You're just flat out unaware of how many people are out there paying for sex on the regular. You're talking like this isn't just business as usual for a massive subculture that simply can't talk about it because it's illegal (usually) and frowned upon. That said, there are still a ton of people who do this type of work and a ton of people who want it. I would have suggested you were of the younger generation but I was in my late 20s before I realized this underworld existed. Your parents won't tell you, your friends won't tell you, you just have to stumble into threads like this and then you find a niche forum somewhere that everyone is allowed to discuss it. And then you try it, and then you understand how common and simple it is.

I met a girl years ago through family. She was attractive and also into me but was dating at the time. We became friends and I got to know her better over the course of a few years. She was a few years younger than me in her 20s and from a poor country in Central America but was born in the US. She worked service jobs and went to college but seemed to work only sporadically and frequently changed jobs. She always seemed unsatisfied with her position but also always managed to make rent and enjoy her life. We lived just a few blocks from each other in a city and we hung out a lot. A few times we were at her place and blatant evidence was around that she was selling online services. Her laptop was opened once to a cam site and she quickly hid it. She had nude Polaroids of herself laying out that she also hid which I'm sure she was selling. She talked about being into anal which is in my experience, an unusual thing for friends to chat about.

Then, one time, we're in the car driving to go get lunch and she asks me if I ever thought about paying for sex and I said I didn't know and that it depended on how much it cost. I think she said something like $150 and I just said "eh probably not" and the conversation didn't even register to me that she was asking if I wanted to pay for it. I was trying to focus on driving and it was just the natural course of the conversation so it was so casual I didn't realize what was happening. She never brought it up again but I am 100% certain she was making a living that way and I didn't even comprehend it.