sexual marketplace

Noun

sexual marketplace (plural sexual marketplaces)

1. A notional place where people's desirability as sexual or romantic partners is evaluated.
   • Central among the institutions she must encounter in her life is that of the sexual marketplace, where human beings are viewed as having a price, and not a dignity, and where the price of women is fixed in a particular way. Women, as things, as items in the sexual marketplace, have a market value...2000, Christina Hoff Sommers, Frederic Tamler Sommers, Vice and virtue in everyday life, page 196
   • They argue that people possess a collection of qualities that place them on a continuum of desirability in the sexual marketplace.2008, Kathleen A. Bogle, Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus, page 197
2. (euphemistic) Prostitution; the sex work industry.
   • The chart that lists United Nations estimates of the number of persons under 18 working as prostitutes does not distinguish between freelance or professional girlfriends and those in an organized industry, between those who enter the sexual marketplace voluntarily or who are kidnapped, raped and...1996, Far Eastern Economic Review, volume 156, page 6
   • The third category envelops all the clients that women service in the sexual marketplace. These encounters are temporary sexual transactions that do not involve more familiarity than necessary.1999, Amalia L. Cabezas, “Women’s Work Is Never Done: Sex Tourism in Sosúa, the Dominican Republic”, in Kamala Kempadoo, editor, Sun, Sex, and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean, →ISBN, page...
3. A location or situation in which people are looking for sexual or romantic partners.