• wador@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    Some people jokingly say that prostitution is the oldest profession. I don’t know about that, but transactional sex must be as old as humanity.

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      There have even been observations of transactional sex in the animal kingdom. Primarily among primates and birds.

      So it may actually predate humanity.

    • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
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      1 day ago

      i was reading a history of aboriginal tribes in Australia and they said the tribes regularly met for socailsing, to sort out petty grievances and to trade including the women, who used the opportunity to “trade” genetic diversity. The book seem’d to suggest this was both necessary (as in part of the trade) and at the women’s discretion of cock choice.

      Difficult to say if this occured for the 60,000 years or so the’d been in Australia but can’t see why not ?

      sont know if that’s really prostitution, all seems blurred to me.

      pity we’re no longer as sophisticated :(

        • GreenBeard@lemmy.ca
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          3 days ago

          I mean, it sort of is, in that only half the population can do it. What he’s referring to though is an experiment where they tried teaching chimps the concept of “money” by giving them tokens they could exchange for food.

          The very first thing that they started doing was exchanging food tokens for… mating activities.

          • guy@piefed.social
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            3 days ago

            only half the population can do it at the same time yes. But everyone can be a prostitute otherwise

            • GreenBeard@lemmy.ca
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              3 days ago

              I guess technically it’s slightly more than half, but the real limiting factor in the market is that regardless of species, most female primates won’t buy sexual favours. That’s not to say there isn’t a market for male “prostitutes”, just that their target demographic is a bit… niche, as is the demographic of those who would be willing to offer those services.

          • cattywampas@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Well anybody could do it.

            But there’s lots of things I could sell from time to time, including labor or sex. Would it make it my profession if I did so once in a while? Or would I need to do it full time?

            • wador@lemmy.zip
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              3 days ago

              You could be a blow queen… Then you get money and food at the same time.