Thinking about this because of a greentext I saw earlier complaining about OF models.
It feels like a lot of the stigma surrounding sex work in the modern day (that doesn’t just boil down to misogyny/gender norms/religion) is based on the fact that selling intimate aspects of one’s self places a set value on something that many see as sacred; something that shouldn’t have monetary value.
Not to say anything about the economic validity of a society without currency, but I think that, hypothetically, if that were to exist, sex work would be less stigmatized since this would no longer be a factor. Those engaged in sex work would be more likely to be seen as doing it because it’s something they are good at/enjoy, and less because it’s an “easy” way to make money, as some think. It would also eliminate the fear of placing set value on social, non sex-work related intimacy (not that those fears were well-founded to begin with).
places a set value on something that many see as sacred; something that shouldn’t have monetary value.
I’d say it’s the other way around - because it’s labor that is (mostly) being performed by women (or stigmatized as something “only women do”) it’s considered to be of no value whatsoever. How many women do you know that performs work such as housekeeping, child-rearing and/or marital sex essentially at own cost because this type of labor carries no monetary exchange value in our society?
I’d say sex work falls into that category - but it gets stigmatized because sex work can actually allow women to escape such labor and not be locked into literally playing housewife to the capitalist mode of production (ie, wiping a company man’s arrse so that he can concentrate on making capitalists richer).
