Wheat and Chaff

Steven D. Thomas wrote a very good article here about how pornography's tolerated existence in society forces a view on women that every woman is a legitimate subject of sexual exploitation. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it's a well-thought out presentation.

It's my view that all sex-related businesses are inherently exploitative even to the women who freely involve themselves in such businesses. The reason I believe this is that a woman's sexuality can never be marketed or commoditized. There is basically no fair price that you could ever pay a woman to degrade herself. Therefore, any such arrangement is automatically exploitative, and thus there can never be true consent to such an arrangement. The only way it could occur is if the woman either does not realize she is being exploited or does not feel she has a legitimate option, and this is no justification. This is why businesses and the military typically forbid relations between different ranks or managerial levels, since the likelihood of such exploitation is too high. If I encourage women to sell their bodies, the only ones who will respond are those who are vulnerable to such exploitation, whether they realize it or not.