The thesis blaming the welfare state for women's prostitution

The calculation that turns the welfare state into a pimp

The thesis begins with a provocation: wherever there is no benefit, women sell themselves for a mess of pottage. The argument holds that the welfare state acts as a suppressor of need and that, once that safety net is removed, an elementary economic calculation emerges: marry whoever has the deepest pockets rather than work. The discussion quickly veered toward sens tourism in Cuba, the Caribbean, Thailand or the Philippines, and toward what has come to be called selling content online.

The income differential as an explanation

The sharpest response in the exchange dismantles the sarracena superiority of the diagnosis. If a woman pairs up with the sheikh who already has three other wives, the argument goes, she is making exactly the same calculation as the lifelong claimant or the one who has spent fifteen years warming a seat at a union bar: zero cost, guaranteed income. Laziness is not a gender trait, it is a response to incentives. And simping, it is added, is an invention of the average man, not of any decree.

Sens tourism is read in accounting terms: income differential, supply and demand. The destinations mentioned are not exotic, they are markets where money changes hands. The same man who haggles in his own country crosses half the world with his benefits and comes back with a partner thirty years younger. Nobody is smarter. Only who pays changes.

The objection of biology and merit

Against economic determinism comes the biological reply: the man provides security and provision, the woman provides youth and reproductive health. That, it is argued, is high-school biology, and everything else a recent social construct. The counteroffer is no less blunt: if the problem is welfare benefits, the one who will never pair up with anyone for money will be the one who can keep robbing us all without pairing up with anyone.

The conversation heats up when a specific case enters. One participant states she would never pair up with someone for money or prostitute herself, and notes that her current situation is not the best. The response is a shift of focus: there are men who do it too. The discussion about other people's calculations suddenly becomes an exchange of personal experiences that no one can audit.

The welfare state and birth rates

The most acid detour comes through demographics: it is claimed that the welfare state is the cause of falling birth rates and that, without benefits or pensions for women, they would breed like rabbits. The claim comes with no statistical series whatsoever. It is a hypothesis thrown into the air, and as such it remains.

The thread closes with a bar-scene anecdote: in Segarro, it is claimed, in any ordinary pub you can spend the night with an ordinary woman for 50 euros at the exchange rate. The figure is unverifiable, but it illustrates the heart of the matter. The discussion is not about sarracena. It is about who holds the purse and how much the mess of pottage costs.

What if the problem were not the absence of benefits, but the suspicion that everyone, with money or without it, is making the same calculation?