This is more just lamenting with you over a similar story, rather than responding to your question.

This woman I worked with once commented something like, "oh wow being a porn star would be the best job ever! Wouldn't you love it if that was your life, LizLemon?"

I probably would've ignored her, but she asked me! So, I screwed up my face and told her that there is A LOT of abuse going on in the "sex industry." It isn't at all glamorous. Then we went on to talk about the limits of consent, including plain old prostitution.

Looking back, and this is still the position I take now, I think it's a little unfair to try to argue that women can't consent to "sex work." To claim that they are damaged and repeating trauma. It's not that I don't think that's got some serious truth behind, but more because I think it's much much stronger to go after the men (and women like recruiters and "madames") who solicit this material. Stick to the concept behind the Nordic Model. It's the pimps, johns, pornographers who are doing something abusive and wrong. They use their position of power, which is having money (and boy do pornography production companies have money!!!) and influence to COERCE primarily women into performing sex. The performers consented to receiving money.

The very act of propositioning someone to have sex for money is an act of sexual abuse in just about every context, in my opinion. If that person genuinely wanted to have sex with you, then they would freely consent.

People will then try to turn it into an argument that people often agree to do things they don't want to do, and that's not a crime. Why should sex be any diffferent? My thoughts are that the difference is rape.

Similarly from the pseudo anti-capitalist, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Therefore, jacking it to a a video of a woman who is literally being raped is the exact same as buying Nikes which were made by a child in a sweatshop. I mean, I think both are morally abhorrent, but how god damn heartless do you have to be to acknowledge you're watching images of sex slaves being raped and going, "eh other shit comes from slaves too - it's too much work to differentiate." This argument disgusts me and idk how to respond to it without going full ad hominem.

I think people severely under-estimate the way sex effects us. I wish I had a better answer to make people look; look with their special eyes. They'd rather get that precious dopamine though.

Also, some of the other women I've talked to about this, go "yeah I think you might be right" but continue to consume porn or go to strip clubs with their bfs (????? ew). Probably because they know how deeply unappealing it is to much of the male population to be against porn. They wanna be the chill, cool girl. Throwing rape victims under the bus for their personal pleasure. They all gets F's in Ethics from me.

Sorry for the rant. But thanks for reading & would love to hear your thoughts. :)