leaves you with less options in your social life, pays barely enough to get by, and is way way more intrusive to the laborer. it's clearly not like other work.

Yeah, I forgot about all the incredibly fulfilling fast food and coffee jobs that pay a living wage and are easy to get by on.

It clearly is like any other service work, unless you believe sex is a magical, special sphere of human activity. And if you do, then you're thinking magically and not materialistically.