Q4Women: What is worse selling sex or buying sex?

bjwindow2thesoul · 2025-07-04T16:51:04+00:00

I know you asked for a direct answer, but my answer is it depends

If you're paying a prostitute in a 3rd world country where women may not have many options → Buying is worse
If you're paying a prostitute without researching whether she could be groomed or a victim of sex trafficking → Buying is worse
If you're paying a prostitute because of reasons like youre struggling to get laid, dont want to lead women on or want to avoid drama around feelings and youre certain she has made the choice to sell sex because she wants to, not out of necessity → Selling is worse
If youre selling yourself on onlyfans vs paying for a subscription when youre single → Selling is worse
Onlyfans subscription and especially direct chats etc. when youre in a monogamous relationship if that isnt explicitly agreed upon → Buying is worse (thats cheating imo)
If youre spending loads of money on onlyfans, porn etc and you have children or other people who are economically dependent on you → Buying is worse
Paying for a porn sites that exploits their workers or is considered unethical → Buying is worse
Paying for a porn site or onlyfans because you believe the sex worker should get paid and for there not to be a middleman that economically exploits them → Selling is worse

This is all going from my personal opinion that I dont think sex work is very moral and the porn industry has quite a lot of damaging impacts on expectations of sex and consent. But its not the worst thing you can do, so there are many scenarios where I would consider the part that buys sex to be worse

toasterchild · 2025-07-04T16:31:49+00:00

I refuse to follow the rules. The only people in the sex for sale system I have issue with are the pimps and manipulators who force others to sell sex.

NoDanaOnlyZuuI · 2025-07-04T16:23:00+00:00

Buying. If no one’s buying, there’s nothing to sell. The buyer is the one driving the demand, usually with more power and more choice in the situation. Even when the seller’s fully consenting, the buyer is still the one driving the system.

Physical_Sherbet199 · 2025-07-04T16:17:59+00:00

Easily it’s buying that’s worse. Most sex workers end up doing the job out of desperation. The people who choose to do this job because they are truly passionate about it or simply don’t want to work a 9-5 job are the tiny minority. Almost all of them deal with sexual abuse/ exploitation, violence, stigma, and higher risk for violence, even if they did choose to do this job.

Men who buy sex tend to have warped views of sex and women. They tend to believe consent is something that you can buy. They tend to view themselves as victims of selfish women who don’t give them sex or a relationship. They are the abusers.

My_House_on_Mars · 2025-07-04T15:55:37+00:00

Look at OP making up all these rules we are not going to follow!

Buying, definitely

Temporary-Flight-192 · 2025-07-04T17:29:55+00:00

Buying.

I had a male friend who sold sex to old men from the ages of 14 to 16. Incredibly handsome, funny, smart man with a wicked sense of humor. His mother was schizophrenic and tried to literally murder him a few times, when the cops would show up she would just say he was a troublemaker…which of course he was. 🤷‍♀️ I honestly came close to dating him, but he was seriously one of the most damaged people I have ever met.

I guess it’s simply impossible for me, (and frankly a nightmare) to imagine having sex with someone I really didn’t want to have sex with. I know plenty of sex workers who claim excellent mental health and job satisfaction, I simply can’t wrap my head around doing something that to me would feel like getting paid to be raped.

Tylikcat · 2025-07-04T16:11:15+00:00

I don't have a problem with either.

attendquoi · 2025-07-04T16:02:23+00:00

That's easy: buying. I'd still date a sex worker, but I wouldn't date one of their customers.

Objective_Ad_6265 · 2025-07-04T16:33:02+00:00

Buying is worse. People can be selling out of despair, having no other choice how to earn money to survive. You can't die from lack of sex, it's not a level of despair to justify it. You are willing to pay for a person to have unwanted sex with you. Yes, it's technically consensual but really only technically, it's not real and genuine.

EveningSuggestion283 · 2025-07-05T00:23:12+00:00

Selling- there’s trauma- it’s degrading for some. Reputation is ruined. Hard to get a job if it’s online. It’s illegal in many places..

CANT buy if there’s no selling. So that’s why I say selling.

Routine-Present-3676 · 2025-07-05T03:03:14+00:00

I really don't care as long as the people, both buying and selling, are consenting adults.

throwawaylessons103 · 2025-07-04T16:09:12+00:00

Most women would not date a sex worker or someone who buys sex. That being said, more women would probably date a sex worker over a man who buys sex.

The reason is simple - a sex worker implies you’re attractive enough that people will pay for your sexuality, while a sex buyer implies you’re so unattractive you have to pay for it.

EulenWatcher · 2025-07-04T16:37:35+00:00

Buying.

You have no way to know why this person sells sex. Some were trafficked (I know, I know that they're a minority), some were involved into it as minors, some do it because they're addicts (or they became addicts due to it) etc. It's also just not what you'd want a person you care for do or go through.

ThatBitchA · 2025-07-04T16:50:59+00:00

Buying.

That was easy.

SeveralSadEvenings · 2025-07-04T17:20:24+00:00

Buying.

Men who have the internal rationalization of buying sex are the same sort of men who have the internal rationalization of a rapist.

I said what I said.

Emergency-Sell-6713 · 2025-07-04T16:18:33+00:00

Selling.
.
However, only in today's day and age and with feminism allowing women to actually have dignified jobs, so that sex working isn't their only option. It's all based on the idea that you have a CHOICE. If you have a choice, selling is worse. If you don't, buying is.
.
.

And I really do mean SELLING, by yourself, something YOU decide. Cause some women GET sold and that's not the same thing at all OBVIOUSLY. The women who get sold are INNOCENT VICTIMS.

I don't think there has to be a very long reasoning for this but I know myself and I'll end up making it long anyway. If you have an ounce of dignity you don't sell sex-- sure, you can partake in it casually but SELLING it implies it's not actually something you enjoy doing (also that means you'll do it with anybody who pays, even people you despise) so you're basically taken advantage of.

If you do it for free because the sex is its own reward, you're essentially both buyer and seller, you have your dignity because your own will (in terms of what you'd actually wanna do if money wasn't on the line) is respected. But if you sell it it's cause you don't actually enjoy it so you need compensation in the form of money, so you're treating yourself like crap and taken advantage of. You're selling your BODY damnit, many people are of the belief that their body is them, you're selling YOURSELF.

Buyers just see something that's on the market and they buy lol. It'd be weird to sell something and then say "oh but you're not allowed to buy it".

Fun_Breakfast697 · 2025-07-04T16:17:37+00:00

They're both fine, y'all are prudes.

Business-Stretch2208 · 2025-07-06T05:05:14+00:00

Buying sex. Being a rapist is obviously worse than being a rape victim

Lemon_gecko · 2025-07-04T15:51:20+00:00

Neither?

blacknightbluesky · 2025-07-04T17:16:13+00:00

Buying. Selling is more understandable, because everyone in the world needs money. Buying is inherently exploitative and gross. A woman might need to sell sex to feed her children, a man never needs to coercively buy consent to get his dick wet. A man can go home to his wife and give her STDs, prostitutes are frequently raped and beaten (higher rates of PTSD than veterans btw). Johns inherently view women as objects to purchase, not human beings.

Obviously I don't approve of either, but one is much worse.

CatchPhraze · 2025-07-04T19:31:43+00:00

It's buying.

Selling sex is often born out of necessity or trauma. Buying sex is born out of not caring about how harmful the industry is.

That being said, I think legalizing and building safety nets for these women including a big anti trafficking push would go a long way in helping both sides.

freekin-bats11 · 2025-07-04T18:01:05+00:00

Buying is def worse since someone is purchasing another person, and using money to coerse sexual favors (coersive sex is rape). On principle that is unethical since humans arent objects to be bought and sold, the human body is not a workplace, and sex is not labor. Sex buyers are sexually entitled and take advantage of people's desperation and the surrounding rape culture (which condones sexual entitlement and buying and selling people) to fufill sexual gratification they arent getting organically in relationships or consenual hookups.

Selling sex is prostitution, and your not realy selling the activity, youre selling your body (for sex). Its tragic for most people because theyre doing it out of desperation in destitution, or financial hardship. Its a last resort for a lot of people.

Prostitution is less an ethical dilema to do because its a survival tactic thats legal (in some areas) and mostly harms the person doing it rather than other people involved. But theres still ethical concerns with prostituted people spreading STIs from unprotected sex, substance abuse and addiction, general sanitation issues, and pimping/sex trafficking they could be facilitating (even as a victim).

So yea, buying a person for sex is def worse than a person offering themselves for sale for sex lol. Id say theyre not even comparable bc if how different the power dynamics are.

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-Shes-A-Carnival · 2025-07-04T22:59:34+00:00

dont care about either

Powerful_Monitor3659 · 2025-07-05T07:53:31+00:00

Both make me feel very sick.

ExcitementLow4699 · 2025-07-05T19:39:04+00:00

Neither is bad. I did sex work in the past; I don't feel worse about myself for doing so. I also didn't look down upon my male clients.

However, I think the people buying sex are often resorting to that when they can't get it for free. (Though some of them just do it because it's easier than seducing/dating people.)

RecognitionSoft9973 · 2025-07-06T15:19:36+00:00

Buying sex seems arguably worse, for all you know she could be hiding that she’s trafficked. In first world countries, the probability would be low because it’s usually clear that women are doing it for themselves, if you find them online through a listing and you can interact with them directly.

I read the SexWorkers sub sometimes, and there’s the occasional story about an escort being harassed by an angry wife… why take it out on the sex worker? It’s the man who decided to cheat.

Mentathiel · 2025-07-06T20:59:24+00:00

Buying.

kayceeplusplus · 2025-07-07T14:43:25+00:00

Buying for sure, it’s hurting another person.

YveisGrey · 2025-07-07T22:51:06+00:00

Selling is worse imo but buying a close second

Oh you meant morally?? um idk that’s a tough one probably buying, it appears that cracking down on buying actually reduces trafficking and sex work vs cracking down on selling

Sophiatab · 2025-07-11T19:05:56+00:00

Buying sex hands down is worse. Selling sex may be because of any number of reasons some of them quite altruistic (supporting one's family for example). But buying sex just means someone is willing to be immoral to satisfy their libido.

S0yslut · 2025-07-04T23:34:35+00:00

I would say both but women advertising themselves in children’s spaces are definitely worse.

I used to post on an anime dress up site when I was 15 and there were a lot of pedophiles brought there by porn stars advertising themselves on that website (despite getting banned for that) when the website was for 13+. I was asked for pictures while being underage many times and even got requests for porn. Luckily I never did any of that but I do see how that can groom young women into sex work. Advertising in children’s spaces is very normalized in radical lefty spaces such as twitch probably because “liberals” are pedophiles.

PopeGenghisVI · 2025-07-05T10:29:07+00:00

Selling sex, it has to be worse. There's nothing wrong with buying sex, we just generally don't need to.

Redhotangelxxx · 2025-07-06T10:18:31+00:00

To me, buying is worse. Until I see you being forced to do so, you are not a victim if you are buying while people who sell across the world very often are.

"Do you blame the drug dealer or the addict" - drug addiction is not chemically or biologically the same as a sex addiction, which most people who buy sex in fact do not have. If they did I would have more sympathy, but as that is not the case, buying is far worse.

SwimmingTheme3736 · 2025-07-04T19:45:15+00:00

Buying

How can anyone have sex knowing the other person is only doing it for money I’ll ne er know x

Ok_Shower_2611 · 2025-07-04T21:55:21+00:00

selling is a far worse act than buying. historically, the majority of sex work involved women selling it. its in a mans biological nature to seek sex, driven by the primal urge to spread the genes. women tho, evolution wise are built to be selective. they carry the burden of survival. a woman has a womb, she bears the greater risk. so when she reduces herself to that level, means shes giving up on something very personal and sacred part of her. this is why rape is considered, by law of every country on this planet, one of the worse crimes. cuz your body autonomy is taken away, something very precious of u is snatched away in the most monstrous, inhuman way possible. so when u give away that part of u, willingly, u bear the burden of being worse. men would fuck anything that moves. so u have to be selective.

EilidhLiban · 2025-07-04T20:18:56+00:00

Buying sex is worse of course.

The buyer is usually the one with money and power, the driver of the whole dynamic. The buyer's disordered perverted desires is the cause of the existence of trafficking of children, women, and men. The buyer is the one who can't wait to have sex with a person who doesn't want to have sex. The buyer is the one who actively harms the health of the people he buys sex from.

Very few things are worse than buying sex.

Makuta_Servaela · 2025-07-05T02:47:37+00:00

Buying. Not every buying situation is bad, but there is no situation in which opting out of buying sex means you won't get to eat tonight. There are millions of people who will not eat tonight if they don't sell sex.

ResponsibilityAny217 · 2025-07-05T03:44:10+00:00

Buying is worse,

Buying sex is renting a body which is too close to buying a body which is really close to human trafficking and slavery. Plus all the statistics about ppl who become prostitutes. ( Foster case runways, victims of childhood sex abuse & molestation, pimps )

I don't really have a problem with sex work or buying sex but bc I know the stats of sex workers it just seems very exploitative. Especially when I think of the traditional way prostitution was done.

I don't really have so much of a problem with the OF Sex Worker style of prostitution/selling sex, if this person had legitimately good options in their life and chose this way of life then it's not so exploitative and they probably aren't thinking of it as human trafficking and slavery.

( I have played with the thought of buying sex though I do see the tons of pros but I see way more cons that pros)

GridReXX · 2025-07-05T11:55:40+00:00

I’m assuming because you asked this question you think sex outside of a LTR is “degenerate” or something?

If that’s the case, then buying is worse.

Most people who sell sex don’t necessarily want to be having sex with randoms. Usually these people are lower socioeconomic and closer to poverty than others.

On the other hand buying sex or porn means you’re just horny. That’s it. You wanna fuck. It’s just about your horniness, sexual urges, and base desires.

Title	Q4Women: What is worse selling sex or buying sex?
Author	BichonFriseLover
Upvotes	16
Comments	343
Date	July 4, 2025 3:45 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1lrly76/q4women_what_is_worse_selling_sex_or_buying_sex/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/q4women-what-is-worse-selling-sex-or-buying-sex.1556346 https://theredarchive.com/post/1556346

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