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...
No one should get control over someone else's body without true consent. Taking money as a bribe does not equal consent. Getting laid should take some effort. Putting money on the table doesn't count as effort.
The thing is that mind and body can't be divided, at least in the long run. Abuse to someone's body is abuse to someone's mind. There is always the risk that people abuse their "right" they "earned" with their dirty money.
It's not the same as rape, but sex without sympathy is mentally unhealthy.
However, paying money to just talk to someone is more acceptable, albeit not necessary in an ideal world.
A roofer destroys his body every day he works in order to get money, or to receive a "bribe" as you put it. Does the fact that he needs money to live make this situation less consensual?
Do you imagine that he loves roofing, and that the fact he's getting paid for it makes him abuse this right that he's "earned?"
I think sex is different than roofing a house
different, yes, but it doesn't make the person doing the work any lesser or greater than a person doing some other kind of work.
a sex worker may not even run the risk of bodily harm depending on their situation, whereas it's almost guaranteed that a roofer will.
I'm mostly making the comparison because saying things like "dirty money" and implying that sex work is more bodily abuse than any other type of hard labour is a bit naive. Each job takes something away from you. Sex work isn't any lesser or greater than other types of work because it involves sex. The real shame is when a person is being forced or endangered to do their job in any situation.
A lot of comments that are against sex workers are based on their own personal feelings about sex and why it makes the person doing that work lesser than others. I'm making the roofer comparison because sex work is a very real thing that some people do.
It's a service that other people pay for, and not exclusively "evil" or bad people. The vilification of the work itself, instead of those who endanger the workers, is ridiculous. That's all I'm saying