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Agree on your dangers of simping (great point). I disagree however on the danger of “transactional sexuality”. Ideally, sure, a man and woman would come together because they have found value in each other that is higher than money and all that the dollar represents. Their personalities entwine beautifully, conversations roll off the tongue, and their experiences couple each others. But where I disagree is that (1) many prostitutes and courtesans in history were sought after for these very properties, geishas in Japan or Tyrion’s fantastical whore in GoT, and (2) I don’t actually see prostitution as dangerously more transactional than 21st century intercourse, or maybe history’s intercourse. Purchasing the right apartment, haircut, dentist, photographer, car and clothes will ensure matches. Back in the day, it was inheriting the right title or deed. Sex for resources is a tale as old as time.
Sounds like the slippery slope keeps on slipping. I don't entirely disagree that there's a lack of categorical difference, but see that more as an inditement of 21st century intercourse.
Or rather, there is a spectrum. Everyone is different and has different levels of promiscuity and transactionality, and prostitution is on the far end (imo the bad end) of both but not quite an outlier. I don't think pointing out that it has existed for a long historically has much bearing on whether or not it's healthy. Lots of people have done lots of unhealthy and destructive things throughout history. And lots of people didn't, again everyone is different. And I would argue that the people in the past with less transactionality in their relationships had, with positive but less than 100% correlation, healthier relationships.
Additionally, historically in a lot of places going to a prostitute was seen as shameful or taboo or low class. Although this is not universal, it was at least true in the near past, so pushes towards normalizing it are part of a modern phenomenon at least locally. Which I view as bad because people respond to incentives, so normalizing it will increase its frequences, which then funges against healthy relationships. Which we can see occuring in real time. Gender relations have not been going well recently. An awful lot of men are alone and angry and purposeless. And they respond in different ways. Some become angry incels who hate women, some become pickup artists who try to trick women into sex on false pretenses. Or chads stringing along dozens are women. And women aren't happy either, with femcels, and feminists, and the MeToo movement. Things have gotten worse for an awful lot of people within the past few decades, and while I can't say that sex work alone is responsible for all of it, it's both a symptom and a cause of some of these problems.
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