Consenting adults should be free to do as they please
For instance, we disallow the selling of organs. I'm all for bodily autonomy, but this seems reasonable.
At the very extreme case, one might say "I give you permission to murder me, if you provide for my family".
While I agree that self-direction and autonomy are essential rights (pretty strongly, in fact), everyone puts limits on them. For some people, the dynamics of prostitution might be that limit. It's not the case for me, but reasonable people might draw the line there.
I think this is the nub of it. When you strip away the BS, views on the legality of prostitution boil down to whether (safe) sex between strangers is (a) a harmful thing, or (b) a fun thing like a massage.
Discussions centered on trafficking or abusive buyers are a red herring. These are relatively rare scenarios. We don't close down eBay or Craigslist because of the occasional bad actor; we police the bad actors.
> These are relatively rare scenarios.
I wonder if this is true...
Yes, but I'd choose another word than "foundation."
> I don't see much difference with a tech worker being coerced to spent 8+ hours a day building repulsive advertising and surveillance technologies to put a roof over their head. People sell their soul, mind and body in different ways.
Absolutely not. Your logic is vulgar. Transactional sex is a vice, so categorically different from software development. Furthermore, prostitution is a vice that undermines intimate sexual relations, both reproductive and otherwise. Family and intimacy mark a frontier of still-sacred relations that capital has thus far preserved in it's own interest. The nuclear family was wrought from villages as the smallest viable mobile labor reproduction unit. Society’s productive capacity straightforwardly depends on these sacred institutions. Software development threatens nothing of the sort. I can only imagine you are drinking libertarian kool aid, also a vice.
Really? When was the last time your boss's customers put their dicks inside of you and filled your body with semen? Your cushy tech job is a world away from prostitution.
I'm just saying that this statement is categorically false, in that, there are people who engage in sex work at their pleasure. You're dismissal of their existence, in fact, proves your ignorance.