Can we justify interfering with mutually advantageous and consensual transactions on perfectionist or moralistic grounds?
Additionally, many people believe that if sex is a consensual commercial transaction between adults, it should not be a criminal act.
Despite the Harper government's best efforts to convince them otherwise, Canadians still don't want the state butting into their consensual sexual transactions.
These advocates privilege the violence "perfect victims" experience over the violence faced by legally and socially stigmatized individuals involved in consensual adult sexual transactions and thus viewed as less deserving of our attention and advocacy.
If the state cannot force A to sell the shovel to B, it might be thought completely irrational for the state to prohibit A and B from entering into a consensual and mutually advantageous transaction.
Those who make such arguments do frequently claim that the transactions are nonconsensual or harmful, but they seem prepared to make such arguments even if the transactions are consensual and mutually advantageous.
Even with the most consensual divorce, or a conveyancing transaction, we know there is another person involved whose interests differ from ours and we need to be reassured that, if we end up in battle, our weapon will be scarier than theirs.
On what grounds might we justify interfering with consensual and mutually advantageous exploitative transactions?
When United Nations personnel trade food for sex, these transactions – called "survival sex" – might technically be consensual, but can hardly be considered examples of free will.
We can similarly distinguish between nonconsensual exploitation, where the exploited party does not give voluntary (or valid) consent, say because of coercion or fraud, and consensual exploitation, where it appears that the exploited party has given voluntary and appropriately informed consent to the transaction.
