I think it would be useful to define this term, 'exploited'.
Unfairly used for another person's advantage.
I take it to be unfair that it is a default (de facto) expectation that actors are expected to show their sexual organs and engage in graphic simulated sex acts as a condition of employment. I take it that this expectation is especially heavy for anyone who is physically attractive and/or who desires leading roles.
What are the criterion for being exploited?
"Criterion" is singular. "Criteria" is plural. We should ask, "What are the criteria?"
One rule of thumb is that if "X" were a de facto condition of for Starbucks, and if we would object to this condition, if there would be lawsuits, if it would be sexual harassment, etc., then it just might be exploitative to expect people to do it as a work condition.
Here's another rule of thumb - if you are humiliated to have Seth Rogan does a musical skit about what you are required to do to get work as an artist ("We saw your boobs!"), you're being exploited.
Is it possible to exploit a person that doesn't mind doing what they are asked to do?
There are people who don't mind working for employers who break federal law, but this does not meant that these people are not being exploited. There are kids who probably liked working coal mines. It was still wrong. With about 8 billion people on the planet, there are some who would not mind having a limb cut off for the gratification of another person.
Also, we have to consider the downstream effects of such voluntarism. There are countless actors and actresses who profited from taking a turn on the casting couch. This was happening for decades. It didn't start with Rose McGowan and Harvey Weinstein. A lot assistants kept their mouths shut too. It created a quiet cultural expectation that if you
really want a role it is not unheard of to be requested of you that you voluntarily trade sex to get your role. Even if actress "A" didn't mind blowing a director, even if Johnnie the twelve-year-old didn't mind working in the coalmine, they were part of a system that put undo pressure on other people to do likewise. Exploitation is not just interpersonal but systemic. So no, "Margaret, doesn't mind doing it, what's you're problem?" does not quite cut it.
I doubt there is a single actor out there who enjoys acting a scene while standing under a rain machine.
This is uncomfortable, but not fundamentally demeaning to their humanity and does not risk their health. If, on the other hand, that rain machine is dangerous, then the actor is possibly being exploited.
Are they beng exploited or, is it dedication to their craft and belief in the project? Are we deeming something exploitation when we project onto others what we, ourselves' would feel exploited doing?
Again, if you wouldn't ask someone to do it for an office party, you probably should not ask someone to do it as a condition of employment.
The message we take from #MeToo is NOT that men should have to show erect penises on screen, but rather that no one should, as an industry norm, be expected to show their sexual organs and engage in graphic simulated sex acts as a condition of employment.
We seem to be teasing-out sexual imagery out of a whole mess of even more morally questionable imagery. Is it exploitation when an actor is asked to act out a murder on another actor?
It is not whether that which is depicted is morally questionable, but to what extent one actually has to perform the act in order to depict it. You don't actual have to die to be murdered on screen. However, actors are directed to actually show parts, to actually rub parts together in graphic simulation.