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7 votes
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How doctors die
21 votes -
Clearing up the confusion around Prop 13 on the 2020 ballot
7 votes -
Fundraiser soars past $200,000 for bullying victim Quaden Bayles
News article: Fundraiser soars past $200,000 for bullying victim Quaden Bayles And, he is not 18 years old, despite people claiming he is.
8 votes -
A nation mourns innocents lost in suburban street
9 votes -
Four-day workweek's appeal goes global as bosses seek to boost profits and morale
22 votes -
One woman and thousands of Lego bricks are building much-needed wheelchair ramps for her town
12 votes -
Talking to your neighbours is mandatory if you live in this block of flats – it's all part of a plan to help tackle loneliness
9 votes -
Eight things toxic mothers have in common
10 votes -
Iowa's 'Denmark on the Prairie' creates hygge away from home – the tiny town has imported a 19th-century windmill and starred in two Danish TV shows
4 votes -
A photographer has spent twenty years documenting stillbirths. For grieving families, the photos preserve the only memories they have of their child
9 votes -
‘Mr. Bob,’ 88-year-old crossing guard, saves two children’s lives before sacrificing his own
12 votes -
Working in science was a brutal education. That’s why I left
5 votes -
Rather than punishing prisoners, Finland's open prisons focus on rehabilitation and preparation for a smooth reentry into society
12 votes -
At the Green Free School in Copenhagen, you're more likely to find pupils repairing a bicycle or doing urban farming than sitting in front of a blackboard
8 votes -
It’s okay to leave your headphones at home
23 votes -
Confessions of a slaughterhouse worker
23 votes -
A group of agents rose through the ranks to lead the US Border Patrol, and now they’re retiring and leaving it in crisis
5 votes -
My teenage life after leaving a cult
5 votes -
Why it's cheaper to have a baby in Finland than in the US
11 votes -
Copenhagen retains its crown – annual global liveability survey from ECA International rates cities on their quality of life for Europeans abroad
6 votes -
The nuclear family was a mistake
14 votes -
The new breed of sex addicts - who don't have sex
10 votes -
Busting the common misconceptions about working from home
10 votes -
Quarantined by coronavirus, cruise ship passengers make 'life-long friends'
10 votes -
Advanced love: The secrets of a lasting (and stylish) relationship
4 votes -
Crossing Antarctica solo – Børge Ousland's lonely journey across the ice
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 -
Reasons not to become famous
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 -
What I learned about life at a company that deals in dead bodies
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