Prostitution is now more common than dating claims a controversial new study by the New York City Urban Realities Commission. “Our research suggests that men and women today are more likely to turn to prostitution than they are the dating market,” says sociologist Dr. Quayim Degopolous. “Five years ago, this wasn’t the case, but thanks to the rise in internet dating, paying for sex has become easier than establishing healthy and rewarding relationships.”

According to the study, 70% of men would rather hire a prostitute than date a woman while 80% of women say they’d rather be paid for sex than give it away for free in a relationship. “We have become a society of whores and johns,” says Dr. Degopolous. “Romance has been replaced with a very mercantile approach to sexuality. Every year the ties that bind men and women together break down a bit more, to the point where only money now binds the sexes together. It’s tragic.”

Dr. Degopolous says that if something isn’t done, marriage and dating might give way to a purely commoditized sexuality where every human being has a price. “We are on the verge of creating a world where men and women only view each other in strictly instrumental terms, as transactional objects that exist within a market devoid of human warmth. It’s almost as if our society is being manipulated by a merchant class hell bent on turning human beings into cattle. The moment we end up putting a price on human affection, a price on sexual gratification, a price on social interaction, is the moment we strip ourselves of our dignity and sentence ourselves to a commodified existence. And who benefits from turning human beings into objects that can be leased, rented, bought and sold? The people who run our economy, that’s who! The bankers. The merchants. The financiers. They want us to start thinking of ourselves as having a price. That’s how they view us and that’s how they want us to view ourselves.”

Pick-up artists agree that society has gone off the rails recently. “Ten years ago, pick up artists could go to bars and find women who were willing to be seduced,” says Henry Gauyim. “Today though, if you go to a bar and start flirting with a woman, she’ll just ask you up front how much you’d pay her for a blowjob. It’s insane. Something terrifying has happened over the last ten years. We’re witnessing the Weimar-ification of Western civilization. Game doesn’t work anymore because men and women have decided that sex is business. Romance is dead. Seduction is over. Only the almighty dollar matters now.”

Dr. Degopolous warns that the commodification of sexuality could lead to the death of our species. “Once virtual reality provides a decent alternative to real sex, men will decide to save money and time by investing in virtual waifus,” says Dr. Degopolous. “If virtual waifus can provide the same sexual pleasure as real people, than real sex will become a thing of the past. Why pay a flesh and blood human being every time you want sex when you can just buy yourself a virtual waifu and have sex with them whenever you want? When we make sex a purely financial affair, we incentivize the creation of cheaper and more cost-efficient alternatives to meat space encounters. Our society needs to resacralize sexuality and re-introduce empathy and compassion into our relationships, otherwise we are in for a very unpleasant future.”