Then there’s this"
How do you get that, from the terminology “renting out their body”? I rent an apartment, but that doesn’t mean I get to do whatever I want with it: It means that I get to do some specific things with it, as laid out in advance in the agreement between me and the apartment’s owner. Similarly, a customer who is renting a prostitute’s body doesn’t get to do whatever he wants with it, but gets to do some specific things with it, as agreed upon in advance with the body’s owner.
How is this different from renting out your hands to do some typing, or painting, or massage therapy, or pouring coffee for someone else? It’s hiring to perform a service. Just that the hands are opening your fly not your coffee cans.
Its the massive role that sex and reproduction play in our lives - physical, emotional, psychological, and social - that complicates any such interaction.
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The comparison between the cost of sex vs. cost of a date, for example, is a very old very trite meme. Unlike the marriage calculation, it is different in that sex at the end of a date is very much not guaranteed. it’s not a contract - “I’ll take you to dinner if I get laid”.
However - if a woman uses the line “No sex unless you marry me”, or “if you go fishing with your buddies instead of coming with me to my mother’s this weekend, then don’t expect any sex for the next year…” basically, that sort of behaviour is using sex as a bargaining chip for a desired outcome - a quid pro quo. It’s a short step from there to “five bucks for a quickie, same as in town”.
I think it was George Bernard Shaw who was known for the exchange:
*Him: Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?
Her: That’s a lot of money. I probably would.
Him: How about for five pounds?
Her: What do you think I am???!!!
Him: We’ve already established that, we’re just haggling over the price.
*
Absolutely not. It’s a joke that has been attributed to every famous man in existence. First attested in a 1937 column, referencing Lord Beaverbrook but certainly not said by him.
Kind of like…
If someone hires me to do some typing, what they want is the finished typed document. They won’t care if I type it using my hands, or with my feet, or with voice-recognition software, or if I subcontract the job out to another typist. The body is irrelevant for the task.
If someone hires me to have sex with them, though, the body will be supremely relevant.
Actually, I get it from the distinction Keeve was making between sex workers and people who are in control of their bodies.
I own an apartment and I don’t get to do everything I want with it either. That isn’t the critical distinction between owning and renting.
I don’t find “renting their bodies” as offensive as “selling their bodies”, because the former doesn’t have the implication of transfer of ownership that the latter has. But it’s still not really an accurate depiction of what (usually) goes on in a commercial sex exchange.