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...
You have no problem understanding the lack of agency of the worker in their workplace. you just don't want to call it rape because it makes you uncomfortable.
You know, I used to work for this big company that exploited me like a slave (making excel spreadsheets for 10 hours straight under fluorescent lights in a cubicle thatβs smaller than my bathroom, as a matter of fact). I called that job "rape" everyday for three years and when I quit I had no problem telling that straight to my employer's face. I'm doing the exact same job self-employed now, do I still call it "rape"? Of course not, because now I'm in control of how I do it and there's no more exploitation.. And I think it should be the same for sex workers, but as long as there's no legalization and regulation it cannot happen.
You can call your job whatever you want. But unlike prostitution it's not literal rape. What makes your job exploitative is not the working conditions or the size of the company, it's the necessity to sell your labor to get your means of subsistence. You had no choice but to keep working because you would starve and freeze to death if you didn't. That's why I quoted the literal definition of rape. Prostitution is literally rape.
So nothing we do, as a species, is consensual?
There are alot of things we do as species that is consensual capitalism isn't one of them.