So last night I was just scrolling through Twitter when a tweet caught my eye.  It was a link to a news story which I haven’t read, but the headline described a female politician wanting to outlaw the selling of sex.  Now, my first thought was that they didn’t need to name the politician for it to be obvious that it was a female trying to get this law put in place. I’m incredibly judgemental, feel free to judge me back. 

Something about this headline bothered me, and was still bothering me when I woke up this morning.  I know that it’s a common phrase which I’m assuming most people never give a second thought to, or at least I hadn’t up until last night.  How exactly do you sell sex? 

Intercourse. Coitus. Fornication. Sex.  Regardless of what you call it, it’s not an object. Sex is an action.  Surely you can’t sell an action?  Selling sex would be like selling a handshake, a notion which seems completely ridiculous and also impossible.  It would be like selling breathing or blinking or getting dressed in the morning.  You just can’t do it.  So if you can’t physically sell sex, you can’t make the selling of sex illegal.

Surely instead of ‘selling sex’ it should be blatantly acknowledged that what you are buying is the privilege of another person to participate in the action with.  You’re not selling sex but more of a sexually oriented paid partnership.  Perhaps it doesn’t sound as good but it is certainly a lot more logical and honest.  This way you could also have voluntary partnerships, and partnerships for handshakes.  I know that I have a terrible handshake so maybe that’s a service I could use! (Is this a niche in the market?  Could I make my millions by hiring out handshakers?)

What do you think?  Can you sell handshakes?  Are there any other common phrases which just don’t make sense?

(On a sidenote, it took quite a bit of effort to write this without quoting Friends with Benefits ‘having sex should be like playing tennis’ line of thought.)