Saturday, August 18, 2012

How Do Prostitutes Stay in Business?


Here’s a question for the behavioral economists: How do prostitutes stay in business?

With the sexual revolution and the hookup culture and young women making love like porn stars, how can a hooker make a living?

If you are charging money for something that people can get for free, eventually it will impact your business.

In the old days nice girls didn’t. Without specifying what nice girls wouldn’t do, men who wanted "it" sought out prostitutes.

Nowadays, there is precious little that nice girls don’t do. Thanks to a certain social movement nice girls are liberated. They will do just about anything, and will refuse to allow a man to pay for them.

Many of them won’t even want to see him in the morning.

Free love has come to mean giving it away for free. No one knows how prevalent the practice is, but nice girls are marrying later and are avoiding encumbering alliances. If we assume that they are sexually active during their twenties, then clearly they have crowded the market in non-committal sex.

Young women who are out making their way in the world today will avoid relationships, but they will happily engage in all kinds of sexual gymnastics—check out New York Magazine’s “Sex Diaries”. They do not want to be tied down, just yet. (At least not in the metaphorical sense.) No man's man’s emotional demands will get in the way of their career advancement.

It’s tough competition for prostitutes?

The marketplace being what it is, prostitutes have now adapted. They continue to offer something that nice girls no longer offer, but it isn't kinky sex. It is emotional attachment: love, romance and a maybe even a relationship, with a little sex on the side.

Nowadays it’s called the girlfriend experience. It’s the ultimate in sex work, considerably more difficult and better paid than common fellatio.

Strange as it seems, if you are a young man today you often have to pay a woman to act like she’s your girlfriend.

Even the term “escort” which is commonly taken to be a euphemism for prostitute, has traditionally referred to a woman who would accompany a man to a social or cultural event. She was a stand-in girlfriend.

In the old days prostitutes used to know how to do things that nice girls had never even heard of. Today, prostitutes know how to do things that nice girls do not know how to do: that is to conduct relationships.

Young women today are proficient at being sex kittens. Many of them become expert in the art of dating. Fewer know how to conduct a relationship with a man.

When they reach their thirties and decide that it’s time to settle down they discover that their kill at mind-blowing sex and at serial dating, coupled with their professional credentials do not compensate for the fact that they do not know how to have a relationship.

The result: a generation of love-starved men.

CBS News has the story:

A new analysis of men who pay for sexual activities suggests that their true goal is finding something a bit more complicated – true love – even if it’s from the sex worker.

In this new study, Christine Milrod and co-author Ronald Weitzer analyzed 2,442 postings on an online discussion board from a sex provider review site where more than a million clients of sex workers read and post about their experiences. Approximately one-third included a discussion about emotional intimacy between sex workers and their clients, many of whom expressed a desire to grow their relationships beyond the physical level in the form of sharing private feelings and mutual love.

Anyone who imagined that men were simple-minded dolts who merely wanted a ready supply of quick and easy sex did men a serious disservice. It made them into a caricature. Reducing male sexuality to the wish to get off as often as possible is contemptuous and contemptible.

Remember Ashley Dupree. Yes, the high class escort who brought down former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. And who went on to be an advice columnist for The New York Post.

Yes, that Ashley Dupree.

Well, Ashley is in love. She is engaged to be married and is seven months pregnant.

It gives new meaning to the term “happy ending.” Or, I should say, it restores the old meaning.

17 comments:

  1. I don't want to generalize women... I know there are still plenty of good girls like me out there.
    I also know there are plenty of men who want to treat us like throwaways---see howmfastmthey can bed us....
    A conquest for them for each new girl they date...
    ...Them on to the next one.
    Fathers--teach your sons to be gentlemen!
    Mothers-teach your daughters to be ladies!
    I am appalled to watch men objectify women right in front of their daughters...
    And to see women have strings of new boyfriends to take home to their young sons to meet...
    These adults are thinking of themselves first, and teaching their children through their own behaviors.
    As a single, 40-something woman, I sleep at night knowing that I lead by example...

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  2. could be some of the current pretty young things are no goo in bed or not worth the effort to get them there ... free or not ..

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  3. One has to ask how we came to a place where some men treat women like throw away items. It would seem to me that feminism made it possible, even desirable when they justified Bill Clinton's behavior. Who was it who came up with "knee pad" behavior as something to get what women want and all that demonstrated about women as a gender.
    There is a desire to blame men for things that women demonstrate by their action is acceptable behavior. It is part of the desire to never take responsibility for one's actions. Throughout history, I am allowed to write history in lieu of her story, men have mostly adapted to what women expected of them. In fact one of the reasons women's part of the story of life changed is that men kept finding ways to make their lives easier because they loved them. Little did men realize they were taking away women's contribution and not replacing it with something else as consequential and satisfying.
    It should not surprise us that women began to dislike the life we thought they wanted. Men thought that their women would have more time to be their loves and were of course mystified when women rebelled.
    Feminism created the woman as "slut" prostitute, you fill in the blank, sans the ability to relate to another human being and give the respect they wished for themselves. Women became what they thought men were like. The problem is that most men did not think that way. It is too bad that women never seemed to figure out that almost all love songs and poetry is an expression of love for them.
    Enter the modern day prostitute and they have figured out what men really want because to stay in business one has to know their customer. Something the modern American woman, as defined by today's feminism, could care less about. "I am woman hear me roar" I don't need men any more.
    With an atitude like this does one really believe that they are going to be anything other than a "throw away item?" One has in essence made themselves that way.

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  4. Dennis, that is quite a strong leap.
    Men sat there, being good boys for all of the 20th century, while women built this evil feminism empire...
    Is that the story?
    I don't wish to place the blame on either gender, nor on this movement that you seem to want to blame so badly in so many of your responses.
    It has been a demise that I've watched through the years, caused by selfishness on both parties, men and women. Men who continually degrade and objectify women. Women who say they don't "need" men.
    Men objectify and despise more women.
    Women back away and despise more men.
    You can blame it on the feminism movement all you want.
    You can also blame it on the tyrants of the 50s or before - the men that kept the wife home and the prostitutes on the side, knowing the wife only lived to make her husband happy back then...
    Knowing the wife would never leave or she'd be scorned by society. (Enter much of the middle-eastern culture as it still is today)
    I am not a feminist, but I'll be darned if I let myself be hostage in a situation like that because a man provides for me financially, while he is out philandering and putting me at health risk when he comes back from his business trip a la Don Draper.
    In many ways we have changed for the better.
    It is interesting reading Doc's stories, but the commentators' anger toward feminism as the core reason society is going to pot, well that is getting reallllly old.

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  5. I'll let Dennis answer for himself, if he chooses, but allow me to offer an opinion on your remarks.

    At a certain point in American history, beginning around 1970 feminism took hold in a new and different sense. It went beyond its initial ambition to secure more political rights for women and decided to redefine the way women related to men, the way they conducted their lives, the way they functioned in home and family.

    Feminism politicized home and family life. One might argue, as you do, that things were not so great in the 1950s, but it is nonsense to say that the 1950s were like an Islamist country.

    Being political radicals feminists, or at least the ones who write and theorize about these issues, never admit that to any errors. They never take responsibility for the fallout of their grand social experiment.

    And there have been many negative consequences, whether it is the wave of divorces in the seventies or the current hookup culture-- getting in touch with you inner slut, as they would have it.

    By and large men were powerless to do anything about the feminist tide. Some fought it; some conceded to it; some tried to ignore it.

    For the most part feminism told women to change the rules of the game and to do so without consulting with men or negotiating with men.

    The central issue in the debates about the behavior of young women is simply this: should women want to marry young or should they postpone marriage and childbearing until such time as they were fully established in their careers.

    Again, no man was ever asked to offer an opinion on this issue. Aside from the notion that these women would naturally be happier because they had been more fulfilled in their careers no one has ever questioned the simple fact that they will not have developed any relationship skills during the years that they were pursuing career over marriage.

    Everyone respects that a woman might choose to conduct her life as she pleases. If she does then we do have a right to question whether or not it is a good idea and whether some of the unintended consequences are quite as beneficial as feminists would say that they are.

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  6. Thanks Doc-
    I'm still not getting the connection that the feminism movement that you just described is responsible for the demise if society, the overreach into female sluts (because life was so much better when there were just prostitutes?)
    It just seems like a really far reach to blame the feminism movement for all of this.
    I can add quite a few things that I urge you to consider as factors:
    The entitled society (both men and women)
    The increasing laziness of society (both men and women)
    The increasing expectation that we should not suffer the consequences for our actions.
    Al of these and many more helped drive society toward this, and it is an extreme generalization to blame feminism, I think.
    I have chosen education over early marriage, but I also chose self-respect throughout my life... And I have given my all to my significant other (except a child, which he does not want either)
    One can easily lump me into a feminism category just by my credentials, but I urge you to take the high road...
    You say feminists lump all men into this vile, useless category. I say it was a few extremists.

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  7. What part do you not get by the comment "modern American woman as defined by today's feminism?" As a person who liked and agreed with the early feminists I make a real difference between that which passes for feminism today and what was the original basis for feminism. I cannot believe a person can read the puerile dogmatic dialogue that emanates from modern day feminism cannot see the damage it has done and still is being done to young impressionable young women.
    The question is "How do prostitutes stay in business?" It is not about you or your own self respect. Good for you that you feel the way you do.
    One cannot ignore the affect of feminism on American society. All the "Every body does it" is meaningless. If one reads well they know I make clear distinctions between most women and today's feminists. One also knows that I posited a reason why an early misunderstanding, omission/commission, lead to the situation we now deal with on a daily basis.
    At some point one has to realize that feminism is not most women no more than feminism's concept of most men as oppressors are about most men. Though the underlying emphasis in Anon's commentary seems to place emphasis there and also has a bit of any challenge to feminism is to hate women in it. One protests to much.
    Since this is Stuart's blog I have added my two cents and will allow Anon the last word.

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  8. When I first started reading this blog I thought these feminism posts were a drag to read because I didn't see how they related to me, but I read them anyway. But then...I started to notice how the feminist attitudes crept into the lives of all the girls I know and made them miserable.
    Anon said, "It has been a demise that I've watched through the years, caused by selfishness on both parties, men and women. Men who continually degrade and objectify women."

    In my experience, men degrade women because they'll sleep with the ones who do. It isn't right and there are plenty of men who have disgusting attitudes about women, but they tend to be the guys who are sleeping with lots of them. The hook up culture is rampant where I come from, but I was never a participant. It destroyed my confidence because I'm not ugly so I thought there was something wrong with me. It's even more frustrating though, when you have very attractive girls telling you what a great boyfriend you'd make but you're just, "not enough of an asshole". The combination of divorce, chronic loneliness, injuries, therapy (I didn't know how damaging that was until I read this blog.)money issues, and a whole host of other things made my life a living hell. It literally took a miraculous act of God setting me on fire with the Holy Spirit to fix me. In the Washington National Cathedral of all places... a pretty famous place, so it really makes me wonder, why me? Maybe I was rewarded for for my ability to accept Truth which isn't something people in the DC area are good at. (It wasn't until I started reading Instapundit and this blog that I realized what a fraud Obama is, and how the corrupt media covers up for him. I thought they had integrity. I went to the guy's inauguration and fell victim to the peer pressure (I was an early McCain supporter but knew he wasn't going to win) thinking he was automatically going to be great. I was 19, I was way more naive than I realized then).

    It's comforting to know He was watching me the entire time I went to school right next to the Cathedral and had something planned for me beyond my imagination. Jesus never had a girlfriend either, that's how I look at it. Now I have unbreakable confidence, and it's an amazing feeling. Women don't look at me or treat me (read ignore) the same anymore. Still no girlfriend, but I know I will, and I know she'll be a good one.

    cont'd below...

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  9. Considering that the Episcopalian Church stands for nothing more than liberal political correctness, I have a strong feeling I'm one of very, very few people who have been born again in that place in quite awhile. Definitely in the head-exploding, face paralyzing, invisible hand grabbing, lock eyes with Jesus, demon fleeing, St. Augustine style of opening a book to the exact page God wants you to read (a Confession of Sin prayer) method that God rarely uses. None of my friends or family has known someone that happened to. It isn't discussed much in today's culture.

    My resume may not stack up to many in the DC area, but most of them don't know the peace of existing in the Christ mindset either. I love DC, but it really needs some fixing - it's at full capacity and too many residents are heinously rude, conniving, or just evil. (I think cutting the size of the gov't might help some...). I should add that I ate lunch with my mother in the World Trade Center restaurant (Windows on the World which was really good) on August 28th, 2001, and this event happened to me on July 28th, 2011. If you do the math, that's exactly a 9 year and 11 month period. I think I may be one of the young men Acts 2:17 is talking about, but we shall see. One of the things God has lead me to is a better realization of the evil nature of Islam, and I don't care what anybody might do to me if I don't adhere to their politically correct mantras - I know one of the reasons God chose me is because I have the courage to stand up for Him despite any repercussions that might come my way. Islam is the Beast from Revelations.

    Okay, well, this has veered pretty far away from feminism but my point is - I was nice guy who couldn't catch a break with a woman for the life of me. And when I thought I finally had caught one, I got rejected and one of the reasons was because I was 'too nice' (I would've rejected the old me too if I were her). I was pretty distraught, but then I went and prayed and God changed my whole life in seconds.

    Also, since this is the blog that led me to truth that led me to God, I have been meaning to write something like this and say 'Thank you, Dr. Schneiderman'. I didn't even know just how screwed up my thinking was, and it made me pretty angry to realize I had 6 tons of garbage shoveled in my brain from various sources my whole life. However, because I knew what I was reading was the truth...I just kept reading.

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  10. Good for you, Nick!
    Nice to see a happy ending/beginning :-)
    I say this as often as anyone will listen:
    Guys-stay true! Good guys CAN finish first!
    Girls- stay true! Keep your values, your self-worth, your integrity. The man you really want, want THESE In you...
    There will always be prostitutes, and easy women, and men who cheat (and women who do)
    I know my value, and know that I am also worth enough to walk away if i find myself with a "bad boy" who cheats with the women in this article "just because he can"

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  12. Young women today don't give away their charms to all young men, but only some young men, get young women showering them with sexual favours; and so, the ones who get left out, are a market for whores, including ones offering the 'girlfriend experience', which shows what they're really prefer, but are not able to obtain.

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  13. Ick; spelling error:

    What they'd really prefer

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  14. What's the old joke? Men don't pay prostitutes for sex, they pay them to go away afterwards.

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  15. Nice observation. There are still a lot of escorts out there who are classy and appealing. These are the type of prostitutes who don't only go for money, but also for some class.

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