My generation fought like hell to not be treated as objects. It should bring back some painful memories or at least help explain why I feel the way I do. From what I can tell, the generation coming up is seeking liberation through objectifying themselves and others. Pornography is totally about objectification. No one really wonders if the naked person laid out on the page or on the screen is kind, intelligent, funny or has any feelings.
Pornography is a tool to jump-start and or aid the expression of sexual desire.
Somehow the dehumanizing effect that such a perspective has on both the person who learns to dissect other human beings and on humanity in general has gotten lost. Further, rather than viewing sex work as exploitative for the worker, such jobs are seen as empowering. I get it that at the individual level, sex work may feel empowering because such jobs tend to pay better than your average fast food, secretarial or social service job, and money is power. During my years of answering the local rape crisis line, I talked to a number of sex workers who had been violated either before they became sex workers or who were violated or assaulted on the job. For them, going to work was often traumatizing, but many felt that they simply could not afford to quit because there was nothing else they felt they could do that would pay as well.