> Then leave. Live in a cardboard box. Go work in a warehouse. Go to Alaska and work on a fishing boat. Go to Omaha, Nebraska and work at a McDonald’s. Nobody made her do this “job”
But I’ve seen many, many stories with similar tone from people who have done all those other things. Sex work frequently calls on people to do something that may be the farthest from what their emotional desire is at the time, but that's…not uncommon for work, especially work that is low paying (or highly paid largely because of the adverse conditions and not a high entry skill filter.) And living without work in a capitalist society ("live in a cardboard box") is…well, not an improvement, which is why few people with a choice choose it.
> she did it because she had low standards for herself and found sexual validation of strangers easier than grinding out a living like other people do.
Providing sexual validation for strangers is grinding out a living, and, regional variations in legality of particular patterns of doing so aside, isn't any less so than any other service work.
> “I once watched a fast-food server placate a violent customer with nothing more than her voice and a stale honey cruller at her disposal.” This is given as an example of a “skill” that should be considered admirable. It should be considered unnecessary.
It is both admirable and something that should be unnecessary.
> No one should be behaving violently towards fast food workers
That people shouldn’t be behaving violently towards fast food workers doesn’t make fast food workers with the skill to deal with that any less admirable.
> and if they do, it shouldn’t be fast food workers who are placating them
That someone else should be protecting fast food workers from situations like that (which, again, shouldn’t happen in the first place, so no one should need to) doesn’t make fast food workers having the skill to do it themselves less admirable, since we live in a world where it both does happen, and other people mostly aren’t there to do something about it.
> We could just close fast food restaurants at night.
Not sure how “people who would be fast food workers don’t have jobs” is an improvement here. Though it increases the number of people whose best option is sex work.
> We could put people in jail for a long time if they behaved poorly towards service industry employees.
There are plenty of acts (including “violence toward service industry workers”) already subject to substantial incarceration. That doesn’t protect people from them happening. Punishment is very poor prevention.
> Her fond and admirable reminiscence of this act betrays her inability to imagine a society with actual standards for its residents
No, it “betrays” her sense to admire people for their ability to live in the real world, rather than a fantasy ideal one that does not exist.