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I also can't imagine "somewhat subhuman", but everybody is in a bubble on these things. The percent of Americans who say that "sex between an unmarried man and woman" (not specifically prostitution! just sex!) is "morally acceptable" is at an all-time high ... of only 76%. If that also seems surprisingly low to you, then you're probably in a liberal bubble (93%) rather than in a conservative one (57%), and you might also be in a younger bubble (I'm seeing conflicting polls for the 1970s, but they're in the 30%-45% range). I'd bet polling results for the moral acceptability of prostitution would be lower: support for decriminalizing prostitution is still only around 50%, and presumably that includes people who still think it should be shameful but just don't think shameful things should all be illegal.
And as for "damaged goods" ... to go back to OP's example, Aella has been publicly looking for "someone to get happily married to" while aware of the issues there for about 5 years now, still fruitlessly. IMHO the phrase "damaged goods" is going too far, but "typically incompatible with marriage-minded men" might be fair, right? She's helped other married men break their wedding vows "over and over, with small variations on the amount of years and the guilt they brought with it", and though she makes a sympathetic case for them, making that case strengthens the conclusion that wedding vows just aren't her thing. It's understandably hard to find someone who will swear "for better or worse" if they fear "for better or else" in return.
That's not necessarily the end of the world. It sounds like she's made a lot of friends and a lot of money, and obviously she doesn't have trouble finding sex (or presumably short-term relationships) either. She could probably be happy with all that. And if she can't ... well, too many of her critics seem to be cruel or stupid or both (yes, I am aware of the irony here), whereas she seems to be a smart person who at least tries to be kind, so hopefully if it turns out that her decisions really needed to be criticized, she'll eventually get around to joining in on the criticism.
Thing is, you don’t have the option to flake out on a child when they no longer suit you
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Aella's Twitter is private. Archive link.
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At some point, it just seems strange that you'd even want a marriage after developing such a firm opposition to lifelong vows, based on experience with many failed marriages. Why not just have a succession of long-term relationships? Isn't that what your worldview would suggest is the healthy model for relationships? Her post quite evidently states her belief that there is no real continuity of obligation between the past and the present:
Under those conditions, why get married at all? It's a commitment to a person who -- by her own statement -- disappears, ceases to exist, over time. That's a worldview where marriage doesn't even make sense as an option.
The problem with marriage is increasingly people seem to be treating it as a time-limited commitment: "we'll be together until we decide we don't like it any more, and then divorce." But our legal system is set up based on the older model where marriage is supposed to be truly life-long, and the two really are supposed to have a joint legal identity in a way that makes everything each partner does common property. So, we end up with bitter divorces, vengeful custody disputes, alimony battles.
Not everyone agrees that marriages are made by God to join two together into one flesh -- but without controversy, marriages are made by the state to join two together into one mass of property. The resulting dissolution can only be described as a form of twin-separation surgery, which always leaves damage. What therefore the state has joined together, let not man put asunder.
It really is no wonder to me why so many millennial-and-younger couples are cohabiting, without marrying. They're not in a social and mental context where holding to marriage as a true indissoluble commitment is thinkable, but marriage as it exists on the books imposes costs and consquences that revolve around that kind of commitment.
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I may be in a bubble but New Zealand's lax sex worker laws reflect a noticeably different mentality. Many high end escorts here work high powered corporate jobs while offering intimacy services occasionally. Only to those blue blooded enough to afford their rates obviously. The mentality here is more that "sex workers' humanity is unquestionable but not that of the men who seek them". Re marriage, I find it hard to sympathise right there because we're literally living in a time where men's standards are at an all time low as more and more are being phased out of the dating pool. At least one of those nerds starved for female attention would be willing to put a ring on her. So it's all about expectations, no?
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Then her escort work should have clued her in to the possibility of getting married while continuing to be a sex worker. Those men didn't ask her "hey, you're young and hot and willing to have sex with me, how about I divorce my wife and marry you instead?" The men didn't want to break up their existing relationships, they just wanted/needed sex and this was how they solved the problem: visiting prostitutes. Marriage was a whole other and separate world, as was romantic love.
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