For some people, some things will have no Cheerful Price in the sense defined in this article, because a CP is meant to be a price at which no part of their mind is on balance unhappy about doing the thing, and if there’s some bit of you that really really doesn’t want to have sex with me[1] and that bit of you isn’t interested in money, then no amount of money will remove the ouchiness of the transaction.
That might produce the same “how dare you? some things are too sacred to be bought and sold” reaction as if I’d asked you your CP for baking me a cake, but I don’t think it’s the same underlying cause. You may be absolutely on board with the idea that people exchange things for other things, even with friends, there may even be other people you would trade sex for money with because you don’t particularly want to have sex with them but wouldn’t hate it if you did, but you may still, specifically, find the prospect of having sex with me aversive[1] enough not to be OK with being asked your price.
But there are surely also people for whom sex is just a particularly-strong example of something Too Sacred To Trade Explicitly, and who might respond with “actually, I’d have been happy to have sex with you if you’d just asked me the right way, but now that you’ve made it transactional the idea repels me”.
[1] It’s OK. I don’t actually want to have sex with you either. :-)
I think it’s more more complicated than that.
For some people, some things will have no Cheerful Price in the sense defined in this article, because a CP is meant to be a price at which no part of their mind is on balance unhappy about doing the thing, and if there’s some bit of you that really really doesn’t want to have sex with me[1] and that bit of you isn’t interested in money, then no amount of money will remove the ouchiness of the transaction.
That might produce the same “how dare you? some things are too sacred to be bought and sold” reaction as if I’d asked you your CP for baking me a cake, but I don’t think it’s the same underlying cause. You may be absolutely on board with the idea that people exchange things for other things, even with friends, there may even be other people you would trade sex for money with because you don’t particularly want to have sex with them but wouldn’t hate it if you did, but you may still, specifically, find the prospect of having sex with me aversive[1] enough not to be OK with being asked your price.
But there are surely also people for whom sex is just a particularly-strong example of something Too Sacred To Trade Explicitly, and who might respond with “actually, I’d have been happy to have sex with you if you’d just asked me the right way, but now that you’ve made it transactional the idea repels me”.
[1] It’s OK. I don’t actually want to have sex with you either. :-)