Ohhh look , another thread about SEX... and working.

[Regret My New Name]

hah, I was reading some threads about sex workers and stuff. Not sure what brought it all up, but it got me thinking about something. I was going to ask in those threads, but I figured I would create my own thread instead of trying to take over someone else's. :P

Ok. Is it wrong/sexist/bad/narrow-minded/whatever to not like the idea of your partner working in the sex industry. Let's say she/he was not doing it before or kept it a secret. So it's not like it was something you were well aware of it at first. I ask because I don't think I would be able to handle such a thing. Does that make me ignorant/prude/controlling/wrong/backward/whatever? I don't really think it does, but I'm curious how others view it.

[eyesroll]

1. I don't think it's wrong. You feel how you feel.

I'd be pretty damn uncomfortable to have a partner who worked in the military, as a firefighter, or as a parachuting instructor, even though I have no moral opposition to those things. Why? They're dangerous, and I worry.

If my partner had been working as a sex worker or a soldier or a plumber or accountant and kept it a secret, I'd see the secret as a bigtime betrayal. (We've been together for four years, and *what you do for a living* is just too big a secret to keep for that long.) If he decided to join a line of work with which I disagreed, I'd hope we could come to a reasonable resolution. If we couldn't, we'd part ways.

[Eryemil]

2. For once I have nothing to be pissed about. You're spot on Eyesroll!

[Regret My New Name]

5. Well, I was thinking the same thing about firefighter/police/military etc...

The thing is that while I can understand not liking the idea of a partner working a dangerous job, I don't know if I would feel as adverse to it.. Where as I might thinking "that's the job they want and enjoy doing, I should accept it". I find it harder to feel the same about a job in the sex industry. It just seems like I'm being hypocritical or something.

[Eryemil]

6. Are you asking if the belief that it is somehow inherently 'worse' than any other occupation...

...is part of the usual social engineering package then the answer is yes.

Logically there's nothing intrinsically objectionable about it.
But as I said in the actual Sex Workers thread we humans hold a lot of irrational beliefs. You're certainly not expected (and who could expect such a thing to begin with?) to remain with someone you do not feel is a good match for you.

Still, it'd be a pity if a good relationship would end over such a trivial matter. I think that alone might warrant trying to get over these feelings.
But that is up to you, and you alone, to decide.

[Regret My New Name]

8. Ayes.

I guess that is pretty much what I wound up getting to when debating it with myself inside my head.

[eyesroll]

9. I don't think you're being hypocritical.

Everyone has deal-breakers...for some, their spouse even looking at Internet porn is cheating. Others have open relationships, poly-fidelity, and so forth.

Sex is something that is inherently intimate, and I don't think it's hypocritical for someone to not want to bring strangers into that intimacy (whether for money or as part of an open relationship or any other reason) even as they want their partners to be happy.

If my partner joined the military (which he's medically ineligible to do, so I'm perhaps coming at this from too much detachment), it wouldn't just be "this is what he wants to do." It would also mean when he was deployed, my own mental health would deteriorate (I'm prone to anxiety, I'd be left a de facto single parent if we had kids, I wouldn't be able to see my stepdaughter(because her mom probably wouldn't send her over to visit just me and I'd have no legal right to complain), and there would be that constant on-eggshells feeling: Is that doorbell the UPS guy or somber men in dress uniforms? How long before the next deployment? It would impact the very way I live. Yes, it's a selfish way of looking at things, but if I selflessly said "sure, honey! I support you 100%!" we'd be in big trouble a year or two down the road and I know this because I know how I operate.

With sex work, it's much the same thing, depending on the work. I'd probably not have a problem with a partner who wrote/directed/designed porn, or ran Web sites, but I'd have trouble with him acting in it. Too much room for diseases, for getting someone else pregnant, for getting recognized.

I think there's a difference between being OK with the existance of something and being OK with it in your relationship, and it's not hypocritical to be OK with the former and not the latter.

[Occam Bandage]

3. Certainly it is not wrong.

Everyone has a right to decide what kind of person they want to be in a relationship with.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. I would not be cool with it if my husband decided to be a sex worker, but if other couples

are comfortable with the situation more power to them. It's a personal decision, so what I think or prefer for myself shouldn't be applied to everyone else in the world.

[On the Road]

7. I Dated a Woman for Over Six Months

who was a part-time call girl in the evenings. Worked for the Pelfrey organization, the "DC Madam" that was in the news.

Very sweet woman. I would have had no problems marrying her except that we had asbolutely nothing in common. In that case, though, I would have preferred that she had quit.

[LeftHander]

10. I was in the sex industry....

I got laid off....go figure.