Consenting To Be Paid for Sex Is Still Consenting!
Statists, both in and out of government, like to play Kafkaesque games with the idea of consent.
Most modern people agree that every individual has the right to set his or her own conditions of consent, even if few of us think about daily life in those terms. "You can borrow my car if you promise to have it back by 4 p.m." is an example of conditional consent at work. "I'll perform this labor for you in exchange for x amount of compensation" is another. "I will have sex with you if you agree to use a condom" is a third.
In the realm of sex, consent has been elevated to the level of a sacred word. But in practice, most of us believe in a host of exceptions. We think that some people (such as minors) should not be allowed to consent to some things and, conversely, that some other people (such as cops) should be allowed to do some things even without consent. Many if not most of these exceptions involve sex, money, or power, so it's not surprising that sex work—which involves all three—inspires some truly absurd mental gymnastics on and around the concept of consent.
Statists, both in and out of government, like to play Kafkaesque games with the idea of consent. We are told by a certain type of feminist that consent must be explicitly verbal, ongoing, and "enthusiastic." They say it must be tiresomely re-ascertained over and over and over again, no matter how clearly it was expressed in the first place. Modern Puritans, meanwhile, claim that people who engage in "deviant" sexual behavior (including sex work, BDSM, and—until very recently—homosexuality) are suffering from "Stockholm syndrome," "trauma bonding," or "false consciousness" and thus cannot consent to things they claim to enjoy because they are not in their right minds.
But the most bizarre of these tortuous mind games, popular among radical feminists for years but gaining momentum today among "progressives," is the idea that if a person is paid to do something he wouldn't do for free, that constitutes "coercion" or even "violence." As Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown pointed out a few years ago, "In Seattle, sex must be a 'leisure activity' for both parties or it's nonconsensual, according to one area prosecutor." Brown was writing about Val Richey, a senior deputy prosecuting attorney for King County, Washington, who argued that all sex workers are victims of rape because someone paid them "essentially to turn a 'no' into a 'yes.'"
This dogma is deranged. Richey doesn't do his job for free; does that mean he is coerced, too? This contradiction doesn't seem to occur to anti–sex work crusaders, because they're unwilling to accept that sex, like every other part of the material world, is not distributed "evenly" or "fairly."
I trade something I have a lot of—sex appeal—to get things I otherwise have trouble getting and holding on to, such as money. If you don't have anything you can trade, sell, or negotiate with to give me something I want or need, you won't be able to get what you might want from me. This is not a crazy concept anywhere else in modern life. If I don't have the money the grocery store wants, I won't be able to get the groceries I want from it. The grocery store is neither dirty nor a victim, and I am not a predator or a creep. We're both just peaceably trading what we have for what we want.
Sex is a resource, just like money and groceries. One can be traded to get the others, just like any other possessable resource on Earth.
These days, this concept is under fresh rhetorical assault by yet another army of control freaks: young people who think socialism is the cure to what ails us all. Young "socialist" men on Twitter seem to imagine that once they seize the means of production from capitalists and redistribute everything "equally," women will be "free" to open their legs (to them) for, well, free. Or perhaps these men think of women as yet another resource to be divided like all the others.
Alas, the desire to view sex as separate and distinct from all other worldly phenomena is not limited to the economically illiterate. Even people with fairly typical ideas about commerce are wont to decry its "commodification," often by declaring it "sad" in the absence of more cogent analysis. None of these frustrated poets would go see a great movie and then declare it "sad" that they had to spend money on admission, that the actors were paid for their performances, or that the production turned a profit. Nor would they enjoy a delicious dinner and then claim it was "sad" they had to pick up the check and tip the waiter. Sex generates a lot of mumbo-jumbo in the minds of otherwise reasonable people who would never say that fair, consensual exchange, writ large, is worth lamenting.
Yet sex is an exchange, whether you like it or not. In some circumstances, the exchange is so intimately mutual that it seems to cost nothing to either party. But even in those relationships, there are moments of bald, blatant trade: "If you want to get it tonight, why don't you have the kids in bed by the time I get home?"
Why don't we reject the idea that these arrangements are consensual? Is it because consent is unnecessary in a monogamous relationship? Or is it because we only acknowledge that consent has occurred when we like the exchange people are agreeing to?
Consent is having a moment, but we aren't defining that term broadly enough if we aren't extending it to women who trade things they have for things they want. As my friend and fellow sex worker Mistress Matisse has pointed out, an individual or group that is unwilling to respect a woman's "yes"—regardless of the price she puts on it—is also unwilling to respect her "no."
And a person or society that cannot respect an individual's right to set the conditions of access to her time, attention, or person is one that believes said individual is owned not by herself but by the state.
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Just so you know… that whole “you don’t do your job for free, are you coerced?” thing is not such a great example for these folks.
They take the “wage slave” descriptor and run with it as literal truth.
So loads of the folks who are on that side of the issue actually believe that having to work for money is slavery too. But don’t worry, they are working hard to help us cast off the Nazi overlords of Capitalist oppression – their footsoldiers in antifa are on the march!
A late response, but what the heck.
“Wage slave” has some interesting history behind it. AIUI, before there were factories, everyone was either a farmer or an apprentice or self-employed; there were some mass-production facilities, sailors, and others without their own tools, but in general, factoires did not exist until steam power made them possible, and then they hired thousands of people who had no skills other than what was needed to be a cog in the factory gears.
That is where “wage slave” came from, the late 1700s and early 1800s, and it was such a dramatic break with past practices of skilled craftsmen and apprenticeship that it scared a lot of people. I’ve tried to imagine myself in those changing times, and cannot convince myself that I would not have thought of factory workers as voluntary in the same sense as a craftsman with his own tools and shop. Yes, everyone has to work for a living, whether it be on a farm, building furniture, or buying and selling goods. But those provide choices that a factory worker doesn’t have. The factory worker does not get to choose what to work on or who to sell to, and his skills are not necessarily transferable to other factories. That’s a lot closer to the definition of slave than anyone was used to back then.
“But those provide choices that a factory worker doesn’t have. The factory worker does not get to choose what to work on or who to sell to, and his skills are not necessarily transferable to other factories.”
I do get that at the time the term was coined things were changing and it was scary for a lot of people. But, so long as that factory worker, even if they don’t get a say in every detail in the moment, has the right to quit and work somewhere else (which they do), then the word “slave” belongs nowhere near them. Their lack of detailed control over every aspect of work is a trade they are making, lack of control and flexibility in exchange for less responsibility, risk, investment cost and other barriers to entry.
True, and it made the ratio of one employer to many employees commonplace. That sort of relationship hadn’t been seen much since the days of serfdom, which was more common in those societies than slavery.
What’s being called here the gig economy is bringing us back toward the time where self-employment was the norm.
That’s exactly what it is, and I’m suprised Ms. McNeil doesn’t see it. (Or does she just pretend not to see it? Or are we paranoid?)
This is the edge of the wedge. They’d like to propagate the idea that all paid work is illegitimate, but they know that idea is so far from general public consciousness that it’d have no traction. So they instead promote this special case, in the knowledge that there are allies who’ll help them get this much over, to start the ball rolling. The “left” is anti-commerce or at least anti-employment; the “right” is anti-sex. The general public is neither anti-commerce nor anti-sex, but they might be persuaded to take up against the combination of commerce and sex, and from there the road is shorter to the goals of those who are anti-commerce and those who are anti-sex, even if they must part company where those roads diverge.
its not the ‘edge of the wedge’.
The idea that work is inherently coercive is an idea that been around longer than I have. Longer than all of us have.
But women enjoy sex much more under socialism! The proof is that those breadline-standing babushkas back in the old USSR loved to get it on once they got back to their shared multi-family apartments that had one bathroom per floor.
This was in some professor’s book, so it must be true!
Bernie visited there once and loved it. Maybe it’s because he got his ashes hauled for the first time, around age 31, by one or more of these headscarf-wearing commie ladies.
If so, it was because he was the richest guy they knew. (A poor American is wealthier than most of the world, let alone the majority of the people in a Communist country.)
And it’s still sex and all hetro sex is rape. Don’t be a HOP with your slave paint and rape shoes.
Yeah, the new Puritans are in the march. I figure that any day now, we will even start to see modern day witch trials. I suspect that “witchcraft” will consist of openly disagreeing with any of their religious beliefs, which include stuff like AGW, straw and plastic bag banning, and various SJW concerns.
They just skip the trial and go straight to ruining your life, based on rumors.
We think that some people (such as minors) should not be allowed to consent to some things
I agree, odd though that they are allowed to get married at 14 in some states.
If girls had physically matured as early as they do today back in the days when those laws were made, the minimum marriage age would probably be more like 11. They had to be able to marry as soon as they were able to make babies, or else you ended up with bastards in the family.
“I trade something I have a lot of—sex appeal—to get things I otherwise have trouble getting and holding on to, such as money.”
Rowr
Have you seen any photos? I have. She ain’t lying on this point.
It comes down to one simple word: agency. Do people have it, or don’t they? Rules need to be made for minors and the mentally ill, who might otherwise agree to any stupid request, but for the rest we either have agency, or we don’t. The two major political parties lean toward the latter.
Whores are possessed by Satan.
But Satan has rights too.
There is no enumerated power in the US Constitution that gives the government the authority to ban products and services.
There is no state constitution that gives the 50 states the power to ban products and services.
Even the Prohibitionists knew that they needed a Constitutional Amendment to ban alcohol.
There is no enumerated power in the US Constitution that gives the government the authority to ban products and services.
Constitution Guy has never heard of the Commerce Clause:
The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”
Poor troll thinks that regulation means banning.
Said Constitution Guy…
“There is no enumerated power in the US Constitution that gives the government the authority to ban products and services.”
…therefore embarrassing himself publicly:
Gonzales v. Raich
In a 6-3 opinion delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court held that the commerce clause gave Congress authority to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana, despite state law to the contrary. Stevens argued that the Court’s precedent “firmly established” Congress’ commerce clause power to regulate purely local activities that are part of a “class of activities” with a substantial effect on interstate commerce. The majority argued that Congress could ban local marijuana use because it was part of such a “class of activities”: the national marijuana market.
Check and mate. You have fooled no one.
“You have fooled no one.”
Says the guy using an obvious sock to avoid dealing wtih the fact that he’s a known liar who posted kiddie porn.
YOU ARE KIDDING!?!
The SCOTUS allowed an unconstitutional action by the government?
Say it ain’t so!
Its not like the SCOTUS okayed ObamaCare when that tax bill did not originate in the House as the Constitution requires or that there is no enumerated power to force Americans to buy products or services.
Should we remind him of Plessy v Ferguson or Dred Scott?
Filburn got jobbed.
“It ain’t so”
OK, now what?
Pathetic troll never heard of the police powers that all states have; the federals may not have it listed explicitly, but they sure do have the Commerce Clause and Supreme Court backing for their interpretation.
Agree 101%. Screwing former playboy bunnies and current porn actors while your wife is recovering from childbirth is consensual and not illegal and therefore No Crime Was Committed. Total Exoneration. No Collusion. Fake News. MAGA
Bill Clinton is a rapist.
No Crime Was Committed. Total Exoneration. No Collusion. Fake News. MAGA
Hillary is a raper apologist.
Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow!
Why are you still posting with this blown sock screech?
Clearly “consent” is not a valid concept, since it depends on the individual. Only the collective can make proper, moral decisions. And the collective is best represented by one-party government, right?
Yes, the female reproductive system is the last stronghold of individuality in contemporary leftism. I predict it will soon fall, and the leftists will begin advocating Copulation Committees to assign partners and prescribe pregnancies.
You misspelled ‘proscribe’ – – – – – – –
” trade something I have a lot of—sex appeal—to get things”
Congrats on getting anything because you’re fucking gross. You look like a fucking man, excuse me, transwoman. Whoever told you that you had a lot of sex appeal was lying. If you think you have a lot of sex appeal because you successfully sold your ass for a minute, remember men have literally no standards and will stick their dick in any hole it will approximately fit in.
Otherwise nice article.
“.. remember men have literally no standards and will stick their dick in any hole it will approximately fit in. ”
^This one sticks it’s cock in a sock and calls itself ‘Tulpa’.
Juvenile fantasies aside, sex appeal has remarkably little to do with physical appearance.
Sex appeal has remarkably little to do with physical appearance at closing time.
FIFY
love the bio. way to come out on top.
Articles like this are expected to be found at Reason.
Perhaps the author could get it published at whatever site the statists read
Well, then it is a welcome respite from all the Proggy crap Reason has been publishing the last couple of years
The movie comparison is actually incorrect. Indeed, it is an example of similar thinking to this. Many people do get offended when people profit from art. Successful artists are often said to be “selling out”, and their art is considered to be lesser due to their ability to live off it. This is often accused of being mere jealously of their competitor’s success, but it’s more fundamental than that. The complainers feel that doing art for anything other than art’s sake is somehow tainting the work.
I’m against having a federal (or state) Morality Police because it’s largely up to the people to monitor the morality of their rulers, not vice versa. I would limit state involvement in sex to public health, child support, civil liability for criminal conversation, and the like.
But as a libertarian principle, can you really assert a “right” to have sex with someone who is married to someone else? Unless this is some swinger arrangement where all three parties consent, how can the “consenting adults” paradigm actually apply?
If it’s not a personal question, does the author vet her clients to make sure they are either unmarried or that they have their wives’ consent to the festivities?
ha. married man lacks capacity to contract w/3d party.
Well, let’s put it in purely commercial terms.
Company A agrees that, in exchange for certain discounts, Compan B will serve as Company A’s exclusive supplier. Then Company A violates the contract by ordering supplies from Company C.
Consensual?
That’s a pretty business litigation scenario and we generally know how they turn out.
– Yes, the transaction between Company A and Company C was consensual. A cannot sue C nor can C sue A over that transaction regardless of the agreement between A and B.
– B can sue A for violating the terms of the contract between A and B. But along the way, B might actually have to prove that A’s violation was consensual. If A were somehow forced into it, that might be an extenuating circumstance. So B’s suit against A does not diminish the consensual nature of the transaction between A and C.
– B can try to bring a suit against C for tortious interference – and would probably lose unless C did something egregious. But nothing in that suit by B against C would make the transaction between A and C non-consensual even if C’s actions did meet the threshold for tortious interference.
In short, A could be in trouble for violating the contract with B but that’s not C’s problem.
I really want an edit function. Should have been “… a pretty common business litigation scenario”
Excellent reply. I was going to simply state that cheating is nonconsensual behavior (as opposed to various types of open marriages which are absolutely consensual). However, as Rossimi stated, it is in the realm of contract law, not criminal law. And the process to sue someone for violating their contract (marriage) is divorce.
But since this has literally NOTHING to do with whether or not the 3rd party got paid for their services, this isn’t an argument against prostitution. I don’t the stats, but my guess would be that far more adulterous behavior occurs with non-sex workers than with.
The part about money changing hands is the part I want to avoid.
It’s reverse-triggering to libertarians: “Oh, a commercial transaction, that means it’s OK!”
I still don’t see how the libertarian NAP can allow for a “consensual” transaction between two parties if one of the parties has promised a third party not to do such a transaction. Even if commercial law limits the the remedies against third parties who interfere with contracts.
Which is to say, the arguments against state interference are pragmatic in nature, not based on philosophical principle and the NAP.
“I still don’t see how the libertarian NAP can allow for a “consensual” transaction between two parties if one of the parties has promised a third party not to do such a transaction.”
Because your concept of “consent” is irrational. I rather doubt you will find any libertarians that it would be perfectly okay for A to engage in a transaction with C when A already promised B that they wouldn’t do so. However, the reason why the A-C transaction is wrong has exactly nothing to do with any rational concept of consent.
OK, let’s consider another commercial analogy –
A thief steals a guy’s wallet, then sells the wallet to me – I have no curiosity about where the wallet came from, figuring out it’s simply a consensual transaction between myself and the thief. Can I explain that to the jury and get off?
Yes. Unawareness that property was stolen is a valid defense against a charge of receiving stolen property, unless one was culpably reckless in that regard.
All right then, so it’s not that there was consent, it’s that there wasn’t a guilty intent.
So we could let the hooker get off (so to speak) with the same explanation – she didn’t know the client was married.
That’s hardly the same as saying we’re dealing purely with consenting adults.
Of course, the owner of the wallet could sue me civilly to make me give him his property back.
True enough. Like I said, there’s still no right to buy the stolen article, no matter how innocent you are, because the owner can sue to get the stuff back.
You’re still confusing having a “right to buy” with “successfully bought”.
You can have a “right to buy” and botch the execution.
I can’t see this analogy as applicable to your simple cheating question above. The theft of the wallet is criminal as well as non-consensual.
However, with cheating, We have already killed almost (if not all) criminal adultery statutes. The majority of states have eliminated the majority of adultery related torts, and courts nation wide have ruled that marriage does not imply consent for sex, allowing for marital rape laws. Modern marriage laws have largely abandoned the basis of the traditional wedding vows.
As a legal matter these days, marriage does not imply a legally enforceable promise to not have sex with other people.
“As a legal matter these days, marriage does not imply a legally enforceable promise to not have sex with other people.”
This could be true legally, but the poor ignorant plebes are largely still laboring under the illusion that marriage entails such a promise.
And that’s why it still beneficial to accuse your spouse of infidelity in divorce court.
But you aren’t arguing social consequences, you are trying to argue rights.
So let’s put it back in the realm of sex but without the money.
A and B are married and supposed to be monogamous. A cheats on B with C. Had A not been married, all parties agree that the sex between A and C would have been entirely consensual.
Non-consensual sex is generally called rape. Did C meet any reasonable definition of having raped A merely because A was married to B? Even if C didn’t know about the marriage? That’s certainly not the legal standard today and I don’t know of any libertarian logic that would make it so. Adultery and rape are very different crimes.
A did something wrong. And depending on what C knew, maybe C did too. But the wrong had nothing to do with lack of consent.
I can’t see how I have a right to buy if the seller has no right to sell.
…and vice versa.
Nope.
Person A having the “right” to sell X is independent of whether Person B has a “right” to buy X.
The “rights” are not linked. Especially since the concern you raise isn’t universal (that is, Person B may not have a “right” to buy X because of a pre-existing contractual obligation, but Person C, who does not have a similar obligation, has the “right” to buy X).
If I steal something and sell it to someone (no matter how innocent his intentions), the owner can go to court to get the property back, so we can hardly say the purchaser had the right to buy it, if he can be forced to return it.
So what’s the equivalent for hookers? Depending on the state, maybe suing for criminal conversation – though the fashionable approach is to abolish such suits and to refer to them condescendingly as “heartbalm actions.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_conversation
(Don’t let the name fool you – “criminal conversation” is a civil remedy. And it’s about more than just conversation, if you know what I mean)
Note to foreign readers: The Senior Antisex League of the Republican party spares no effort inventing sockpuppets to harry libertarian publications and eructate in readers’ faces. Edie, Jawin, Vern and several others are probably one single lamer in a telemarketing style setup wearing different masks.
I’m not going to look up “eructate,” but I’m not a Republican Party spokesperson (concealed or not), and I don’t go by “Jawin” or “Vern.”
In George Orwell’s novel 1984, the Junior Antisex League was a creation of a totalitarian government to channel people’s sex impulse into state-worship.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, in contrast, had a more realistic vision: The totalitarian government made sure extramarital sex and other pleasures were widely available so as to anesthetize the people against any kind of deep thought, deep thought being dangerous to the regime.
As part of this plan, family life was replaced by institutional child-rearing, and romantic relationships and marriage were attacked.
Nobody gets put in jail for adultery any more.
Disclaimer: I’m 100% for legalizing prostitution. There’s a lot of middle-ground I’d agree to on the way there, but I’m chill with it being treated no different from any other occupation.
That said…
Point of order, this is an explicit argument of most labor groups, that employment often involves some manner of coercion. Trying to force employers and employees to negotiate as equal (often though the use of unions and collective bargaining) are ways to reduce the coercion and make the power-exchange more equitable, but there is no illusion that ultimately, the guy cutting the checks has disproportionate coercive power over the guy accepting the checks.
Organ donations, votes, people (aka, literal slavery), children (including surrogacy).
ultimately, the guy cutting the checks has disproportionate coercive power over the guy accepting the checks.
Actually, it depends totally on the relative value of the checks and the labor. If you need my check to feed your family, and there aren’t many other bosses with checks available, I have the power.
OTOH if my bathroom’s flooding, and you’re the plumber that’s available, you pretty much control how big my check is going to be.
(A) I acknowledge your point
(B) I think you’re being deliberately obtuse. If I’m paying a plumber to look at my well shed, I’m not his “boss”, and while I may have a preference in when he comes over, it’s ultimately at his leisure. The relationship is much close to business-client then employee-employer. So sure, money is still changing hands, but the relationship is very different.
And (C) it doesn’t matter. I was pointing out that McNeill seemed to have forgotten labor and it’s arguments. I have no interest in debating them.
“Wake up, Maggie, I think I got something to say to you
It’s late September and I really should be back at school
I know I keep you amused, but I feel I’m being used
Oh, Maggie, I couldn’t have tried any more” Okay, had to get that out of my system. Maggie certainly has an interesting bio, and I’m going to respect her viewpoints on sex-work.
Interesting you assume Maggie is female
either way i’m not working on her farm.
E minor is the most subversive of chords.
Consenting adults engaging in consenting activities?
The masses should never be allowed to do anything they consent to do.
Only our wise and prudent ruling elitist slavers should do our thinking for us.
That’s why they extort so much of our money from our paychecks…to show us how free we are by being enslaved.
“trauma bonding,”
Hot!
Two relevant libertarian articles in a single issue? Is Reason deliberately trying to wear out Jawin, Freddie, Bryan00, LittleFlower, BillySundae, Teedy and the other sockpuppets sent here by God’s Own Prohibitionists to preach, lecture, bully girls and bore subscribers? Or is it that maybe they’ll subscribe to Salon or Utne and be popular over there…
This dogma is deranged. Richey doesn’t do his job for free; does that mean he is coerced, too?
In fact this is what the left’s embrace of socialism is all about. They believe since they already have a right to income by virtue of existence any requirement to receive it is coercive.
“Richey doesn’t do his job for free; does that mean he is coerced, too? ”
Yes. All employment is exploitative and coercive. That’s what Marxists believe.
“Sex is a resource, just like money and groceries.”
I don’t know where it was. Maybe it was the knife murdering incel. But someone went all socialist about “needing sex”, and people having a right to what they “need”, and attractive women “hoarding” what he “needs”. Once you accept the “logic” of having a right to what you need, why exclude sex from those needs?
Meh. Wouldn’t be the first (or last) time the government paid hookers to sleep with guys who couldn’t get laid on their own.
“MAGGIE MCNEILL was a librarian in suburban New Orleans”
Hot, if a little too on the nose for a sex work story.
This librarian is out of control, lol – just try and shush her!
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