Is Sex an Economic Commodity?

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Sex is NOT a Commodity!! !! !

In economics, a commodity is the generic term for any marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Economic commodities comprise goods and services.

The more specific meaning of the term commodity is applied to goods only. It is used to describe a class of goods for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. A commodity has full or partial fungibility; that is, the market treats its instances as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. "From the taste of wheat it is not possible to tell who produced it, a Russian serf, a French peasant or an English capitalist." Petroleum and copper are other examples of such commodities, their supply and demand being a part of one universal market. Items such as stereo systems, on the other hand, have many aspects of product differentiation, such as the brand, the user interface, the perceived quality, etc. And, the demand for one type of stereo may be much larger than demand on the other.

In contrast, one of the characteristics of a commodity good is that its price is determined as a function of its market as a whole. Well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. Generally, these are basic resources and agricultural products such as iron ore, crude oil, coal, salt, sugar, tea, coffee beans, soybeans, aluminum, copper, rice, wheat, gold, silver, palladium, and platinum. Soft commodities are goods that are grown, while hard commodities are the ones that are extracted through mining.

There is another important class of energy commodities which includes electricity, gas, coal and oil. Electricity has the particular characteristic that it is usually uneconomical to store; hence, electricity must be consumed as soon as it is produced.

Commodification (also called commoditization) occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base, often by the diffusion of the intellectual capital necessary to acquire or produce it efficiently. As such, goods that formerly carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities, such as generic pharmaceuticals and DRAM chips. Another example is the credit card product, where all suppliers offer almost identical interest rates, fees, rewards programs, and bait & hook incentive models for new customers. Since the core credit card product is essentially identical, the only remaining market differentiators are branding & customer service.

There is a spectrum of commodification, rather than a binary distinction of "commodity versus differentiable product". Few products have complete undifferentiability and hence fungibility; even electricity can be differentiated in the market based on its method of generation (e.g., fossil fuel, wind, solar). Many products' degree of commodification depends on the buyer's mentality and means. For example, milk, eggs, and notebook paper are considered by many customers as completely undifferentiable and fungible; lowest price is the only deciding factor in the purchasing choice. Other customers take into consideration other factors besides price, such as environmental sustainability and animal welfare. To these customers, distinctions such as "organic versus not" or "cage free versus not" count toward differentiating brands of milk or eggs, and percentage of recycled content or forestry council certification count toward differentiating brands of notebook paper.

In Marx's theory, a commodity is something that is bought and sold, or exchanged in a market.
It has value, which represents a quantity of human labor.[6] Because it has value, implies that people try to economise its use. A commodity also has a use value, an exchange value and a price.
It has a use value because, by its intrinsic characteristics, it can satisfy some human need or want, physical or ideal. By nature this is a social use value, i.e. the object is useful not just to the producer but has a use for others generally.
It has an exchange value, meaning that a commodity can be traded for other commodities, and thus give its owner the benefit of others' labor (the labor done to produce the purchased commodity).

Sex is for the attractive and (if not) the rich.

Anything that can be bought or sold is a commodity.

ruveyn

For those who vote that sex is, but shouldn't be, an economic commodity: is that stemming from a lack of satisfaction with the way that sex is apportioned in the marketplace? Would you prefer that sex became an entitlement, such that everyone's appetite was socially guaranteed to be sated?

Yo, dude, look, if you wanna get laid, stop fixating on this kind of heady BS, go out and meet some people, treat everyone with respect, gals or guys, and it'll happen. Try to find some other interest besides this too. It won't lead you anywhere and will just creep people out.

Who sez that I necessarily want to get laid, or that I have no other interests? I like heady BS. Hell, I have two master's degrees.

What's keeping ugly people from f***ing? THey have the equipment just as much as attractive people. The same goes for the rich and poor.

Sex can be a commodity, but I don't think it should be, due to the extreme, emotional nature of it. Its not the same as buying and trading dixie cups.