Comparing sex work to other forms of work is a false equivalency. Yes, there are professions where someone is at risk of violence or disease, however I cannot think of any profession where a person signs up erode their sexual autonomy or place themselves at risk of rape and sexual assault. And yes, I think that a lack of sexual autonomy, rape, or sexual assault are sufficient criterion to make a form of labour an unacceptable form of labour, beyond potential exposure to disease and violence. This is because we use an autonomy based ethic as the basis of crimes of sexual assault and rape whereas we use a harm based ethic to define assault. If lack of sexual autonomy defines sexual violence, then it is important to ensure that a person is giving consent to sexual activity in an autonomous way — free from coercion and with knowledge of the act that they are consenting to. Consenting to sex on the basis that it is paid for (economic coercion) is in and of itself an erosion of autonomy.

Another interesting question would be to ask, in a sex work environment, how would an employer (or an independent contractor) provide safe working conditions? What sort of conditions would be necessary to keep women safe from sexual assault, rape, and sexual coercion? Are these conditions in place for sex workers, and are they often breached? Is it simply illusory that women in sex work and their employers can safe-guard against these sorts of crimes / risks to personal safety? I think the statistically high of rape, sexual assault, sexual violence amongst the vast majority of sex workers speak for themselves, even in countries where sex work is legal and regulated.

I think the tricky thing with sex work is that most people want to give the workers rights but somehow without sanctioning the actions of those who buy and trade in sexual access to (overwhelmingly women's) bodies. While it's undesirable to make the workers even more vulnerable, the highly exploitative nature of sex work and the propensity of those engaging sex workers to be sexually violent towards them makes sex as work something we wouldn't want to condone. And it is for these reasons that I think it is poor policy to simply treat sex work as any other form of work.

If you're a cashier selling produced produced with sweatshop labor or slave labor, is there really any dignity in that when you are complicit and profiting off of human exploitation?

I think that profiting off human exploitation is akin to profiting off slavery and I think that the corporations and the people who buy their products when they have other choices are not much better than slave owners (depending on the extent of the exploitation). I wouldn't put the cashier in the same position, as they have no control over whether the exploitation occurs or not, and there is no impact upon them working a cashier job and someone being exploited in a sweatshop.