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This seems like picking the criterion to suit the conclusion. Was there some prior general rule that "work" was something you'd support if your family did it? So if a family member sold medical equipment or industrial mining equipment, you'd buy it?
My favorite argument is similar, but it focuses on the government instead of the family and therefore avoids your criticism: If sex work is Real Work™, then the government can use all of its regular powers to compel you to do it.
Prisoners can be compelled to do work; some clean up ditches, some fight wildfires, some stamp licence plates, and some perform Real Work™. Maintaining your unemployment benefits requires a reasonably active job search and accepting good offers of employment, which obviously includes Real Work™ for a significant subset of the population. Appearance/ethnicity is a bona fide occupational qualification for Real Work™, so obviously foreign workers will be qualified to fill the niches that locals can't.
If you want to go wild, they could even restrict who gets to do Real Work™ (even as an unpaid hobby) much like they restrict the practice of medicine, engineering, or law.
There are countless other ways that something would be changed by becoming "work", but those are the most obvious and objectionable IMO.
Yes, we call that slavery and are also very actively against it.
The Venn diagram of sex-worker rights advocates and prison abolitionists is not quite a circle, but it's pretty close.
Ok, sure? Prostitution licensing seems unnecessary, but maybe it would help get everyone in the system enough to fight pimping/disease/violence/etc. And maybe people could audit the classes at the trade school and pick up some useful skills.
As I said downthread, it matters what order you do your goals in. If you succeed in prostitution-is-work before you succeed in prison abolition (etc.) then the scenario I outlined becomes possible.
Also, knocking off one example still leaves my other two, as well as the countless others I skipped over.
That's not wild. What would be wild is defining a Scope of Practice that excludes non-licensed people from undertaking the listed actions, regardless of whether they are paid or not.
Perhaps, but that's just tactics.
My understanding of your original comment was that it was arguing that sex work is not work through the argument of 'We're ok with making prisoners do work, we are not ok with making prisoners have sex, QED sex is not work.'
If that was the point of the comment, my response of 'we not ok making prisoners do work' does dissolve the argument.
I agree there's tactics involved in avoiding the bad outcome you hint at as a practical matter, although realistically I don't expect it to ever some up no matter how we go about things because politics is ultimately governed by vibes more than logical formulations, and you whole point is about how those vibes are atrocious and unacceptable.
That's a whole different issue, though.
Yup, it sure would be wild if we did that for chefs! Or writers! Or drivers! Or dishwashers! Or babysitters!
It would definitely be crazy if Scope of Practice laws were used to do crazy things for no reason. But that has nothing to do with sex work. Scope of Practice laws aren't used that way because, again, voters wouldn't like it.
I was trying to make an argument about policy, not fact. e.g. "A whale is a fish because you can catch it with a boat".
From a fact-based position, prostitution is a job, gang membership is employment, and hitmen are contract workers. From a policy-based perspective, that's irrelevant.
For now. Aren't you trying to change the vibes?
No, progressives are not trying to make people feel more positively about rape.
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What if I reject the premise that government can compel people to work? I think both military conscription and prison slavery are morally unjustifiable.
Maybe that should be your first priority, then. The fact of the matter is that the government can compel you to work, morals be damned.
I think you are reaching here. In general governments can't compel you to do any work, save for a few exceptions. The european declaration of human rights for example carves out 4 exceptions: prison labour, military service, emergency service and normal civic obligations.
For prison labour you would have to make the argument that prostitution is a necessary part of the rehabilitation process, which seems far fetched. Also most countries already ban prison labour for non-violent offenders (the US is basically the only western exception) and prostitution with a murderer seems a dicey proposition (I would want a prison guard supervising it, at least).
For military service I think the prostitution would have to be limited to other members of the military to count. You couldn't make the argument that prostitution to the general public is military activity, for example. However you could make prostitution one of the civil service options for conscentious objectors. I'm not sure if you could make it the only option. Also most countries have already abolished the draft so most governments could only do this during war.
An interesting case is emergency services, actually. In Iverson v. Norway it was determined that Norway could compel dentists to perform dentistry (for appropriate remuneration). You could use this to redistribute prostitutes (which tend to cluster in big cities) across your nation's entire territory. You could also make the argument that incels represent a national emergency that needs to be solved. But what principle would you use to compel incels to have sex with prostitutes? Probably something about involuntary treatments.
Normal civic obligations is probably your best bet. The case law on this is pretty nebulous, it's unclear what counts and you could make it like jury duty. I suspect it would get shot down, though.
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Fortunately I can care about, and make progress on, multiple political issues at the same time.
Unfortunately, making uneven progress on multiple political issues can create perverse situations like the one I've outlined above. Going from the status quo -> the government can't compel work -> can't compel + prostitution-is-work is fine. Going from the status quo -> prostitution-is-work -> can't compel + prostitution-is-work has a bit of a rough patch in the middle, to put it mildly.
I was being literal when I said it should be your first priority, and didn't mean to imply that it should be your only priority or your ultimate goal.
Sure. There is a theoretical worst case where sex work becomes normalized to the extent the government compels it like normal work, in the absence of other reform removing various compulsory labor measures. Practically we are so far from that world I am not sure it's worth worrying about. My expectation is that even if sex work were more normalized various carve outs to these kinds of compulsive programs would become commonplace.
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It simply comes from asking myself what I would consider work, and how I would make the distinction.
And yes, I'd buy mining equipment from my family member, if I needed it. There's a bit of a difference between machinery that costs tens of not hundreds of thousands of dollars and a $5/month onlyfans subscription or $10 or bread from a bakery. But given I'm willing to buy the product from anyone, I'd prefer to buy from a family member.
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