Views on the morality of child sex work (e.g. prostitution, pornography)

[Jim Burton]

https://newrepublic.com/article/128028/ ... eat-police

Maybe at some point, we should address the topic of underage sex work from a youth rights perspective? Boy prostitution in particular continued as a subculture right up to the point the KP panic began, and gay men started to furcate themselves from pederasts. Multiple recent reports suggest the prostitution of adolescent girls in English towns is almost indistinguishable from, and continuous with the adult sex trade.

[Harlan]

I can only imagine this as sharing their own content on sites like Onlyfans or on free resources like Chatroulette, Omegle, etc. As long as privacy and anonymity are maintained, it is quite safe. Classic offline options pose a high risk of abuse.

[MAP romance God]

I almost went with option three because of my personal bias against prostitution. In my experience, prostitutes tend to be the product of dysfunctional families and most do it for the money and not because they enjoy it. Also, I personally don't like the idea of having sex with a prostitute.

But I ended up choosing option two. Being honest, I don't think I can assume those things to always be the case and even if they are, well, many people work jobs they hate out of need anyway. The world isn't a perfect place and sometimes it can be pragmatically better that some teenager or even kid is able to afford themselves a better life quality through giving someone a handjob than it'd be for them to starve or have their childhoods robbed from them through having to perform menial work the entire day for a meager salary.

It's definitely not an ideal situation, but it can be pragmatically valid as long as long as the minor's parents or some other relative are around and the kid's consent and physical limitations aren't disrespected.

As for pornography, softcore is harmless IMO and as for hardcore, the same that goes for prostitution applies.

[thecrimsonarchives]

In my opinion child sex work is acceptable as long as there is no coercion and complete consent on behalf of the child.

[TheOtherKindofPride]

aeterna91 has the closest thing to the same opinion as me.
Any work can be coercive, but being coerced into it (such as not being able to afford something you want if you don't) doesn't necessarily mean it's unacceptable. It depends on various factors, like what are they expected to do, how much are they being paid for it and how well regulated is it? I would not find it acceptable to send anyone into a coal mine without proper protection against black lung, but if the workers are well taken care of and proper precautions against harm are put in place, then it could be acceptable even for children to work in coal mines.
While i would prefer that no one have to work unless its actually very important, so no 'BS jobs', as they're called, or miserable jobs that don't need to be done, but so long as work is going to be done, even by children, they should have as many of the same opportunities that adults do, save for any consideration unique to children.
This pertains mostly to the age of the child in question. And speaking of sex work specifically, considerations such as what their body and mind can safely handle are important considerations. I would argue that adults are better equipped for very difficult and psychologically demanding work, such as military work and being a dictor, and hardcore sexual acts, such as extreme BDSM and very rough psychological treatment. Living long enough to become jaded by the world can help protect you against the psychological effects of these types of strenuous jobs and abusive sexual behaviors (not that I'm against BDSM and such as long as it's between psychologically healthy and consenting people). But as one user pointed out, even something a slight as being a clothing model for children's clothing can be used by pedophiles to achieve some sort of sexual gratification, so if they can (and should) get paid to model for kids clothing, they should be able to get paid for doing the equivalent with the direct intention of pleasing adults sexually. Though I would say anything up to the point of rather hardcore acts, like BDSM, should be fully allowed so long as proper precautions and protections are put in place for them. Any worker's safety should be top priority, this should not change because you are talking about a child, aside from any unique protections and considerations they might require.

So in short, sex work is work, and if children can work, and we as a society deem it acceptable for them to do so, then some equivalent degree of sex work should also be allowed. No significantly dangerous work, and no significant harmful sexual acts unless their safety can be meaningfully guaranteed.
That being said, it would be nice being able to see girls under 18 being able to do what they want to do, and what they sometimes do anyways, without having to worry they're going to end up in some huge debacle over it. How society handles it now is basically the pornography equivalent of abstinence only culture, which is ridiculous, unnecessary and harmful. I mean, it's illegal for a 15 year old girl to sext her 15 boyfriend because of laws identical to ones against child sex work. it just doesn't make sense...

[PinkPawn]

I generally don't think children should be doing any work, but kids get to be actors and models, so why not also use their looks for sexwork IF THEY CHOOSE?

[TheOtherKindofPride]

I generally don't think children should be doing any work, but kids get to be actors and models, so why not also use their looks for sexwork IF THEY CHOOSE?

The main arguments basically boil down to three points.

1. "It's gross and evil"
This is not an argument, it's barely an excuse and should be ignored if possible.

2. "It's inherently abusive and non-consensual"
This is based on the idea that children cannot enjoy or even be neutral about being filmed under-dressed, nude or in some sort of sexual way, which is a baseless assumption that, at best, is caused by them being raised (brainwashed) from a very early age to associate sexuality with negative feelings, like a Pavlovian response. It's the same type of conditioning that makes children react so badly to mundane events, like falling off their bike or failing a test. It's largely based on how adults around them respond to these events; by freaking out at every bump and scrape, or getting very upset by bad grades, respectively. By simply adjusting how adults respond to these events, they become far less problematic and children can easily move on from them without issue. Any good child behavioral psychologist will say the same. It's basically just mirror neurons in action.
It's actually abusive to react so badly to things that children need to experience and learn to cope with so they can endure when difficult things happen in life, like public speaking or embarrassing situations. It's disingenuous to say that children being nude around adults, or being lightly touched sexually, is as bad as throwing babies into the woods to see if they survive. This kind of response is indicative of people who don't want to admit that their overprotective behavior is actually more harmful to children than the things they are trying to protect them from. It's toxic self-defensive behavior on the part of bad parents and needs to be addressed seriously.

If children are raised in an environment where nudity is normalized, like nudist colonies, the vast majority of them will not be harmed at all by being naked around others in public, even adult men. This can also be observed in tribal villages where children and adults are not always fully dressed in public spaces. The same could be said about other behaviors that are typically deemed "inappropriate" and "harmful" to children, like light sexual touching or even slow, gentle penetration, depending in what their mind/body can handle. It's not even a stretch to assume this if we're being honest. But it really depends on how it's done. Even the most beneficial things done incorrectly can become bad, like a life-saving medical procedure going wrong, or a parent playing around with their kid and accidentally falling on them or dropping them because they weren't being careful.

If you raise a child to fear, hate and feel disgusted by their hair being messy, for instance, they will have an intense negative reaction to having "imperfect" hair around others and will feel terrible if an old picture of their messy hair ends up on the internet and such. It's not a reasonable response most of the time, outside of important formal situations, but it's very strongly related to how children are conditioned to fear, hate and be disgusted by nudity and sexual situations. It's no more reasonable than the hair analogy.

3. "They will regret it later"
This assumes that they will feel differently about something later in life and that potential negative feeling is worth stripping them of their freedoms and autonomy in the current moment. This isn't even akin to "revenge porn", as that is an image that was always only meant to be private, being posted publicly. Instead this is a hypothetical image being posted publicly with the consent of the child in the moment, or directly by the child themselves. And the laws about this are clearly not meant to protect children, as even children get in trouble for sexting other minors even with no adults involved. This is the kind of harm to children that happens when you let the law be unreasonable because it's socially dangerous to criticize it. It's almost as if they only pretend to care about children while secretly wanting to harm them...

This type of argument, "X, Y and Z are potentially 'harmful', at least in the future, so ban it now", could easily apply to anything that anyone does. Drinking alcohol could lead to negative consequences in the future, so banning alcohol sounds like a good idea. Eating unhealthy food, of any sort, could lead to negative consequences down the line, so it should be banned. The internet, especially porn apparently, can be harmful to you, so it should be banned as well. Blanket banning anything that can be or might be harmful to you in the future is a "surefire" excuse for taking away any freedom someone might not want people to have. It's a suspiciously "perfect" excuse. You should always be very wary of this type of argument, regardless of if it's applied to children or not, but especially if it's applied to children because they often are not allowed to speak for themselves. Or even when they do, they are belittled and ignored, or even berated and manipulated into no longer speaking up. Same with consent.
It's all rather disturbing when you think about it.

[PinkPawn]

I think regret is the best argument against. OTOH, I have regrets but they are almost all "I wish I did X"

I'm someone who did child labor. I don't regret it although I see how it was exploitive. OTOH, I wasn't giving strangers access to my naughty bits.