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12 votes
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5 votes -
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12 votes -
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8 votes -
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23 votes -
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5 votes -
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Why it's cheaper to have a baby in Finland than in the US
11 votes -
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6 votes -
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14 votes -
The new breed of sex addicts - who don't have sex
10 votes -
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7 votes -
Was Jeanne Calment the oldest person who ever lived—or a fraud?
12 votes -
When medical debt collectors decide who gets arrested
5 votes -
Connecticut school board reinstates mascot Native Americans called demeaning
4 votes -
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8 votes -
Why Finland leads the field when it comes to winter cycling – progressive policies help get people on their bike, even in below-freezing conditions
8 votes -
New data from Sweden challenges the idea that parents of autistic children refrain from having more children, a practice known as reproductive stoppage
4 votes -
Extreme Silicon Valley: A 2:30 AM bus from Salida. Tech employees move all the way into the Central Valley. Private tech shuttles follow.
6 votes -
Sweden has been criticized by the UN for failings when it comes to the rights of the indigenous Sámi people
9 votes -
Solving the sources of your problems
3 votes -
Finland's woman-led center-left government plans to nearly double the length of paternity leave to give new fathers the same amount of paid time off work as new mothers
16 votes -
Why Finland's schools outperform most others across the developed world
15 votes -
The way we work is killing us - An interview with the author of Dying for a Paycheck
15 votes -
There's no such thing as a dangerous neighborhood
11 votes -
The rapid rise and sudden fall of a Kratom Kingpin
7 votes -
Canada’s international hair freezing competition
7 votes -
This Buddhist monk is a celebrity makeup artist
5 votes -
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5 votes -
Sanna Marin: ‘I feel that the American Dream can be achieved best in the Nordic countries, where every child no matter their background ... can become anything’
16 votes -
Will the 2020s be the decade that the robots finally come for our jobs?
7 votes -
How poor Americans get exploited by their landlords
7 votes -
Five top designers imagine the workplace of 2040
5 votes -
Is sex work bad?
Prompted by a recent tildes post about vice, and also this from the bbc, and a conversation with a colleague who just went to a strip club, I keep thinking about this issue. I have a stake in...
Prompted by a recent tildes post about vice, and also this from the bbc, and a conversation with a colleague who just went to a strip club, I keep thinking about this issue.
I have a stake in this, despite being cis male: I have mother, sisters, wife, and most importantly young daughter. And I am a feminist, on simple moral grounds.
My baseline position is that whether a woman chooses to engage in sex work is, and should be legally and socially supported as, entirely her own choice.
The only question I have any business answering, or participating in finding an answer, is whether my patronage of sex work is inherently exploitive, to either the woman whom I am patronizing* or to other women individually or to womanhood and general issues of gender.
And I just can’t come up with a good answer. I do look at porn, but increasingly, as with meat, the potential ethical problems of it are reducing the enjoyment. I have tried to ease my conscience by limiting myself to cartoons and stories, but those wouldn’t stop the harm that is caused by the mere existence of porn, if any exists.
As a purely practical matter, the existence of the industry leads to opportunities for exploitation of individuals, and the advancement of a culture of gender exploitation. But as the war on drugs has so ably demonstrated, any attempt at prohibition only increases the level of exploitation, while smart regulation decreases it. Regardless, though, there’s plenty of exploitation to go around the world, I heard there’s thing called #metoo.
I come from a sex-suppressing, fundamentalist “Christian” background. The quotes are there to indicate that I think much of the practices were anything but christ-like. The principles there swirl through the culture around me in varying degrees of intensity, and they inform and direct my choices (sometimes against my will and my better hopes and ideals). I have to be open to the notion that any objection I have to sex work, or my participation, is entirely a cultural construct. And while I don’t think it is true, I cannot dismiss the notion that morals themselves may have no possible objective existence, having relevance and utility (if at all) only in very time and space limited scopes.
It is what I believe the sociologists call a “wicked” problem. It involves really complicated normative stances, and there’s no data analysis that can provide any guidance. For myself, I expect my participation to continue to wane as I mature. I only hope that whatever I do only further enables and empowers the women in my life and everywhere.
- I almost stopped myself from using this word when I realized potential implications, but ultimately left it in because it (and the fact it was my natural inclination to select it) really highlights the issue for me and hopefully others
Bonus hypothetical: If porn is somehow wrong and harmful, even drawings and writings, are sex fantasies also wrong?
30 votes -
I worry for my teenage boys – the beauty standards for young men are out of control
28 votes -
How 'namaste' flew away from us
8 votes -
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7 votes -
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4 votes -
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7 votes -
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11 votes -
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3 votes -
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5 votes -
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5 votes -
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3 votes -
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7 votes