Digit
I thought it would be interesting to discuss this issue specifically after a couple of posts about a hypothetical cellular stimulator that allows one to gain serious short-term advantages at the cost of premature wear and tear on the body. Professional prostitution in a free market is exactly the same trade-off. Intensive exploitation of one’s body while it is young and beautiful, and after that, it is a personal matter how to dispose of the fruits of this exploitation: one can squander it, invest it successfully, or invest it unsuccessfully.
The fewer the barriers to entry into the market, the higher the competition, the lower the prices, and the lower the chances of exchanging youth and beauty for a sufficiently serious income that such an exchange would make sense at all. Therefore, of course, prostitution as a mass profession under ancap is unlikely. It is far more likely that it will be used as a side job while searching for more suitable permanent employment, including during the period of study. Roughly for the same reasons people go work as couriers, taxi drivers, or waiters.
Naturally, as is the case now, various activists will speak in defense of these low-paid unskilled service workers, with varying degrees of clumsiness. But, since under ancap they will not have options like “achieving a ban on the activities of aggregator platforms” or “achieving the criminalization of the purchase of services,” this activism will be reduced either to demands for the reduction of platform commissions or to campaigns such as “I always pay service workers good tips, do as I do.”
As is well known, the activity of taxi aggregators currently faces active opposition from professional licensed taxi drivers. Under ancap, this activity is not licensed, and professional licensed taxi drivers simply disappear, so competition for freelance taxi drivers using various aggregators is provided only by those who prefer to be behind the wheel themselves, including those who give friends rides for free. The same applies to prostitution—permanent marriage unions and ordinary friendly flings will not go anywhere; both have their costs, but direct payment is usually not discussed here. However, somewhere at the junction between full-fledged prostitution and completely free sex, work for donations may well be located: a person may be shy about stating a fixed price but clearly makes it known that they would be glad for a voluntary reward.
This is exactly how I create my texts. They will appear for free because I enjoy the creative process, but I will give preference to a question with a donation, even if it is not as interesting as a free one—because I need money, and because the fact of payment creates a moral obligation. Moreover, this provides a simple ranking of those for whom my answer is more important and those for whom it is less so. Roughly the same mechanism will operate within ancap and with donations for sex: if one party basically enjoys the process but does not want to make a hobby a profession, and the other represents an undefined circle of people, then instead of a long and careful search for an exclusive partner, such a donation scheme is quite likely.
As a reminder, it is better to ask questions here, and the ways to donate are listed here.
