(Be aware there is some light transphobia in the opening paragraph, last item on the first list)

I don’t even know where to begin making a point with this. Prostitution is not glamorous or liberating, it’s a capitalist institution to oppress women in the age of liberalism.

Very telling that prostitution and sex trafficking was so uncommon it was a footnote (if it at all ever happened) in the archipelago until the Spanish got there, colonised the islands, and started kidnapping women to send them in European brothels. A tradition kept up by American troops during their invasion of Vietnam, as well as Imperial Japan.

I’ve never heard of Dr. Leyson before, but their analysis is interesting and very much rooted in material reality. Talking about the “commercialisation (commodification) of human relations” especially is very Marxist.

With the advent of information technology and global travel, the old part-time prostitutes have moved to the big cities. Prostitution survives because of poverty, the commercialization of human relations, and the sustained carnal demand. Although for different reasons, all social classes made their contributions to the trade in sexual services. The rich are looking for entertainment and diversity of sexual practices that they would never dare to ask from their wives. These respectable matrons are assigned by society only to bear and raise children, manage households (sometimes businesses), and organize social activities. The out-of-town students, immigrant workers, and wayward youths may be looking for their first sexual experiences and to combat the loneliness of being separated from their family for the first time. The poor frequent the brothels to affirm their masculinity by using many women or to relieve their loneliness.