sexual marketplaces

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
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
3. A location or situation in which people are looking for sexual or romantic partners.