Prostitution is not just a service industry, mopping up the overflow of male demand, which always exceeds female supply. Prostitution testifies to the amoral power struggle of sex…. Prostitutes, pornographers, and their patrons are marauders in the forest of archaic night. – Camille Paglia
Just how old is the “world’s oldest profession”? Many people (including myself) feel it’s just a formalized version of natural female behavior, and I’ve discussed this idea at least twice before (on October 12th and January 17th). The latter column was inspired by one written by Amanda Brooks, and a number of working girls commenting on these columns stated that the work felt perfectly natural to them, or that they were drawn to it at an early age. But whores aren’t the only ones contemplating the origins of our profession; some evolutionary biologists think about it as well. Regular reader Joyce sent me a link to the March 6th entry in a blog called The Scientific Fundamentalist which appears on the Psychology Today website. The blog is written by Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics (who is currently a visiting scholar at Cornell) and the column is called “Do Men Try To Impress Prostitutes?”:
…In the epilogue of… [Superfreakonomics] entitled “Monkeys are people too,” Levitt and Dubner discuss the research by M. Keith Chen and Laurie R. Santos with capuchin monkeys. Chen and Santos introduced money in a small group of capuchin monkeys and taught them how to use it. Eventually, the capuchins learned that coins had value and they could exchange them for valuable commodities like food. One of the things that Chen and Santos discovered in their research is just how humanlike the capuchins are. As soon as they learned that coins had value, one of the male capuchins gave a coin to a female in exchange for sex. Yes, capuchins engage in prostitution. The observation that nonhuman species engage in prostitution is not new, however. Frans de Waal and other primatologists have long observed that bonobos also engaged in prostitution, by exchanging food for sex.
If monkeys and apes routinely engage in prostitution, then it means that the evolutionary origin of prostitution probably dates back before we were human. It means that prostitution is indeed the world’s oldest profession.
Kanazawa then goes on to describe a passage of the book in which a man describes an encounter with an escort in which he tried to impress her, and then continues:
…This does not make sense…if the evolutionary origin of prostitution thus dates back long before we were human, then it means that prostitution is evolutionarily familiar…[and] men’s brains should be able to recognize prostitutes and to treat them differently from “ordinary” women, whom they do have to impress if they want to have sex with them. In other words, there should be an evolved “hooker module” in the brain. The deep evolutionary origin of prostitution and prostitutes and thus their evolutionary familiarity suggest that men would not try to impress prostitutes, because they know it is not necessary…I don’t suppose there are any systematic and high-quality data on how men treat prostitutes, whether they indeed try to impress them, even when sex with them is a sure thing. If it turns out that men routinely attempt to impress prostitutes before having sex, then it means that prostitution is evolutionarily novel and it is not the world’s oldest profession.
He then went on to cite research showing that “intelligent men are significantly more likely ever to have paid for sex”, which he said also suggested that prostitution is a recent development. While I was glad to see the subject seriously being studied, I was a little put out over Kanazawa’s conclusions. Still, he seemed like an open-minded person so I decided to take the plunge: I looked up his email address and sent him an email stating that I had read his article and was confused by his logic:
This presumes that prostitutes are fundamentally different from what I call “amateurs”, which we aren’t; your assumption seems to be based on the fallacies that 1) prostitutes provide a consistent level of service no matter how we’re treated, and 2) that to a man, all sex is good sex. While the second statement may certainly be true of some men…it isn’t by any stretch of the imagination true of most; the average client of a $300/hour hooker…wants a good, quality “girl friend experience” (GFE) which will be much more likely if he treats his “date” like a lady. Most escorts who are treated as though they’re “bought and paid for” will try to complete the act as quickly as possible and get such a client out the door. Furthermore, in my experience the typical client enjoys the illusion that a beautiful woman wants to spend time with him, even if he intellectually knows she is there for the money. I guarantee you that the majority of my clients tried their utmost to impress me, even to the point of bringing me gifts, flowers and the like.
I went on to say that I reckon intelligent men are more likely to have patronized us because they are more likely to make “the reasonable and pragmatic decision to spend [their] money on a ‘sure thing’ rather than chasing women whose price and quality are uncertain.” I rather expected to be ignored; I worried that my letter might be taken as rude and I thought Kanazawa might dismiss me as some silly tart with notions. Well, I was pleasantly surprised; less than two hours later he replied very graciously thanking me for my input and asking a number of questions which let me know that he was not merely being polite, but was genuinely interested in my thoughts on the subject. We exchanged several emails over the next few hours and he told me he’ll be doing a follow-up article based in part on our conversations, and will let me know when it’s published. In the meantime, I read a number of his other columns (especially this one on modern feminism and the ones on sex differences linked within it) and found them quite interesting; I suspect y’all will, too.
It should also be remembered that a prostitute is still a potential mate. Should a man meet her in a non-professional context (which was very likely in the small groups in which humans have lived throughout most of our evolutionary history), he will want her to remember him as a gentleman, not as the guy who was cold and who was all “I paid, do it, I’m gone.”
I of all people should remember that! 🙂
I posted something about this on facebook last week and a long, very interesting conversation ensued with many participants. If you use fb you could look it up on my wall.
Who would have thought animals and people would use their attractiveness to get what thy want? Why, I’m absolutely shocked at that idea, I tell you. Shocked. If you believe that, then I have some seafront property at the Martian South Pole I’d be interested in selling.
I read a couple of very entertaining books in which a good deal of the action was set near the sea at the Martian South Pole.
Not saying I’m ready to invest in any real estate, just that, well…
Humans usually try to impress each other and want to be appreciated. If people conduct a commercial transaction, that doesn’t close all other paths of communication. Only someone who thinks men don’t see prostitutes as actual human beings would get the idea that men should have a inbuilt “prostitute mode”. If this would actually be the case, there would also have to be a general “seller mode”- with Kanazawas reasoning, why should anyone bother to be nice to the shop clerc or impress waiters with their wine-knowlege, if they are already getting what they want anyway?
In any case, it doesn’t really make sense as there are many regulars who want to have a good relationship with their provider. Also, impressing prostitutes may make them more enthusiasic. Kanazawa seems to think that all men who visit prostitutes don’t care about what she thinks about the experience, which of course is not true.
I think our correspondence may have opened his eyes, so I’m quite interested to see the follow-up in a few weeks. 🙂
So am I.
From what I’ve read here, it seems that many prostitutes are annoyed by clients who care too much about what she thinks of the experience.
Not quite; it’s more that we’re annoyed by those who make a big deal out of it and won’t accept if a girl wants him to take the lead. Most of the time that’s not because he cares too much, but because he’s being passive-aggressive or trying to get inside her head (which is a BIG no-no for most girls as it feels like a violation).
I wonder if he has one intention and she’s thinking something else? The two could be talking past each other. This is pretty common even in everyday life, and even more so between men and women. Add in the fact that most men who hire whores don’t know much about them…
That’s certainly possible; I hardly think the average client would ask the “What do you want?” question if he understood it would annoy his date or put her on the spot, and most probably wouldn’t pry if they realized how uncomfortable it makes us.
I always hated Kanazawa’s article against “modern feminism” since it isn’t really talking about any one specific variety of feminism but rather ALL feminism. Essentially he claims that women ought only to complaim when men fail in their roles as providers, or threaten them and their children. Yes, all you ladies should be perfectly happy as long as you have comfortable lives, pop out plenty of kids, and a chance of raise those kids rights, no need to go out and have a life or achievments of your own.
If my sarcasm doesn’t convince, there was another Pyschology Today writer with a nice response:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/snow-white-doesnt-live-here-anymore/200908/why-anti-feminism-is-illogical-unnecessary-evil-and-
Okay, mostly it’s just saying that feminism isn’t bad. But like the guys from her school I think most men worry about fitting in with other guys more than sex. Contradicting evolutionary theory.
Then there’s this article by Kanazawa himself:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200907/the-imposter-syndrome
He has no answer for imposter syndrome, and admits it. But from a sociological viewpoint it’s F***ing obvious. Society tells women thye can’t succeed, so when they succeed anyway that success seems like a fluke or a fraud. It can’t be real because then their cultural programming would be wrong. Where as men just point to their own competence.
In his correspondence with me Kanazawa indicated that his concept of “modern feminism” was exactly equivalent to mine of “neofeminism”, the political movement which teaches (in defiance of science) that there are no true gender differences and that everyone should be judged by the male standards of income, career achievement and power in a masculine political hierarchy. Since the majority of women don’t define “success” in those terms (especially not unconsciously) neofeminism is ultimately an exercise in futility. When you say “society tells women they can’t succeed” you appear to be falling into this same fallacy, since I was never told any such thing nor has any other woman I know. It’s just that society, and indeed most women, doesn’t define “success” for women as the exact same thing as “success” for men, nor should it. If an individual woman (such as Amelia Earhart) chooses to accomplish “success” by male standards it’s certainly her right to do so, but the neofeminists want ALL women to define success in that way, and this can never be because women are not men and most of us cannot be happy living by masculine rules and being judged by masculine standards. As William Blake said, “One law for the lion and ox is oppression.”
Kanazawa, like Paglia, recognizes that human beings in general and women in particular are prisoners of our own biology and tend to direct our unresolvable anger at Mother Nature toward the other sex rather than learning to live with it as whores do. I certainly don’t think he’s right about everything; this very column demonstrates the opposite. But I think he’s a helluva lot closer to reality than the neofeminists are.
Since so many of us are picking on Kanazawa…
“…any reasonably attractive young woman exercises as much power over men as the male ruler of the world does over women.”
Now that’s just bullshit. A “male ruler of the world” (or female ruler, for that matter) can have somebody put to death at whim. Now I will be the first to admit that a pretty girl has a power over me out of proportion to her size, muscles, or wealth, but “any reasonably attractive young woman” can’t just declare “off with his head” and it’s done. I have to assume that Kanazawa meant something else when he said that, because that’s just stupid, and he doesn’t seem like a stupid man… until he said that.
I think he was exaggerating for effect; if you’ll follow the link there you’ll see his argument.
Is imposter syndrome mostly a female thing? I always assumed it was common in both sexes. But I must admit I haven’t read much about it.
Intelligent men can also more easily deconstruct propaganda; none of the arguments against professional sex make any real sense. Additionally, having more money than the average man also helps.