It should be decriminalized, not regulated. I would have liked to have been able to go to the police about the client who assaulted me, but unfortunately this didn't cross my mind as an option.
And to elaborate on the prosecution part, in the wake of #MeToo, a lot of people came out with their stories, but not many of them pursued a legal route. I got the feeling that proving many of those allegations would be difficult in a legal system and whatever cases that did go through the legal system had a preponderance of evidence - along with immense social pressure - backing them up (think Bill Cosby/Harvery Weinstein). This is what made me wonder how much of a deterrent decriminalization/regulation would be on sexual assaults. Do we have to use public shaming, like in #MeToo, as a deterrent mechanism?
"Something is either morally wrong or it isn't, it can't be slightly morally wrong" Therein lies the difficulty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIYfiRyPi3o
Yes, let's make men who want to pay for sex watch an hour-long video extolling the virtues of "real" relationships.
The reality is that there are a lot of men who enter into "normal" relationships with women in large part because it gives them easier access to sex. Not all of them are happy. Lots of them overextend themselves financially, and generally do things they wouldn't otherwise do, to keep their girlfriends satisfied.
These are less direct exchanges, but they are exchanges nonetheless.
I'm living in East Asia, which has made me think more about the exchanges that take place in relationships between men and women. Here, it's common to see men with expressionless looks on their faces lugging their girlfriends' handbags, spending 20 minutes helping them take cutesy photos, pushing strollers carrying not children but tiny, professionally-groomed pups, etc.
As a warm-blooded man, you'd have a hard time convincing me that access to sex isn't a big reason these men are putting up with this stuff. Why do men who pay for sex need a diversion mechanism but the men who totally lose themselves in a relationship don't?
What happens if the men who pay directly for sex report shorter relationships and have lifespans 6 months shorter than men who don't, but they tell you they're happier? Or what happens if you discover that men who pay for sex while in relationships report longer relationships?
Philosophically I am wary of the coercive power of money in relationships. The economy is misunderstood enough, I can't imagine the situation is better when it comes to intimacy markets. Can I coin the phrase Psychological economics?
I see parasocial relationships as something like a new virus that the human psyche has no immunity towards. People naturally think in emotional rather than transactional terms.
Also, the relationship between an escort and a client is absolutely not a "parasocial relationship." You're abusing that term. Escorts and their clients have real relationships, even if you have a problem with the fact that they're based on transactional intimacy.
Universal basic income