole story, but it is in screenshots in the link earlier.
Suffice to say, apparently she searched her name and saw a ton of vitriolic attacks and discussions around her online presence. She claims that the worst part is the "overwhelming hate with nobody defending me. People are ashamed publicly to support me, they don't want to be called a simp or cringe."
Long story short she basically said that she is heartbroken, is "so sad the world is shaped this way," and decided to quit twitter and go locked for the foreseeable future.
For some quick background, aella is a prostitute. She is extremely successful, and has built up a huge presence on twitter as well as a cult following in rational spheres. She does data science work as well, and claims to be autistic. She is polyamorous and openly promotes and campaigns for that lifestyle, as well as doing drugs. Some of her stunts include things like tattooing her name on the body of men who have sex with her, having orgies while sharing details of who got to get in, etc.
A few darker claims are that she pushed her two younger sisters into sex work (one of them, by her own admission on twitter, was doing camgirl jobs before she turned 18.) She has also said some... problematic things that are edging around support for pedophilia, although she's canny enough not to come right out and say it.
Now as I'm sure many people here agree with, I don't exactly agree with aella's views or lifestyle. That being said I am still torn, the world is a cruel place. At the same time, aella has probably caused harm to a lot of others with her lifestyle and especially her approach to promoting it online.
This equivocation points to an actual underlying tension/confusion I have around liberal expression. On the one hang I think polyamory, sex work, and some of the.... encouragement aella has around minors watching point &c is quite bad, and should not be allowed to happen in the public square. I think a certain amount of shaming is absolutely good and necessary.
However, perhaps I'm frail hearted or something because it does hurt to see so many attack her so viciously, when they clearly have so much hate in their hearts. Perhaps it's Pollyannaish but I wish that we could do our shaming in a more dignified, and less clearly antagonistic way. It seems that most of the people shaming her, from my read at least, clearly enjoy looking down and judging someone harshly, seeing themselves as better than her. From my perspective, that's not just as bad as what she's doing, but still bad.
I'm wondering, I suppose, whether there's a way we can employ shame in a truly good way as a society? Can we somehow shame people without turning into monsters ourselves, in order to protect our children and especially young girls from (imo) degenerate and overall unhealthy lifestyles?
No.
To some extent, when dealing with the topic of whoring, we must embrace the monstrous, one way or another. Here are our options:
I'm sorry. I can't take the topic entirely seriously when it leads with one of the the least deserving examples possible. Aella, an ostensibly intelligent woman who decided to build her entire name and reputation on doing things that humanity at large considers shameful is surprised when large parts of humanity would rather shame her than praise her.
Source? Maybe I'm just in a bubble, but I can't imagine that public opinion of prostitutes is that low.
I also can't imagine "somewhat subhuman", but everybody is in a bubble on these things. The percent of Americans who say that "sex between an unmarried man and woman" (not specifically prostitution! just sex!) is "morally acceptable" is at an all-time high ... of only 76%. If that also seems surprisingly low to you, then you're probably in a liberal bubble (93%) rather than in a conservative one (57%), and you might also be in a younger bubble (I'm seeing conflicting polls for the 1970s, but they're in the 30%-45% range). I'd bet polling results for the moral acceptability of prostitution would be lower: support for decriminalizing prostitution is still only around 50%, and presumably that includes people who still think it should be shameful but just don't think shameful things should all be illegal.
And as for "damaged goods" ... to go back to OP's example, Aella has been publicly looking for "someone to get happily married to" while aware of the issues there for about 5 years now, still fruitlessly. IMHO the phrase "damaged goods" is going too far, but "typically incompatible with marriage-minded men" might be fair, right? She's helped other married men break their wedding vows "over and over, with small variations on the amount of years and the guilt they brought with it", and though she makes a sympathetic case for them, making that case strengthens the conclusion that wedding vows just aren't her thing. It's understandably hard to find someone who will swear "for better or worse" if they fear "for better or else" in return.
That's not necessarily the end of the world. It sounds like she's made a lot of friends and a lot of money, and obviously she doesn't have trouble finding sex (or presumably short-term relationships) either. She could probably be happy with all that. And if she can't ... well, too many of her critics seem to be cruel or stupid or both (yes, I am aware of the irony here), whereas she seems to be a smart person who at least tries to be kind, so hopefully if it turns out that her decisions really needed to be criticized, she'll eventually get around to joining in on the criticism.
Thing is, you don’t have the option to flake out on a child when they no longer suit you
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Aella's Twitter is private. Archive link.
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At some point, it just seems strange that you'd even want a marriage after developing such a firm opposition to lifelong vows, based on experience with many failed marriages. Why not just have a succession of long-term relationships? Isn't that what your worldview would suggest is the healthy model for relationships? Her post quite evidently states her belief that there is no real continuity of obligation between the past and the present:
Under those conditions, why get married at all? It's a commitment to a person who -- by her own statement -- disappears, ceases to exist, over time. That's a worldview where marriage doesn't even make sense as an option.
The problem with marriage is increasingly people seem to be treating it as a time-limited commitment: "we'll be together until we decide we don't like it any more, and then divorce." But our legal system is set up based on the older model where marriage is supposed to be truly life-long, and the two really are supposed to have a joint legal identity in a way that makes everything each partner does common property. So, we end up with bitter divorces, vengeful custody disputes, alimony battles.
Not everyone agrees that marriages are made by God to join two together into one flesh -- but without controversy, marriages are made by the state to join two together into one mass of property. The resulting dissolution can only be described as a form of twin-separation surgery, which always leaves damage. What therefore the state has joined together, let not man put asunder.
It really is no wonder to me why so many millennial-and-younger couples are cohabiting, without marrying. They're not in a social and mental context where holding to marriage as a true indissoluble commitment is thinkable, but marriage as it exists on the books imposes costs and consquences that revolve around that kind of commitment.
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I may be in a bubble but New Zealand's lax sex worker laws reflect a noticeably different mentality. Many high end escorts here work high powered corporate jobs while offering intimacy services occasionally. Only to those blue blooded enough to afford their rates obviously. The mentality here is more that "sex workers' humanity is unquestionable but not that of the men who seek them". Re marriage, I find it hard to sympathise right there because we're literally living in a time where men's standards are at an all time low as more and more are being phased out of the dating pool. At least one of those nerds starved for female attention would be willing to put a ring on her. So it's all about expectations, no?
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Then her escort work should have clued her in to the possibility of getting married while continuing to be a sex worker. Those men didn't ask her "hey, you're young and hot and willing to have sex with me, how about I divorce my wife and marry you instead?" The men didn't want to break up their existing relationships, they just wanted/needed sex and this was how they solved the problem: visiting prostitutes. Marriage was a whole other and separate world, as was romantic love.
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I mean, can you name any former porn stars who have gone on to become high-status, influential people?
Generally once you've got that reputation indelibly tied to your identity, it becomes impossible for a certain 'higher class' of person to take you seriously.
Well, depending on how you define "porn star" (and how much credence you give to Procopius), Empress Theodora immediately comes to mind.
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Porn stars? No.
Prostitutes? Surely, many "Models" who marry influential men can become influential themselves. The actresses who fucked Weinstein now enjoy high status and influence.
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Sasha Grey? Chloe Cherry?
What usually follows her name is, "better known for her previous career in adult entertainment".
Fair point. Still, how many actors can honestly say they've played the lead in a Soderbergh movie? It can't be in the triple digits.
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Extremely depends on what you consider high status, Ilona Staller was famously elected to the Italian parliament off the top of my head.
I mean, I agree in general that active and former prostitutes are generally lower status, but I don't think looking for high status outliers is a good way to show that, since the vast majority of people are not high status or influential by any useful definition of the phrase.
Honestly, former prostitutes have better odds of becoming influential just by virtue of being closer to centers of power. It is not like most nurses or childcare workers have any power or influence either even those are much more respectable professions.
Ah, you mean like the young women in these paintings by James Tissot?
The Evening of 1878 and the more openly stated later version in The Reception (also known as The Political Lady and The Woman of Ambition) of 1885?
In both paintings we have attractive young women on the arms of much older men, clearly neither their fathers nor husbands, and equally clearly using this as an entrance into society above their original place on the ladder. I read earlier analysis of the dress in "The Political Lady" as being several years out of date, thus demonstrating that the young woman is not keeping up with the latest fashions and hence obviously not natively part of the high society circle, a point developed in this article:
In the latter painting, look at the expressions of the other men - they're sizing her up and whispering about how she's plainly the new young mistress of the older man, perhaps speculating if they can get access to her as well. They don't seem to be respecting her and whatever influence she may gain as mistress of the older man will fade away once he dumps her or she ages out of being able to attract a sugar daddy.
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I feel like the outliers in this line of work who really are closer to centers of power are probably so rare that it doesn't change the median or mean all that much. Like any other entertainment industry job, my guess is that 99.999% are nobodies without any greater access to centers of power than a laywoman (pun not intended).
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There's a pretty big difference between these three claims:
Active prostitutes are considered low-status (@toakraka, I guess)
Active and former prostitutes are considered low-status permanently and indelibly (@faceh)
Active and former prostitutes are considered so extremely low-status, permanently and indelibly, that they can be said to have "ruined their lives" (@southkraut)
All three are true. A former prostitute/stripper/camgirl would be seen as unmarriageable by the vast majority of Americans, to say nothing or the population in general. Trophy wives are not viewed kindly, either.
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I would rephrase my position as "Active and former prostitutes are locked out of high-status permanently and indelibly."
I can imagine a known prostitute 'correcting course' and making real contrition for her past and receiving real forgiveness and being accepted into a community and given a position of some respect if she makes significant contributions from there.
But I have a hard time imagining someone saying "Oh yeah, I live in [town], the one that just elected a reformed streetwalker as mayor, and I'm proud of it!"
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Christina Buttons? I think it's doable, but not under the "out and proud" model.
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I dunno, maybe it's me who's in a bubble, but this attitude has been pretty universal as far as I observed. Tthough it's usually implied rather than stated outright; especially since the entire topic is usually avoided.
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