News from France this week is a noticeable increase in advertisements offering home repair or other similar services in return for “hugs.” What this really means, of course, is trading or bartering work for sex.
The idea is that because of the global recession people have less discretionary income to care for necessary home or related upgrades. So enterprising skilled workers are offering home fixes for “tender moments,” “saucy evenings,” etc. Why wouldn’t women jump at this great deal? Apparently some do.
Pundits are debating whether this new online trend is a form of prostitution or just an old practice made more widely available and openly evident over the Internet. Others consider it simply another form of entrepreneurship, tapping into ones “sexual capital” in order to “purchase” what one needs.
Of course the basic idea of people trading or leveraging sex in return for something, or vice versa, is as old as humanity. It’s not new. Online ads are just a new application of an old transaction, whether fully willing or not on the part of both parties involved.
Morally and socially, though, there’s much to critique. Nothing in religious let alone Christian teaching would suggest sex bartering is acceptable or wise. Socially, the practice indicates once again the degree to which particularly Western culture has turned sex into a commodity. The human body and its sexual capacity are merely things to be used for personal gain. Relationships aren’t relationships at all, just encounters. And another worry: whether moral turpitude or social shallowness or both these transactions open the door to more STDs.
Morally speaking from a Christian perspective, whether monetized or bartered, sex for hire or compensation cannot be justified. It makes no difference how sex is traded or sold, if it’s outside the bounds of monogamous marriage, it violates God’s moral will.
One is tempted to say something like, “Well, it’s the French. Enough said." But this isn’t fair to the French or accurate regarding the rest of the world. Sexual commodification is now a global problem. Witness huge worldwide increases, including in the United States, of sex trafficking. Bartering sex for services is just another way for contemporary culture to commit sexual suicide.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2010
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