I think that has always been the case, but I've noticed a particularly disturbing trend recently. "Hate speech" used to signify things that incited people to t

I think that has always been the case, but I've noticed a particularly disturbing trend recently. "Hate speech" used to signify things that incited people to take up physical violence and/or other abusive behaviour against groups or individuals. Over the past 4-5 years the term has been subjected to devaluation, as people with an agenda or axe to grind invoke hate speech as a cure-all antidote against all "things I do not approve of". But as I noted above, there is nothing new about the phenomenon. During the cold war, it was the red scare. Someone came up with things you didn't like and you could invoke pandering to communism. Since the naughties, it has been terrorism. A literal cash cow of funding, it was (and in a way still is) used to oppress anything you want - just label the activity as some kind of terrorism and shut up most opposition. Now, it's hate speech. There is a clear trend towards more abstract labels. The real problem with all of this is that the term loses its meaning. When anything can be labeled hate speech, the real rhetoric of hatred gets lost in all the noise. I don't want to hijack the thread, so back to prostitution. A historian could probably tell me how things were before the Victorian times, but as mentioned downthread by chaostheory, opposition to prostitution was likely neutered by the sexual revolution. Working and discreet contraception made it possible to enjoy sex fully, without suffering from the adverse effects. (Pregnancy, unplanned parenthood, and the eventual financial repercussions.) All of a sudden a casual attitude towards sex was no longer a damaging trait. As it has become more accepted to have sex where one wants, the stigma of using prostitution probably is also being diluted. After all, this is the age of service economy and there is nothing wrong with paying professionals for their services. So I think we're pretty close to the general acceptance that it just might be okay to pay a professional for sex too.