My opinion is that sex work should be legal. It would enable involuntary virgins to get a good sex experience for payment; they will be guaranteed a good sex experience with a sex worker: no harassment, good education, and a fun time.
Sex work gets shamed by ~~people~~ puritans because of payment for sex and it's "sinful"; yet these same ~~persons~~ puritans get and have sex for free out of "passion" or marriage; they also discriminate against minorities in sec.
EDIT: Apparently there is an implied difference between sex work and prostitution. I mean sex work.
EDIT 2: I messed up the writing of my post. My real opinion is located in this comment:
Oof. I didn't realize there was way more exploitation than just sex traffickers. It totally makes sense though; sex trades are a product of capitalist exploitation and the existence of private property. (Naturally under communism, the prevalence of sex trades would be heavily reduced.)
It seems like I couldn't communicate my ideas properly beforehand. I don't want people in the sex trade to be criminalized; I want pimps and johns to be criminalized.
Only a few hours ago: I wanted to support a sex trade industry that didn't involve rapes or rely on economic coercion. I just wanted disabled people, who keep getting discriminated out of sex,^[Sexual Ableism]^[Dating With Disability: How to Rise Above Sexual Ableism]^[Dating with Disability: Choose Your Dreams Over Sexual Ableism] to be able to feel better about their lives; a lack of sex can cause mental health issues in some people (even though this shouldn't happen). (However, having sex probably won't fix the issue, it will just hide the problems until later). Now I feel like shit...
(I'm playing a little devil's advocate here, but I like interacting with people that have a point). I agree that in an idealistic state, no one should be forced to sell their body to pay rent, but let's look at the argument the other way: what about people that their only way to get sex is to pay for it? You probably are a good looking and/or sociable person, and that's why the problem never occurred to you, but there are many people out there for whom is really hard (if not completely impossible) to have sexual experiences, just because of how they look or because they have serious difficulties interacting with other human beings. What about them?
I have considered the social viewpoint a bit, and this is my response:
I am flattered, but I am not that good looking or very sociable (although I find myself tugged into social situations quite frequently, but more of a kidnapped-mostly-introverted-person situation). Although I still generalized such problems as "improve yourself". In a more collective society such interactions would be far more likely, an example of such occurrences would be things like this. setting aside all other aspects of the GDR (as the situations of such are nigh impossible to repeat), it was an example of a collective society, and had far more and better sex than that of hyper-individualist societies. Of course this does not solve the problem of all, it gives some assurance (I guess?).
But I don't think prostitution would have to be an answer to such problems. Sex robots are far more ethical and accessible than prostitution (of course it would have to be some years from now most likely). Under Capitalism I guess they could use the service, but as any other, it would be unethical consumption.
Thats all I got for now.
As a technologist I feel obligated to point out that this is far more accessible than most people realize. When people think of sex robots they imagine blowup dolls and the evolution of that. There's certainly sex androids and progress is being made in that avenue, however it is still probably like fucking a dead body for most people. The uncanny valley is too large.
However, if you mix VR with deep fakes and advanced dildonics you could create a very realistic and satisfying experience with current technology. Just sayin'...
You people should really respect sex.
huh?