Humans have been trading sex for food and shelter for thousands of years. It might be slightly more explicit now, but I don't see that any fundamental change has occurred.
I think the real issue is, as I have said twice elsewhere here, that housing prices are insane and this is fueling a general rise in homelessness. Things like that always impact the most vulnerable the worst.
I am for the decriminalization of sex work. If I were not medically handicapped and if I thought I could make it work, I would seriously consider moving to Nevada and taking up sex work to pay off my debts and come up with a down payment for a house. I don't think that would work for me personally and I do understand why there is a great hue and cry about putting people in positions where they are de facto forced into sex work.
I get why this is click bait, but it is hard to have a reasoned discussion about such subjects, for a lot of reasons.
(Mind you, this is certainly not the only double standard; it seems absurd that sex work is condemned as women "selling their bodies" while working in coal mines is simply accepted as something men do.)
I am comfortable discussing that reality. But I tend to tread lightly because it tends to be a shit show to try to address that fact.
YMMV
I spent about 3.5 years of my life in therapy with two different ministers discussing the sexual abuse I had endured as a child. I have an incredibly thick skin when it comes to analyzing such things. Most other people find me pretty horrifying and I have largely given up on trying to have meaningful discussions about certain things in public because they tend to inspire lynch mobs.
I think a marriage based on practical arrangements is often a better marriage than one based on some weird idea that we are madly in love. But, hey, I am some heretic, as already established. :-)