How can the industry be unregulated if it's legal? I doubt it has the clout to get itself exempted from whatever the normal employment regulations in that country are.
To be clear, that was mostly a rhetorical question and I think the author's implied assumption that every industry deserves bespoke regulation by default is asinine. A small industry that's not causing big problems doesn't need legislative attention.
Unegulated: no one tells how it should be done. "To regulate something" means that the gorv prescribes how some aspect of the activity must be done.
If we have infinite possibilities, the norm is to be legal and unregulated.
> the norm is to be legal and unregulated
doesn't hold for anything that touches employment; as soon as there is deemed by the courts to be an employer--employee relation, all the existing statutes and case law are applicable, so without carve-outs for this specific type of employment it is automatically regulated.
Assuming the above, if the employment is _treated_ as though it is not subject to regulations, despite this not being the case, then presumably the law is being broken somewhere.
A sibling comment makes the point that if the legal system is underdeveloped, then the it may not be able to capture all the instances of employment that would otherwise fall under regulation.
For sex work, some regulation would be a good thing. At they very least requiring condoms when the couple isn’t married (and are untested for STIs) would be a start.