Sexual Relationships 
Sexual Health 
You might already be selling your body
I realize that this kind of a title might raise a lot of controversy, but hear me out. We've become accustomed to hearing all kinds of things about prostitution, and, more importantly, prostitutes, especially of the female kind.
Our society has a truly dualistic stance on sex in general - it is both taboo and something freely talked about. At the same time. This is because some things about sex can be said in public using a different tone, and some subjects are far easier to talk about than others.
But then, we get to prostitution. It's obvious why we have problems talking about it - there are not only many different types of prostitution, but there's also social stigma regarding sexual workers in general. They are looked down upon, degraded, sometimes even considered to be less human, people are disgusted by the prospect of "selling your body" so shamelessly, and so on.
What if I told you you might already be selling your body?
Shocking, I know, and you probably know where this is going. But imagine this: A person casually working their nine to five shift in a cold, uncomfortable office. They have a fixed wage and a fixed working time at their workplace, and if they do something they are not supposed to do (mistreat the client, prolong their lunch break, etc), they'll get punished in some way. Their paycheck might be cut a bit, or they might get demoted, or fired.
Getting less money means that you're going to find it less easy to go around making your life happen the way you had imagined it. I mean, granted, you already are not living the way you want if you have a pretty bad office job, true, but at least you somehow manage. But now you have less money and it gets even worse. Maybe you just might not get to surprise your SO with a nice anniversary gift, maybe you won't go to that nice vacation after all, or, worse yet, you might even have to resort to food stamps if you're having it pretty bad.
So this is what it boils down to: You do work, you earn money, and ultimately you have the freedom to live your life the way you want to. The less money you have, the more dependent on others you are, and the less free you are.
Now, I understand what you might be thinking by now. First, what the hell does this have to do with prostitution, and why am I treating readers like imbeciles who don't know what the money is for?
But refer to the question I asked above. You have a contract that binds you to do certain things at a certain time. That's what (some) jobs are. Haven't you sold your time to somebody, for a monetary compensation? You cannot freely decide where your body is going to be at that time, what you are going to do, or who you're going to do it with. You are bound to follow somebody else's rules, somebody who has the upper hand over you (let's say it's a CEO at the top level), and that's your position.
You want to buy food, you want to treat your SO something nice, you want to pay the bills, and so on. You want all those things, but you had to sacrifice something dear to you to get there. You sacrificed your time... and, arguably, your body.
You can be abused at your workplace in certain ways and sometimes you won't be able to do anything about it. You will be looked down by the higher ups, and you won't have many prospects for future. You are bound to serve and do what you are asked to, IF you want the paycheck, but obviously you want it because your ability to support your family hangs on it. It is not like you truly have much freedom, if you're already in a workplace like that.
And then, as usual, we have prostitution. A lot of the time, prostitution is some shady business all around the world. The "workplace" is often associated with human trafficking, drug abuse, gangs and so on, really nasty stuff in general. However, in places where it is legalized, it seems that things can be much much better, and sexual workers have a much better fate.
Except for, you know, they are still looked down upon. Because they are selling their body. How can anybody do that? What makes one do that?
Well, remember the whole deal with the shitty office job I outlined above? A prostitute can be in that exact position, even if the whole deal is legal. She's selling her body to men who want to do kinky stuff to her as much as somebody answering calls to clients they don't care about. The only difference is that the service she's selling is sex.
And let me get one thing straight - people have casual sex all the time all around the globe. Even in places where casual sex is regarded as something normal and healthy, sex workers still get looked down upon because... reasons? If it is legal to perform a service for free, why is it suddenly illegal to do it for money? You do not need a contract to have sex with somebody, but in many places, prostitution is illegal, again, because... reasons.
But even if it is legal, it's just mind blowing how majority of people just happen to be incapable of seeing it simply as a job. It HAS to have some societal implications, even if the same people who condemn such behavior happily go for one night stands and casual sex relationships.
Sure, working at McDonalds or having a shitty office job can paint you as a person with little future, but there's no greater stigma than that of being a sex worker.
I personally know (legal) sex workers who earn good money doing what they are doing. They know they have a time limit on their job. But guess what, they are actually pretty well off. Because in places where prostitution is legal, it is also likely to be well paying if you're doing well. Compared to a shitty office job, this means that this job is actually superior in some ways. You earn some good money, for the same number of hours you'd otherwise spend in a shitty office job.
And then somebody is going to tell those girls that they don't respect themselves enough or that they are selling their bodies.
In my opinion, if you are stuck with a shitty, boring and repetitive job that underpays you, you are very well selling both your tine and body to somebody who has the upper hand, and if you're well off as a sex worker (good company, condom policies and general safety, well paid), you are selling your tine and body less because you're getting more for what you do and how long you have to do it.
Now, you can say, I am comparing a really bad office job to a legal prostitute job that is well paid and treats the employees well, how is that fair? Well, you're completely right, it absolutely isn't. Just like it isn't fair to disrespect sex workers based on what they do.
Somehow, it is both okay to respect a CEO that abuses his workforce, and the workforce he is abusing (we still respect them in different ways as a society, but let's not go there...), BUT say that you respect prostitutes for what they do, and suddenly shit starts flying.
I could have expanded this to entertain some religious thoughts and general hypocrisy regarding what people respect vs what they do, but I do not think it's necessary. I've made my point and it is that we're somehow taught to unquestionably disrespect sexual workers based on their job description, completely ignoring all the other factors, meanwhile also respecting somebody who might as well be using other people (a "successful" CEO who only keeps gains for himself but the company does not crumble because his workers are basically enslaved).
But in the end, either everybody who works for an employer is selling their body, or nobody is, in my opinion, because sex itself is just not specific enough to warrant its own category of morals as far as jobs go. We don't have any other, more meaningful categories thought of in our society, and sex should really not be any sort of an exception, despite what we're traditionally lead to believe.
This myTake is dangerously convoluted because it followed my train of thought, and is not necessarily formatted to be a good article in and of itself, so if the order of things I've said makes little sense, it's because I am wired to think in that direction, and is not a decision made upon the idea of how a reader might enjoy this text more. I also haven't used any specific headings past the title, nor do I intend to add pictures, this article is mainly food for thought, to be consumed in a linear way because I'm expanding ideas in such fashion.
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