It’s amazing to me that supposedly rational adults go around making stupid proclamations like “the commodification of sex is sad”. For right now, let’s ignore the utterly asinine notion that some small fraction of people feeling “sad” about something is an argument for its criminalization; I’ve already covered that pretty thoroughly elsewhere. And just for today, let’s ignore the incredible stupidity of the concept that “fair exchange is sad”, which appears to imply that coerced, uneven and unfair exchanges are wonderful; let’s also forget about the fact that such moronic opinions are used as an excuse to send armed thugs to deceive, shame, brutalize, rape, rob, cage and destroy the lives of peaceful adults for the “crime” of consensual sex. Let’s limit ourselves to examining that childish and ignorant opinion in isolation from its inevitable consequences in a society where the powerful believe they have the right to use violence to inflict their opinions, no matter how utterly imbecilic, on others, and where those with severe malacia of the cranium and vertebrae fervently support their rulers in that belief. Stripping away those other factors, what we’re left with is this: Sex IS an exchange, whether you like it or not; it always has been & always will be. In some unusual & lovely circumstances the exchange is so intimately mutual it seems to cost nothing to either party, but such situations are both rare & very short-lived and people’s needs are neither. Furthermore, I find it very strange (and, frankly, stupid) that people only reserve words like “sad” for sexual exchanges; nobody goes to see a great movie & then says it was “sad” that they had to pay admission, that the actors were professionals & that the movie made money. And nobody enjoys a delicious dinner and then claims it’s “sad” they had to pay the check & tip the waiter. But somehow, sex generates a lot of idiotic Utopian mumbo-jumbo in the minds of otherwise reasonable people (and even more so in the minds of the evil and/or intellectually deficient). So if you think it’s “sad” sex is subject to economics, I have only four words to say to you: Grow the fuck up.
Too Bad, So Sad
April 7, 2017 by Maggie McNeill
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You make a good point, we don’t see the time spent preparing to go on a consensual date as having a value, time is money. In spite of that I personally am uncomfortable with the idea of openly commodified sex, but I’m opposed to forcing others to follow my opinion. Legal standing States that an order for there to be a crime that there must be an injured party they can clearly trace an action to an injury not hypothetical not third party and in that light there is no crime as far as I can see in prostitution.
Assigning an equivalent commercial value to time does not mean commodification of time. Your personal time is limited. But you could, say, make a decision to spend one more hour on preparation for a date by putting it into perspective by comparing it with what you would earn for one hour of work. That does not mean you can exchange them, most people cannot reduce or increase their workload at will. But it gives one more way to get a basis for that decision.
Now, the way I see it, professionally provided sex is basically preparation time plus execution time plus recovery time, same as other work. You do not lose “part of your soul” or some such nonsense (or at least not more than in other work), so there is really no need to treat it different from other work.
In addition, selling sex is a personal service, so it is not like buying or selling a generic box of cereal (say), and hence the possibility for commodification is already limited.
If you go on a consensual date hoping it would lead to sex, and for that purpose you buy impressive clothes, take out your car, book a table in a fancy restaurant, etc., then you’ve practically commodified sex. Most “dates” are, in essence, prostitution. And I don’t think they should be criminalized!
Well, one thing that most decidedly is sad is that even in the west many people do not have access to reasonable shelter, food, education, entertainment, medical care, etc. despite society being actually rich enough to ensure sensible minimal standards of living for everybody. I think this whole nonsense about sex is basically a smokescreen to obscure the fact that this society is still pretty primitive and pretty broken in fundamental aspects and that our “great leaders” are anything but. Same with drugs, terrorism, immigration, etc., all artificially made into huge problems (which they are not) to hide this severe failure.
Sex, of course, has the advantage as a smokescreen that many people have problems talking and thinking about it rationally, due to millennia-long campaigns by different religions to make it a taboo subject. That reduces the number of people who directly see that the statements made are bogus and allows, for example, the utterly demented “sex trafficking” narratives and numbers to be viable as a propaganda tool in the first place.
So… is it “sad” if I pay for a therapeutic massage? Why does it suddenly become “sad” if the masseuse touches one particular spot on my body?
Is it “sad” if I pay a therapist to listen to me? Why does it suddenly become “sad” if we’re naked at the time?
Simple: Calling something “sad” is a somewhat subtle tool in the toolbox of manipulating people into thinking certain things. And the sad thing is that it works on many people.
The people who claim “the commodification of sex is sad” are usually people who are sad because they themselves are unable to commodify their own sexual appeal in any form. Sad = envy.
It’s like the high school nerds who claim sports are “brutality” and a “metaphor for war” because they’re upset they weren’t chosen for any teams.
Where I live, there are several anti-human trafficking groups. The women who run these organizations are 40-year-olds who look 60 and act 80. Something has to be up with them to adopt such outward Church Lady appearances.
Yes, this comes off as unnecessarily cruel, but the truth is often not very pretty. I also question anyone who makes it their life’s work to go around saving people. There’s some weird Messiah Complex thing going on here. It’s great to help people when they need help. It’s not so good to decide for people whether or not they need the help.