Students increasingly turn to prostitution to pay for university, risk punishment from universities.

[Civil War Man]

I don't think the system is "broken" at all -it's doing exactly what the folks in charge of educational policy want it to do: It's making it difficult for members of the Great Unwashed to become doctors, engineers and lawyers. The GI Bill (and more importantly, federal aid to education for others normally left out) was arguably FDR's greatest domestic achievement, providing free or cheap education to veterans and others so they could have real jobs. Not only did this create the American Middle Class, it also nipped in the bud any movement to recruit vast numbers of disgruntled, unemployed war veterans for paramilitary activities, whether in black shirts or white hoods. So naturally, the right-wingers in this loony bin of a country went to great lengths to tear it up.

A little bit of history to add to this: the slave powers in the antebellum south also employed these tactics and more in order to perpetuate their stranglehold on southern and, for close to a century, national politics. The existence of slave labor artificially depressed wages in the south, because why pay a free person something to do work for you if you can just use your slaves instead, or pay another master to use his slaves if you don't own any yourself? This created a stark economic divide between a small cabal of ultra-wealthy plantation owners on the top and a massive number of unlanded poor whites at the bottom alongside the slaves. Fearing a disruption to this order by an organized political movement among the poor or, even worse, an alliance between poor whites and slaves in a bi-racial uprising, the slavers took steps to try to perpetuate this divide and ensure their rule over the region.

Public education was banned to try to keep the poor from being able to consume abolitionist literature, possession of which also being made illegal with a de facto death sentence (you'd get lynched if you got caught with any). Poll taxes and literacy tests were created to deprive this uneducated underclass of the ability to vote. Poverty was criminalized by banning behaviors exclusive to the poor, through things like vagrancy laws. When a poor person did get work, usually when there weren't enough slaves available, they often received payment-in-kind, since paying them that way instead of with cash allowed the employer to control what they got in exchange for their work, and thus help control their behavior, or through promissory notes, which put the worker at the mercy of their employer's ability and/or willingness to uphold their end of the arrangement later on.

Sometimes, poor workers could get their hands on some land by becoming a sharecropper or tenant farmer for a plantation owner, being allowed to live there in exchange for giving a percentage of their crops to the owner. However, they were often loaned the land with the poorest soil quality, since then poor harvests would trap them in a perpetual cycle of debt to their landlord. On top of this, they were often legally barred from actually selling the crops they did manage to grow, since many states implemented licensing laws for peddling where the yearly license fees often cost several times more than what a poor person could reasonably expect to make in that time.

To bring this all full circle, poor women would sometimes be forced to prostitute themselves in order to make ends meet, since their bodies were the only things they had to sell. When they did this, however, the state was able to label them as poor caretakers, giving them legal justification to take away their children and bind them to apprenticeships. The apprenticeships were slavery in all but name, since the kids were paid nothing and were not allowed to leave regardless of how poorly they were treated. The main difference is that these apprenticeships only lasted until the kid was age 21, so if they were lucky, the kid would be taken from their parents, forced to work for free for often over a decade, then unceremoniously dumped out onto the street with some trade skills that are not in demand because there are still plenty of slaves and bound apprentices to do the work.

[Broomstick]

I get that you live in the US, but try to look outside of your UScentric worldview and realize that there are places where sex work is not as risky as it is where you live.

Oh, I get that some of the rest of the world is less prudish than where I live - what you seem oblivious to is that there are some places that make the US look like a sexual free-for-all. You, too, have your biases.

You could also partake in forms of sex work that don't involve penile-vaginal intercourse and as such are absent that risk. Get into the BDSM scene, gay sex work, camming/pornography, stripping etc. I know the article is specifically about prostitution but if you want to sell your body in a sexual fashion you have options.

What about the people who don't want to "sell your body in a sexual fashion"? No one should have to sell their bodies to make ends meet. It's a very sad commentary on the UK's educational system if more than a small fraction of their students become sex workers, or if students are forced to do that sort of work due to financial pressures.

My view will win in the end when looking at global trends and how things are going vis-a-vis sex work outside of the US.

You mean... like Middle Eastern nations and some of the African ones executing women who have sex outside of marriage, even if that sex was rape? Most of Asia bans prostitution as well, although there are a few exceptions.

The Anglo and Latin spheres tolerate prostitution (aside from the US) but the rest of the world doesn't. So take your own blinders off. If a woman wants to be, say, a doctor in the UK or Australia or Canada sure, finance her education with sex work. If a woman wants a career in international politics? She better not. Even where sex work is tolerated - the UK for instance - there are still plenty of people who are going to see such a woman as permanently tainted and hold it against her.

You HOPE your view will win, but there's no guarantee of that. Up until 1910 or so prostitution was was legal in the US and there were plenty of brothels... now that only happens in Nevada. Societies change, and not always the direction we want them to.

You accuse me of having blinders, totally ignoring my own, clearly state stance on sex work. I'm actually on your side on this, but I have a more realistic grasp that there are consequences to such work, especially for women.

[Jub]

Oh, I get that some of the rest of the world is less prudish than where I live - what you seem oblivious to is that there are some places that make the US look like a sexual free-for-all. You, too, have your biases.

I get that, but the other prides have far less reach that American prudes and aren't right next door to me.

What about the people who don't want to "sell your body in a sexual fashion"? No one should have to sell their bodies to make ends meet. It's a very sad commentary on the UK's educational system if more than a small fraction of their students become sex workers, or if students are forced to do that sort of work due to financial pressures.

Then we're right back to the idea that we're all forced to do things we don't like for money. They could leave off school for a bit to save more, take fewer courses, work in another field, or sell their body sexually. Nobody forces them into any of those options.

You mean... like Middle Eastern nations and some of the African ones executing women who have sex outside of marriage, even if that sex was rape? Most of Asia bans prostitution as well, although there are a few exceptions.

Even there attitudes will slowly change. Africa is taking steps towards getting rid of FGM and allowing girls to go to school. It isn't much but sexual liberation starts with small steps. Even the Saudis are slowly and fitfully allowing women some freedoms

The Anglo and Latin spheres tolerate prostitution (aside from the US) but the rest of the world doesn't. So take your own blinders off. If a woman wants to be, say, a doctor in the UK or Australia or Canada sure, finance her education with sex work. If a woman wants a career in international politics? She better not. Even where sex work is tolerated - the UK for instance - there are still plenty of people who are going to see such a woman as permanently tainted and hold it against her.

Outside of human trafficking and other criminal actors nobody forces women or men into sex work. They can weigh the pros and cons for themselves and decide if 'easy' money is worth the stigma. Any discussion aside from that is one of economics which I haven't really commented on.

You HOPE your view will win, but there's no guarantee of that. Up until 1910 or so prostitution was was legal in the US and there were plenty of brothels... now that only happens in Nevada. Societies change, and not always the direction we want them to.

Yet equality has marched on in other ways. As women's sexualit becomes more normalized, and we can't argue this isn't happening, sex work will naturally carry less stigma. With reduced stigma comes acceptance which leads to decriminalization or legalization. Look what's happened with weed and what will happen with other drugs in the near future.

You accuse me of having blinders, totally ignoring my own, clearly state stance on sex work. I'm actually on your side on this, but I have a more realistic grasp that there are consequences to such work, especially for women.

You make it seem like these women have no choice, no tools to aid their safety, and as if these choices are somehow unique to sex work. None of this is true. There are some unique challenges and rewards to sex work and it isn't for everyone but even if it isn't ideal for you it can be a quick income source if you are desirable enough to pull it off. It's up to you to decide if it's too unsuitable just like another other profession may or may not suit your needs and/or have life log consequences.

[K. A. Pital]

I do not see a difference between child miners in the coal mines of Empire, who died of black lung, and women or men forced by need into dangerous sex work or other self-degrading forms of body and mind exploitation.

For once Jub is right about sexual work being similar to other dangerous and deadly kinds of work.

What is also true is that some types of work are mentally straining, like war: the legalized murder of designated enemies. Selling your own body can be mentally dangerous.

Selling your organs could also be a source of income. In a morally indifferent capitalistic atomized „model“ world this would be perfectly acceptable, just a matter of choices, which cannot be wrong.

It is not the prudes alone who are dangerous. Those that push an agenda of total moral indifference are dangerous too, in other ways. Like abusive loan sharks, they can reform markets into demanding more and more self-abuse in order to please „the consumer“.

We have seen it happen with hardcore porn. More and more demands for outlandish acts that border on self-mutilation. In the end, pardon the gruesome description, lay the incurable fallen-out prolapses of those who agreed to the bargain while still young, because hey, that is what the market and clickbaiters want, right, it is industry standards? Totally OK to think destruction of own bodies for the amusement of others is fine.

Wake up, capitalism destroys the dignity of humankind.

[Proletarian]

Selling your organs could also be a source of income. In a morally indifferent capitalistic atomized „model“ world this would be perfectly acceptable, just a matter of choices, which cannot be wrong... Those that push an agenda of total moral indifference are dangerous too, in other ways.

That strikes me as being a rather un-materialist argument, K.A. Pital.

It is true that sexual libertinism, under capitalism, often (even typically) assumes an exploitative form, precisely because it so often assumes the form of sex work in the first place, whether formal (as in the form of open prostitution) or informal ("sugar daddies" etc.). As you say yourself, in this it is little different from any other form of capitalist social relations; it simply is more immediate, more pressing, because of the central role sex plays in human affairs. Under capitalism, human sexuality is simply hooked into the cycle of commodity reproduction, M-C-M.

It is simultaneously true that this capitalist encroachment on the field of sexual relations can be psychologically liberating, particularly in comparison to the moral injunctions placed on female sexuality in 'traditional' societies, but also for men who would have previously tended to be sexually excluded altogether. Many sex workers are perfectly happy to provide their services and take some sense of pride in what they do. One example.

Q has been a sex worker for three years now, and of the profession, she says, "I like being a sex worker because I am good at it, I have good access to my sexuality and it's fun and healthy for me. It gives me a lot of opportunities to be creative and be an artist. I have a flexible job that gives me a lot of money for a little bit of time."

Q says that her audience now is mainly those in the sex worker community, but hopes this will change: "I want the world to be my main audience because I think whores are important and what whores have to say is important."

What is relevant in a materialist critique of sex work under capitalism is not a blanket moral condemnation of its existence as such, but a criticism of this bifurcated nature. In a very real way the capitalist conception of the legalized, regulated brothel or prostitution registry represents an advance over archaic bans on sex work motivated by morality, which close off to many working-class women one avenue of survival and personal advancement within a capitalist society they are consigned to from birth. In yet another way it constitutes the grossest expansion of capitalist social relations into the private sphere yet known, the abstraction of human intimacy into a scheme for wealth generation. In this the elaborate networks of sex work established today are qualitatively different from more ancient forms of prostitution, which in many respects were more genuinely 'atomized' than contemporary sex work, founded as it is on the ubiquity of social media and intensified interpersonal relations facilitated by technology.

The problem with sex work, in other words, is not so much that it is a form of moral depravity, and therefore subject to moral condemnation, but that its genuinely liberatory element is shackled to the social reproduction of capital, which constricts and distorts this aspect into its opposite.

Per The Communist Manifesto:

But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the bourgeoisie in chorus.

The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.

He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.

For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.

That "community of women" will continue to exist for as long as women do. The point, then, is to abolish the ties that bind it to capitalist reproduction - to eliminate that element of necessity which compels so many women into it, or which distort the psychologically rewarding potentiality of sexual liberation into servile monetary dependence on the sex act.

[K. A. Pital]

That strikes me as being a rather un-materialist argument, K.A. Pital. It is true that sexual libertinism, under capitalism, often (even typically) assumes an exploitative form, precisely because it so often assumes the form of sex work in the first place, whether formal (as in the form of open prostitution) or informal ("sugar daddies" etc.). As you say yourself, in this it is little different from any other form of capitalist social relations; it simply is more immediate, more pressing, because of the central role sex plays in human affairs. Under capitalism, human sexuality is simply hooked into the cycle of commodity reproduction, M-C-M.

It was not an argument as such, more an observation on the pervasiveness of commodity fetishism under capitalism and its dire effects on society. And, of course, the commodification of everything. Capitalism seeks to convert everything into a tradeable commodity, which enroaches upon every aspect of human existence. In what way is the observation not materialistic?

It is simultaneously true that this capitalist encroachment on the field of sexual relations can be psychologically liberating, particularly in comparison to the moral injunctions placed on female sexuality in 'traditional' societies

I would be wary of trusting the capitalistic descriptions of social aspects of traditional socities, because ideology inevitably impacts the entire field of anthropology. But that minor caveat aside, yes, capitalism can offer a feeling of psychological liberation. Not just in sexual relations, but also in general. When society is atomized and all collectivist structures from trade unions to extended families are wiped out because of their inherent danger to capitalism or just as collateral damage in the process of total commodification, some people may experience a feeling that they are liberated from their families or communities. Indeed, it might even constitute true liberation.

What is relevant in a materialist critique of sex work under capitalism is not a blanket moral condemnation of its existence as such, but a criticism of this bifurcated nature. In a very real way the capitalist conception of the legalized, regulated brothel or prostitution registry represents an advance over archaic bans on sex work motivated by morality, which close off to many working-class women one avenue of survival and personal advancement within a capitalist society they are consigned to from birth.

I agree that it is not about summarily condemning the existence of prostitution as such. But one needs to be more careful in saying “archaic bans on sex work motivated by morality”. It was the British and the rest of the colonizers in India and other colonies who introduced strict dress codes and deadly homophobia. Capitalism, depending on its current stage of development, territory, and vessels of advancement, can be no less restrictive than any traditional society in terms of regulating the sexual life of the oppressed classes.

In yet another way it constitutes the grossest expansion of capitalist social relations into the private sphere yet known, the abstraction of human intimacy into a scheme for wealth generation.

This is extremely atomized. There is even individual activity over the Internet, bereft of any, however disfigured, social connection other than the process of sale of sex directly to an individual customer. It does not get more atomized than this, I am afraid, if the process of atomization is to be understood in the way capitalism through both commodification and commodity fetishism turns the human, in all aspects of its life, into nothing but a set of tradeable commodities.

I think that there is a misunderstanding here. Also, the bit from the Manifesto is interesting, I will elaborate a bit more later. It touches upon a community that has existed since time immemorial, which brings me back to my note that capitalism has also warped our view of preceding formations.

[Broomstick]

What about the people who don't want to "sell your body in a sexual fashion"? No one should have to sell their bodies to make ends meet. It's a very sad commentary on the UK's educational system if more than a small fraction of their students become sex workers, or if students are forced to do that sort of work due to financial pressures.

Then we're right back to the idea that we're all forced to do things we don't like for money. They could leave off school for a bit to save more, take fewer courses, work in another field, or sell their body sexually. Nobody forces them into any of those options.

Force can take many forms. Presumably, the kids at university are going there so they will have some choice about their future, but in the meanwhile, they are perceived as having limited skills and have fewer choices.

A kid could get a job as a coal miner to pay for his/her education... but I would not recommend that, given the hazards. Around here, a job at a steel mill is good money, but most folks who work there don't want their kids to follow them into the mill because it's hot, hazardous, nasty, dangerous work. Even those who survive their years there face problems like hearing loss and shortened lifespans due to the effects of the steel mill environment on a human body. A kid could get a job doing a lot of dangerous things, but I wouldn't hold that out as a good thing, and would just as strenuously insist that they go to work fully informed of the risks as well as the benefits.

So quit it with the "other forms of work are hazardous". Yes, I know damn well they are - I've worked on a horse farm, I've worked in construction, I've felled trees, I've set up/taken/down/worked on scaffolding, fuck it, I used to build and fly experimental airplanes. And mostly I had a blast. But I would NOT recommend any of that as a first choice for a kid wanting to fund an education because there are other, less risky things a person can do for money. Because I've seen quite a few gruesome accidents and been to more than one funeral caused by those activities.

Likewise... if a person really was making an informed and truly voluntary choice of sex work for money I'd be OK with that, but I question if the average entering university student is actually informed. I also don't want people coerced in any manner into going into that sort of work.

You mean... like Middle Eastern nations and some of the African ones executing women who have sex outside of marriage, even if that sex was rape? Most of Asia bans prostitution as well, although there are a few exceptions.

Even there attitudes will slowly change.

Based on.... what?

Africa is taking steps towards getting rid of FGM and allowing girls to go to school. It isn't much but sexual liberation starts with small steps. Even the Saudis are slowly and fitfully allowing women some freedoms.

So what?

The US has neither FGM and has let women drive cars for over a century, most sex work is still illegal here. Africa and Middle East isn't even as liberal as the US, what makes you think they're going to suddenly come around to your viewpoint?

Outside of human trafficking and other criminal actors nobody forces women or men into sex work.

The fact that people ARE forced into sex work and human trafficking exists is no small matter. More than 20 million people trafficked in the world today. Don't dismiss it.

You make it seem like these women have no choice, no tools to aid their safety, and as if these choices are somehow unique to sex work. None of this is true. There are some unique challenges and rewards to sex work and it isn't for everyone but even if it isn't ideal for you it can be a quick income source if you are desirable enough to pull it off. It's up to you to decide if it's too unsuitable just like another other profession may or may not suit your needs and/or have life log consequences.

I think 18-19-20-21 year old people aren't done maturing yet, often don't really consider long-term consequences, and lack the experience of older people. They are vulnerable to exploitation. They often ignore safety in search of a short-term goal. I am in no way saying they can't make such choices, but I don't think most of them really understand what they're getting into until some customer decides he doesn't want to pay for it, or roughs them up because that's what gets the customer off, or catch a disease, or get pregnant... none of which are the end of the world (usually - fatal STD's and serial-killers that target sex workers are rare, even if they do exist) but none of which are experiences a person would choose to have. Getting hurt on the job sucks.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The reason this is happening is that a few years ago, because the government was so strapped for cash during the financial crisis the cap on tuition fees was raised from £3,000 a year to £9,000. Most people cannot afford a tripling of fees, and this is the result.

[Steel]

The reason this is happening is that a few years ago, because the government was so strapped for cash during the financial crisis the cap on tuition fees was raised from £3,000 a year to £9,000. Most people cannot afford a tripling of fees, and this is the result.

This isn't really the situation though, because you don't have to pay the fees up front. If the fees had been put up to a million pounds a year the following things would be true:

• Exactly as many people would have been able to afford to go to university, because everyone gets student loans.
• The government would have recouped almost exactly the same amount of money on the student loans, as you pay a proportion of your income (independent of the loan amount), and basically nobody is going to pay it off before the debt expires.

They are a defacto graduate tax (with a one time buyout option for the extremely wealthy). For everyone but the wealthy there is just some extra tax, and an account somewhere you don't need to bother looking at with some enormous but entirely irrelevant ficticious number in it that you will never pay off, and then it disappears after a while.

So on this basis, how can tuition fees be forcing people into sex work? The student loans can only eat a percentage of your income, they can't take money from you unless you're earning above a threshold of £25k, and then only 9% on earnings above that. As an example, someone earning £27,000 per year (the UK average salary) pays £15 a month.

[Raw Shark]

Aw fuck, they're spawning...