Innocence is Discarded, Not Lost

To simplify, the contrast in this picture is between hugging a teddy bear and being a whore.

The immediate problem is that being a whore kinda sucks. There's nothing in the glitzy city which has long-term value. 

None of those buildings are built by or for the residents. In fact ads look bad. It's a mess, like vandalism always is. The spotlights are distractions, not decorations.

This is a bad trade. The teddy bear lying in the grime is worth more than everything in that city combined. 

 

The deeper problem is that this picture is cope. Although children are good at innocence, innocence isn't being a child. They're trying to claim they had to. That retaining the teddy bear would have been too embarrassing and they had no choice but to become a prostitute. You can't cling to childhood any more than you can cling to being three feet tall. Except, if you say in plain language like this, it immediately becomes obvious that this isn't the dilemma. The teddy bear is indeed infantile and unsophisticated, but it is not the only alternative. This is nothing more than an excuse for being too lazy to change the behaviour that now know, from experience, is bad behaviour. 

The innocent joys are plain better. You can tell even they think so, because they have to pretend there's nothing better than an old teddy bear.

If you don't voluntarily adopt the degenerate impulsive hedonism, you remain "innocent," as innocence is used descriptively. You can't accidentally fuck a man for money. You can be groomed into this sort of thing only if you totally lack self-awareness or, more likely, are actively self-destructive. "I accidentally injected myself with heroin, lol. Oops the needle went right in!"

Did they forget that marriage even exists? (Yes.) If you want sex without degeneracy, it's not some kind of deep mystery requiring years of study...

It would seem at first glance that Nancy Reagan was a vapid bitch, but I often wonder if they do this sort of thing on purpose (or purposely allow it) explicitly to disparage and deprecate the truth. You can, in fact, just say no. When the glamorous prostitute offers you this amazing "product," firmly decline. And that's it, game over, you win. If you look into the long term, it will say it was a bad trade; you're not giving anything up, it's unadulterated prudence.

If everyone just said no, the advertisement prostitutes would be out of a job. The cities would get cleaned up and perhaps not look like a bad trip. Hence, we can see most don't say no, and you need to secure yourself against most people if you intend to be healthy. 

Likewise, they sometimes try to portray innocent joys as non-innocent. Pacifists say wresting is toxic masculinity or whatever. Online rightists like to claim all videogames are Fortnite. The Church wants you to think that enjoying your wife too much is a sin. WTF bro. These people clearly don't have your best interests at heart. They have an ego-defence agenda. 

The problem is you already know. Look inward, check how you feel about it. If it feels murky, it is. If it doesn't, it's not.
Innocence is too easy. You can't impress anyone by being good at innocence.
They want you to be scared of doing things without permission, because they, in part, worship terror and weakness. Disciples of Phobos. 

They want you to be afraid of non-exclusive power, for nefarious purposes. Dunamophobic. They want you to hide your own glory, because they believe (often rightly) that glory reflecting off them will make them sick, or even kill them.

Your health is their worst fear. 

Embrace innocence, it's better. Embrace music, and the smell of flowers, and the sunset. Embrace the footrace and the arm wrestle. Embrace the board game and the Magicka. Embrace your spouse, your children, and your neighbours. Embrace the glory of nature, including your own biology. Embrace wealth and ease, so that you can afford the tests of conflict and creation. Embrace the glory of mathematics, logic, and the divine. Embrace, in short, that which will embrace you back.