Is the PHWOAARR thread we have a bit rum?

[Shit Good Nose]

demolition man?

No, similar idea but more extreme and more one of the central themes of the film.  IIRC it's a forrun.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

The Lobster?

Demolition Lobster?

[Shit Good Nose]

The Lobster?

Nah, older than that.

Demolition Lobster?

That's the one.

I don't think this is me mentally comforting myself, but I'm pretty happy that I'm not a classically attractive person. If nothing else, what do you do when age sets in and you can't go about your life lofted afloat on a crowd due to your rugged good looks? Truly the formerly hot are the least prepared group.

But what of those who stay hot in older age?  Or those rare types that get even more attractive and charismatic as they get older?  Brucie for example.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I don't think this is me mentally comforting myself, but I'm pretty happy that I'm not a classically attractive person. If nothing else, what do you do when age sets in and you can't go about your life lofted afloat on a crowd due to your rugged good looks?

[bgmnts]

Surely if you're hot then newer experiences and people who can teach you things come easier to you just because people are more welcoming of hot people, giving you more confidence, so in theory you should gain enough people skills to get by even when the age sets in.

[TrenterPercenter]

O RLY? I had a very painful rejection as an undergrad living in halls. I had won a pair of tickets to a gig and asked a guy if he wanted to come with me. He politely declined... but it later became painfully apparent that he had told his mates and they'd all had a bloody good larf at this munter thinking she might have had a chance with him. I even got a fake text from him on Valentine's day, actually from one of his mates who asked "so... did you get his text then?" while trying to keep a straight face. I laughed it off and said "Yeah, very funny" while quietly dying inside.

That sounds horrible and those people sounds like idiots.  Sorry that you experienced such a thing.  I've had countless experiences like it also, and just take it as given that if i asked someone out they said no they would be larfing about it with their mates, that's just commonplace for men (though i've never have had the to have their mates text me - i think that this is something whilst not invalid is something else though - group humiliation).

Women get humiliated too, and because we're not supposed to be the ones to do the asking out we get humiliated for it.

I'm not suggesting otherwise (i really hope it is not coming across like that anyway) it's just a fact of society that it is massively more incumbent on men to approach women than the other way round, therefore more approaching = more opportunities for rejection = more opportunities for emotional damage from these rejections.  Men essentially have to psychologically deal with that someway and that feeds into a robotic I don't care, it's just a numbers game, never emotionally attach because the damage is great mentality which actually underpins a lot of ladish behaviour.  Women's way might to avoid whilst men's way might be to dissociate.  This isn't necessarily about intentional group organised humiliation just the damage that comes with having to approach someone you care for and being rejected (that isn't the women's fault, that isn't the point i'm making, im talking about the instigating expectation on men).

I'm not suggesting for a moment there isn't good women or good men that aren't like this, i saying that this is what society promotes and there are consequences to it. 

[Mister Six]

I think prostitution is slightly different from other forms of work in that it touches on the issue of sexual consent, and as I%u2019ve said earlier in the thread I%u2019m not sure whether this is something which can be ethically sold, though I%u2019m not particularly solid on that position and would be open to being argued out of it.

I think the distinction between "sexual consent" and, I dunno, "bricklaying consent" is fundamentally rooted in religious prohibition rather than any objective, naturally occurring phenomenon. I don't see how the sale (or rent, I suppose) is unethical if the sex worker is comfortable with doing so, is doing so of his or her own volition, and - y'know - actually enjoys it. Some do, you know? It's not all grim stories of heroin addiction and dank Mancunian alleys shot on 16mm film.

If Harvey Weinstein had been inviting hopeful actors back to his hotel room to coerce them into doing some unpaid typing for the Miramax accounts then the Me Too movement would have quite a different flavour.

A different flavour but the same foul product. Coercing someone into doing unpaid work that they actively don't want to do with threats of physical harm or the destruction of a person's career - and destroying the careers of those who don't go along with anything - is criminal regardless of what that work is. The flavour is determined by how we think of sex and sex work, and - yes - how society treats women and men differently in both cases.

I don%u2019t think the topic of misogyny can be ignored in any discussions about prostitution. I completely agree that sex workers should not be criminalised and should be protected by the police and law, but I think misogyny is at the root of the fact that prostitution is illegal, and that police tend to act like sex workers%u2019 lives are less valuable. You%u2019ll see signs up on Post Office windows saying %u201Cabuse of our staff will be prosecuted%u201D, and of course it would be nice if sex workers were treated with the same level of basic human decency as that, but the difference is that I don%u2019t think there are any people out there who fundamentally hate Post Office workers as a class of people.

Right, which is why legalising prostitution and turning it into a clean, safe, regular business model is the way to go. 60 years ago a cop would write you off as a scumbag and potentially duff you up for smoking a joint. Now you can buy organic fair-trade weed in states across the US. Which is healthier, for the individual and society as a whole?

This is where I disagree. hod carriers and typists are not fetishised in the same way sex workers are, we do not have people sneakily upskirting builders or deeming it suitable to put a pictures of typists on their office wall to grumble "look at the typebars on that!".   Other vocations get to clock off whilst women get stared at and assumed "up fer it" regardless whether "at work", in the industry at all or ever getting paid.

Well,

1) Sex work isn't performed exclusively by men;

2) You've clearly never seen a sexy fireman calendar or sexy secretary costume;

3) This is exactly my point. Functionally, there is no different between renting out one part of your body and renting out another part of your body. The only differences are the ones that society places on them, and those are determined (in the West, certainly) by rules and societal mores derived from patriarchal religions. Normalising sex work is an important part of overthrowing these perceptions.

This all raises the question about when does attraction blur with objectification? This is much more complicated than it seems and is very dependent on your definition of objectification is.  I would say it is to create an object out of a human, that is to remove any personal volition and only consider a human as an aesthetical entity.

Replace "aesthetical" with "practical" and you basically just have Western capitalism in a nutshell. Again, why is it OK for a corporation to employ me and make me work eight-nine hours a day, five days a week (on a good week) then discard me when the bean-counters say they should, but it's not OK for a woman or man to decide to work the hours they choose to work with the clients they choose to service on terms that they establish themselves?

And from the other perspective, how is this different from two people who want to fuck matching up on Tinder, going for a drink, deciding that the other one isn't gross or a psychopath, fucking and then going their separate ways?

As for "ogling", people like to look at attractive people, same way they like to look at sunsets and mountains or nice cars or whatever the fuck. So long as (to paraphrase Black Box Recorder) the distinction between fantasy and reality remains, and so long as there's equal opportunity ogling going on, there's nothing wrong with it.

Nah. Sex is a very intimate, bonding experience. Sex is different to any other human experience, and if you don't see that it's a bit sad. In that context, not treating it as any other service makes sense.

It is for you. It is for me too, actually (I've always been a serial monogamist, and any hooking up has been after a period of mutual attraction that's enormously enjoyable in its own right). But that's not the case for everyone. Some people have lovely bonding sex when in a relationship but enjoy vigorous funtimes with hook-ups when not. Some people don't care for romantic relations at all, or even having fuck-buddies.

Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, but what you're saying sounds to me like a very solipsistic "This thing feels right for me, therefore this thing is natural and objectively the best way to be, therefore this thing is how everyone should live," which is a worldview that I don't think helps anyone.

Not to mention, of course, people with physical deformities or disabilities, or emotional issues for whom prostitution is the only way that they can experience this particular kind of intimacy. Recall watching a documentary back in the 90s (I think) that had horny people with cerebral palsy - so bad they couldn't even wank - being bused in to a brothel, where the sex workers seemed happy to be providing what they felt was a public service.

I don't think that can be dismissed as a purely societal concept. I think if it was there would be some societies that treat sex like baboons do.

You're saying this in a world that has been dominated and shaped by a handful of religions for the past few thousand years and has been gradually working itself into a proto-monoculture for the past 100 or so. It's hard to make any claims about what some societies might do when so many of them have been wiped out or absorbed into larger cultures (and patriarchal, aggressive cultures that encourage wedded heterosexual unions to ensure stable family units and the production of more citizens tend to do well).

And counter to your point, you can't dismiss the value of no-strings transactional sex as a societal concept, otherwise we wouldn't still be having this discussion about 4,500 years after the first recorded case of a sex worker...

But you choose not to rent out yours.  Because you have a choice.  I clean peoples' floors on my hands and knees.  I polish their fucking toilets (even in a time of covid).  I do it for minimum wage.  I get no holidays.  I don't choose this.  I choose it above losing my home.  I work with a guy who wants to go back to Sri Lanka to see his parents because they're old and he's worried they're going to die, he can't because people like us don't get paid enough to cover the air fare.  You talk about choice like someone whose choices aren't limited by our glorious capitalist society.  Who doesn't understand how much choice costs.

Er yeah, this is an argument for the destruction of capitalism (or at least an overhaul of the state to ensure proper redistribution of wealth and a full social safety net including free housing, high minimum wages, mandatory holidays for all workers, universal basic income etc etc), not an argument against prostitution.

Like, I wouldn't ban toilet cleaners, I'd just say they need to be paid proper money and outfitted (at no cost to them) with the correct protective gear and kneepads. Much like sex workers, fnarr fnarr etc.

Shit jobs are always going to exist, unless AI really comes along, so people who are doing shit jobs should be properly compensated, protected from the dangers of their occupation and looked at as admirable members of the community who perform a thankless - but necessary and normal - task. That's as true for toilet cleaners and litter pickers and carers and burger-flippers as it is for sex workers.

(And some people do sex work of their own volition, when they could be working an office job. As I said above, it's not all tragic drug addiction and life spirals, even though that may be the case in many or even most instances - and is just another reason why it should be legalised and unionised and made safe, and in addition why social safety nets and proper access to counselling and rehab should be made available to everyone.)

We don't have to disregard it but we don't have to design our lives, our mores, to only suit people unaffected by normal emotions. 

Who's saying that? And "normal emotions" isn't particularly helpful or compassionate language.

[Zetetic]

I don't think that many of people that Harvey Weinstein coerced into sexual acts necessarily either thought of it as unpaid work or would want to think of it as any kind of work (presumably this would be an instance of "normalisation").

(Yes, that might be because they have conceptions of bodily integrity and the interpersonal significance of certain acts that are socially informed.)

Not intended as a "gotcha", but as an observation of something shouldn't just pass.

[JaDanketies]

I got rejected more times than I could count back when I was a young man. My dad used to tell me that if 1% of women will have sex with you, then you only need to get rejected 99 times at the most before the law of averages goes your way.

I don't know how he got a 1% success rate; that's much better than I managed. I was fuckin hopeless before Tinder did all the rejecting for me.

On the subject of casual sex and whether or not it makes you a terrible person, I do kinda think it's the sort of thing everyone should try once or twice. Maybe not when they're a teenager, maybe when you're well into your 20s. Never really did an awful lot for me, but tbh I don't even know if I romantically like someone until I've had sex with them, or done something very close to sex. If someone was fundamentally opposed to casual sex then it would be a dealbreaker.

Will Smith wanted to shag someone who believed in waiting until marriage on Fresh Prince the other day and I didn't understand his reasoning. My gf said she wouldn't write someone off just because they believe in waiting until marriage, but then we explored the idea a little bit more and she came round and agreed with me.

And if someone wants to shag on film for whatever reason, and other people want to watch it for whatever reason, we don't need to worry about their pathology. It's all consensual.

There's this kinda argument people make where they seem to advocate that they know what is best for everyone in the world. I think it's good to have a healthily agnostic attitude towards these things. You don't know what's going on in other people's heads, and you never will. And you don't know what is The Best. Perhaps in 50 years' time, the UK will be under Shariah law - I can't say for definite that it won't be, and some people believe there's a strong chance, and they might be right.

I conceptualise it in my head as acknowledging that when I die, I might end up before Allah, who is pissed off because I didn't die a martyr so I don't get 40 virgins. I might think that it's incredibly unlikely, but I also know that some people are convinced by it - more certain of it than I am of anything.

[Zetetic]

Functionally, there is no different

The only differences are

Love this sort of thing, and I'm not entirely sure I can give a solid justification of why.

[Zetetic]

My dad used to tell me that if 1% of women will have sex with you, then you only need to get rejected 99 times at the most before the law of averages goes your way.

I think on that model you should have a 50% chance of "success" within 69 rejections or fewer, and that only rises to about 63% with another 30 possible rejections.

[JaDanketies]

I think on that model you should have a 50% chance of "success" within 69 rejections or fewer, and that only rises to about 63% with another 30 possible rejections.

Ah, and my old man was good at maths, too. He must have been having me over.

[Mister Six]

Love this sort of thing, and I'm not entirely sure I can give a solid justification of why.

There's nothing contradictory there, though the typo and perhaps vague wording may have led you to believe there is.

When I say "functionally", I mean "objectively" or "shorn of social expectations and biases". What's the difference between renting out your fingers to type, your arms to shovel, your feet to deliver, your genitals to pleasure, from a working perspective? There isn't one, really. The differences are all created by a society built on religious beliefs that tried to dissuade sex outside marriage and promiscuity - themselves social conventions/inventions.

[Sebastian Cobb]

And the second time you were presented with the bagged pants you went "why are you giving me those pants of yours again?"? Careful, mate, gaslighting, that. Not cool. Careful.

Oh no, surreptitiously sneaking them into the rucksack they've packed to go climbing in is far more my style.

[JaDanketies]

When I say "functionally", I mean "objectively" or "shorn of social expectations and biases". What's the difference between renting out your fingers to type, your arms to shovel, your feet to deliver, your genitals to pleasure, from a working perspective? There isn't one, really. The differences are all created by a society built on religious beliefs that tried to dissuade sex outside marriage and promiscuity - themselves social conventions/inventions.

More evidence for this viewpoint is that the harms of renting out your genitals are viewed through a gendered lens. For instance, people might think that male strippers are less tragic than female strippers, or that there isn't really anything wrong with a man getting paid for giving a semen sample at a sperm bank but that a woman renting out her womb is an expression of patriarchal exploitation.

And they may well be correct. But if we stripped society's prejudices and biases away from the equation, then you might have a point. But maybe there's something a little extra going on in your brain when someone's ploughing you for cash vs when you're pulling a plough for cash. Maybe serotonin et al make sex work emotionally gruelling on a deeper level, at least for the average neurotypical human, even when you strip aside the larger societal context.

[Zetetic]

What's the difference between renting out your fingers to type, your arms to shovel, your feet to deliver, your genitals to pleasure, from a working perspective? There isn't one, really.

"Really" is doing a lot of a work there.

The differences are all created by a society built on religious beliefs that tried to dissuade sex outside marriage and promiscuity - themselves social conventions/inventions.

And this doesn't do much to move it beyond that, since it seems to treat the "religious beliefs" as supernatural themselves (rather than human products as natural or not as anything else along the route to human ways of perceiving).

I don't disagree that our perceptions of our bodies and how we use them are informed by beliefs which are informed by a massive and often dubious patchwork of social attitudes

It's not that I think it's worthless to talk about societies that might yet exist - far from it, although I don't think we should think ourselves as having simply shed norms but having adopted different ones - but that we can't lose sight of the one in which we'll still find ourselves tomorrow.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Saw a lady on twitter say they didn't have a pot to piss in at the start of the year but after joining onlyfans they've just bought a house.

Who do I need to show my bumhole to to make this happen? I've already ascertained it's not my mortgage adviser.

[Tony Tony Tony]

Saw a lady on twitter say they didn't have a pot to piss in at the start of the year but after joining onlyfans they've just bought a house.

Who do I need to show my bumhole to to make this happen? I've already ascertained it's not my mortgage adviser.

It was probably videos of her pissing in a pot on onlyfans that raised the cash.

[TrenterPercenter]

1) Sex work isn't performed exclusively by men;

Not sure what you mean, do you mean women? If so i'm not sure how that relates to what I was saying.  The majority of sex work is done by women but even this is irrelevant to my argument because the point is that "normal" work as you proposed does not have the same social impact on specific groups and too such a degree.  We don't view other professions with such specific connotations for a whole gender.  That is sexism and it's interaction with the female dominated industry of sex workers largely consumed by men.

2) You've clearly never seen a sexy fireman calendar or sexy secretary costume;

You do realise that those plumbers in the films are not really plumbers? 

Joking aside i'm not sure why the sexualisation of certain trades proves anything other than people can be sexualised in their professions.  That is different from sex as your profession, and again it's the interaction with viewing of, (mens views mainly but some women also) the performers in it, and the blurring of sexism in women's lives in general.

3) This is exactly my point. Functionally, there is no different between renting out one part of your body and renting out another part of your body.

No, sorry my logic needle is flickering at the same rate as Z's was here, you think "functionally" you getting fucked in the ass is the same you doing some admin? I mean it's just mad, even on a physical level, you think fingers and anuses are functionally the same?

I think you mean the transactional relationship between renting out a body for sex is the same as renting out your body for typing, in terms of the agreement (relation as Marx would say).  The functions are what are different, the personal and moral question of aquiring someones labour for money is the same.......sure that is true, sex work is work and therefore should be afforded the same rights and protections as anyone else.  Sex workers', labour can be exploited just like anyone elses (in fact moreso for lots of obvious reasons), i alluded to this when I said women now being able to own their own means of production; running their own websites, making their own decisions and not having someone (usually a man) exploit their labour by extracting their surplus value, makes some sex work seem more morally acceptable.

We agree in a sense - not in your weird fingers and anuses beliefs - i won't be coming round for dinner anytime soon ; ), capitalism is rife in porn, in fact porn is a great example of the brutality of capitalism, it being the oldest profession why would it not? The idea of a women being forced or coerced into sex is more visibily disturbing for people than a women being forced to make the designer clothes they are wearing.  It isn't either or though sex workers are victim to all the shittiness of capitalism but there are other aspects that go beyond the shittiness of being typist.  There is then as stated the interaction with wider sexism.  This just seems obvious.

The only differences are the ones that society places on them

No. There are physical differences and also the differences that society places on them are big important not-sweepable-under-the-carpet-so-easily differences.

Replace "aesthetical" with "practical"

Sorry i'm going to have to disagree because that would a different word with a different meaning.

Again, why is it OK for a corporation to employ me and make me work eight-nine hours a day, five days a week (on a good week) then discard me when the bean-counters say they should,

Errrr, yes have considered reading some of this bloke Karl Marx? I'm not sure i'm the person that is arguing that is OK.  It's complicated though and more about your labour being both extracted and how your labour is being coerced and controlled.

but it's not OK for a woman or man to decide to work the hours they choose to work with the clients they choose to service on terms that they establish themselves?

Again it is ok, under the right terms, conditions and context.  It is just not a fully formed argument if you then go and ignore the societal impact of sexism's interaction with the objectification of women in porn (or elsewhere).  I'm not suggest the sole root of sexism is porn, porn in some situations is an expression of this but men (generally powerful men) have found multiple ways in which to denigrate and control women, we've become so good at it we literally have to have it pointed out to us as it is so ubiquitous and common place in society.

Look i've got a lot of sympathy and empathy for men, especially working class men at this current time and i only wish they would see the commonalities in their own oppression and those of women as a progressive way to "take back control" of peoples lives, but when we deviate from the long, severe and frankly obvious oppression of women from literally the beginning of recorded history then i'm out.  You will never solve the problems men have without recognising and solving the problems women have had before as they are fundementally intwinned in my view.

And from the other perspective, how is this different from two people who want to fuck matching up on Tinder, going for a drink, deciding that the other one isn't gross or a psychopath, fucking and then going their separate ways?

Sorry i've no idea? I have no problem with this, i'm not sure that i've said anything that suggests this either?

As for "ogling", people like to look at attractive people, same way they like to look at sunsets and mountains or nice cars or whatever the fuck. So long as (to paraphrase Black Box Recorder) the distinction between fantasy and reality remains, and so long as there's equal opportunity ogling going on, there's nothing wrong with it.

Again, I did say it is dependent on what your definiton of objectification is, mine was the removal of volition and to make an metaphorical object out of a human.....this is an inherently human thing, you do not remove the sunsets volition, there is no consequence to you aesthetically enjoying the colours of the sunset, it has no feelings or being in the world in which your ogling might cause it harm.

I've had some fun with you here Mr Six, but i'd like to thank for replying and considering what I said, can i please suggest you watch the John Berger video I posted - it is really entertaining and i think you will find it quite interesting considering what we have just been talking about. I'll put it below : )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T0ou_Ab4Fs

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

It's awful, the old asking out situation. Maybe it would be best if all of the single people in the world were required to go out on a date with each of the other single people they could each find the one that works best, and if they don't get fixed up with a mutual match in the first round there could be a series of run offs.

I read this in Inspector Frost's voice. He'd be working late on a case with his DC of the episode, or commiserating with one of his on-again off-again love interests.

[Mister Six]

"Really" is doing a lot of a work there.

No it's not.

And this doesn't do much to move it beyond that, since it seems to treat the "religious beliefs" as supernatural themselves (rather than human products as natural or not as anything else along the route to human ways of perceiving).

But by that same token a view that sex can be perfectly fine as an enjoyable exercise between two people without any emotional attachment is also a product of human perception. So why is the one view true and the other not, particularly to the extent that it becomes an argument for prohibiting sex work?

It's not that I think it's worthless to talk about societies that might yet exist - far from it, although I don't think we should think ourselves as having simply shed norms but having adopted different ones - but that we can't lose sight of the one in which we'll still find ourselves tomorrow.

I don't think the one in which we find ourselves today is a good thing in respect to sex work though, and I think legalising and normalising it is going to be healthier for tomorrow and beyond than continuing to prohibit and denigrate it.

[Mister Six]

And they may well be correct. But if we stripped society's prejudices and biases away from the equation, then you might have a point. But maybe there's something a little extra going on in your brain when someone's ploughing you for cash vs when you're pulling a plough for cash. Maybe serotonin et al make sex work emotionally gruelling on a deeper level, at least for the average neurotypical human, even when you strip aside the larger societal context.

Maybe, maybe not. And if so, it's important to legalise it, make safe environments for sex work to occur in and ensure things like therapy and counselling are provided to sex workers.

(Plus, obvious comment about the gruelling, shit awful work that plenty of other people do in other professions that takes a horrible toll on their mental health.)

[Zetetic]

I think there's a substantial space to be found between
  a) legalising and respecting sex work, and
  b) casting people who've been subject to - at a minimum - coercion to engage in sexual acts as simply engaging in "unpaid work" when the significance of those act (for both the victim and the perpetrator) was substantially defined by the interpersonal value of them as sexual act.[nb]Which I guess I need to follow with "Which is not to say that work acts can't also have interpersonal value.". But that seems beside the point here.[/nb]

Recognising the general interpersonal weight of sexual acts, here and now and whether or not its thoroughly alterable by social attitudes, doesn't seem to fundamentally demand the prohibition of sex work.

[Mister Six]

Will check out Trenter's reply a bit later, when I'm less busy.

[Mister Six]

I think there's a substantial space to be found between
  a) legalising and respecting sex work, and
  b) casting people who've been subject to - at a minimum - coercion to engage in sexual acts as simply engaging in "unpaid work" when the significance of those act (for both the victim and the perpetrator) was substantially defined by the interpersonal value of them as sexual act.[nb]Which I guess I need to follow with "Which is not to say that work acts can't also have interpersonal value.". But that seems beside the point here.[/nb]

Yes, of course.

[touchingcloth]

I don't think that many of people that Harvey Weinstein coerced into sexual acts necessarily either thought of it as unpaid work or would want to think of it as any kind of work (presumably this would be an instance of "normalisation").

(Yes, that might be because they have conceptions of bodily integrity and the interpersonal significance of certain acts that are socially informed.)

Not intended as a "gotcha", but as an observation of something shouldn't just pass.

Yep, and that's kind of the point. Sex is different from work in that it's not just transactional and functional. Weinstein wasn't coercing those women into fucking him because it was just one of a number of things he had to in the course of his working day. It was something entirely unrelated to his work but which he exploited his power in the industry to get.

[touchingcloth]

Nah, older than that.

Shoah?

[Zetetic]

Yep, and that's kind of the point. Sex is different from work in that it's not just transactional and functional. Weinstein wasn't coercing those women into fucking him because it was just one of a number of things he had to in the course of his working day. It was something entirely unrelated to his work but which he exploited his power in the industry to get.

And I guess one view on that is that we should be working to erase that difference, because
  a) if sex meant less, broadly, to the victims then it would have been less injurious to them to be subject to that coercion, and
  b) if sex meant less, broadly, to Weinstein then he might not have been interested in assaulting and coercing people.

(Again, not meant to be a "gotcha" to anyone but arguments at least somewhat similar to a have been advanced in favour of conclusions that I'm not a fan of.)

[Zetetic]

In the interests of openness:

I'd quite like it society at large and people close to me were prepared to take a more open-minded view on the nature of what actual constitutes "harm" and "injury", since there's fundamentally no objective way of determining these with respect to a human.

I don't think that's likely to happen, and I can accept that those views - while heavily socially reinforced - also practically derive in large part from the most basic setup of humans and so are relatively hard to transcend.

The upshot being that I don't get to cut, and my position might just be sour grapes.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Yep, and that's kind of the point. Sex is different from work in that it's not just transactional and functional. Weinstein wasn't coercing those women into fucking him because it was just one of a number of things he had to in the course of his working day. It was something entirely unrelated to his work but which he exploited his power in the industry to get.

True, but I think it's also worth acknowledging that it's pretty clear that the everyday business of a grubby CEO isn't 'transactional and functional' either, and they'll quite happily use coercion and their own power differentials to get other underlings to do their dirty work as far as profitable, yet illegal dirty work is concerned.

This is not to suggest that sex isn't somehow different to that.