Wired.com has a very interesting article about how the Internet is transforming sex. First it was making pornography even more widely available but now, the Internet is spurring the emergence of part-time prostiution -- students, housewives, etc. using various adult-networking sites around the Internet to sell their bodies for sex for some extra income. Some excerpts:

Britain’s AdultWork website is plugging into the growing niche industry of sex-work dilettantes, people who spend a few hours a week in front of a camera, or in bed with a client, to augment their income -- or maybe even just because they like it. . . Users must create a free account to browse the services offered. Users can rate the services they’ve tried, or even offer their own services. Like eBay, AdultWork takes a cut of all transactions. . . Indeed, with its ratings honor system, AdultWork is something like an eBay for sex. . .

All kinds of people enjoy discreet, extramarital liaisons; now some of them are charging for it. Adultery has gone professional. . . Avedon Carol, a spokeswoman for Feminists Against Censorship, said shutting down the site helps no one. “Anything that gives women more power over their work would help,” she said. “Stigmatizing sex, preventing women from being able to work together and so on, those things just make them more vulnerable…. Taking your clothes off doesn’t necessarily make something a bad job.”

I suppose that tt was inevitable that the Internet would have this kind of impact -- on how people live and apparently, how they can have sex for money. We’ll have to see what the next Internet-faciliated social trend is.