Comment on How old is the "world's oldest profession"?

• cattywampas@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  And certainly that would not count as a profession because that labor is not specialized.

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  • GreenBeard@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I mean, it sort of is, in that only half the population can do it. What he’s referring to though is an experiment where they tried teaching chimps the concept of “money” by giving them tokens they could exchange for food.

    The very first thing that they started doing was exchanging food tokens for… mating activities.

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    • guy@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      only half the population can do it at the same time yes. But everyone can be a prostitute otherwise

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      • GreenBeard@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        I guess technically it’s slightly more than half, but the real limiting factor in the market is that regardless of species, most female primates won’t buy sexual favours. That’s not to say there isn’t a market for male “prostitutes”, just that their target demographic is a bit… niche, as is the demographic of those who would be willing to offer those services.

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    • cattywampas@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Well anybody could do it.

      But there’s lots of things I could sell from time to time, including labor or sex. Would it make it my profession if I did so once in a while? Or would I need to do it full time?

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      • wador@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        You could be a blow queen… Then you get money and food at the same time.

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