Make it legal and we can regulate it! There will be no more abuses!

[Lemur]

Related: The Economics of Slut-Shaming

Sex is a female resource. While both genders certainly enjoy and depend on the act, natural constraints on female sexuality create scarcity—and value. The high costs of female fertility—in terms of time, mental and physical health, and opportunities forgone—impel women to act as suppliers in the sexual market. Male sexuality, on the other hand, is ubiquitous and cheap. What’s more, men tend to place a higher value on sexual gratification than do women. Men, therefore, comprise the demand for sex.

To consume their desired quantity of sex, men must offer women something of equal subjective value in return. The aggregate supply of willing women and aggregate demand for a roll in the hay in a given market will converge to an equilibrium “price” for sexual access. The price need not be literal, as is the case with prostitution. [...]

As such, there is a strong incentive for women to restrict competition, price-cutting, and client-stealing in the sexual mating market.

Slut-shaming, prohibitions against paid sex work, censorship of pornographic images, and gender segregation are all tools that restrict supply in the sexual market. Anxieties and incentives cause women facing sexual competition to psychologically exhibit similar, although uncoordinated, cartelistic behaviors. Thrill-seekers and erotic entrepreneurs that buck the sexual syndicate find themselves at the mercy of moral indignation and exclusion. A review of the literature on sexual suppression suggests that the evidence is more consistent with the female cartel theory than the patriarchy theory: Periods of sexual restraint coincide with sellers’ markets. Although men historically enforced sexual norms, female self-interest shapes them.