Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. – H.L. Mencken
One year ago today I published “November Q & A”, in which I answered the questions “Would you like to do a science fiction anthology with sex work as a subject?”, “How were you able to get through anal rape without screaming?”, “Did a condom ever break inside you?” and “Doesn’t monogamy get kinda old for a sexually liberated woman like yourself?” But from an activist standpoint, the most important question was, “So if the average age at which a woman enters prostitution isn’t really 13, what age is it?” In retrospect, I probably should’ve given that question a column of its own or at least led off with it, because whenever I’ve referred back to that post I have to specify that it’s the second answer. So today, I plan to revisit the subject and recalculate the figure using excerpts from previous columns, thus bringing a few threads together in one easily-linked place.
If you’re arguing with someone who has bought into the trafficking mythology and won’t sit still for the recitation of figures, there’s a very simple reductio ad absurdum with which you can point out the impossibility of the claim: If the “average age” of a given group of people is 13, that means that (roughly speaking) for every 14-year-old in the group there is a 12-year-old, for every 17-year-old a 9-year-old, etc. In other words, if the “average age at which a girl enters prostitution” were really 13, for every woman who started at 25 there would be someone who started at 1. Obviously, this isn’t exact; one 40-year-old could also be balanced by nine 10-year-olds, but I honestly don’t think even the trafficking fanatics believe that kind of age imbalance could possibly exist. They simply don’t consider the implications of their bogus “statistics”; they merely parrot them without thought and therefore never recognize just how ludicrous they are. But who started this nonsense in the first place?
As so often happens, the bogus “fact” is based on a (possibly deliberate) distortion of a miscalculation in a deeply-flawed, badly-structured 2001 study by Richard Estes and Neil Weiner of the University of Pennsylvania entitled “The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U. S., Canada and Mexico”, which is also the source of the ubiquitous (and equally erroneous) claim that “100,000-300,000 American children are trafficked as sexual slaves”. Estes and Weiner claim that among the underage prostitutes they studied, “The age range of entry…for the boys…was somewhat younger than that of the girls, i.e., 11-13 years vs. 12-14 years, respectively.” In other words, they claimed that the “13 at entry” figure was only for underage prostitutes, not for all prostitutes, and even then it’s absurd as explained in the preceding paragraph. Without seeing Estes & Weiner’s data we can’t be sure exactly what statistical errors they made, but as Emi Koyama of Eminism explains, there’s a built-in error caused by using the artificial cutoff age of 18:
For the sake of discussion, let’s pretend that in a small town, six minors enter into prostitution each year, one individual each for ages 12-17. That means that there is one 12 year old, one 13 year old, one 14 year old, and so on. The average age of entry in this hypothetical town is the average of these six individuals, which is (12+13+14+15+16+17)/6 = 14.5. But when researchers arrive in this town, they don’t just survey these six minors: they will also survey others who have started prostitution in the years past. So for any given year when the research is conducted, there are one 12 year old (who entered at 12), two 13 year olds (entered at 12 and 13), three 14 year olds (entered at 12, 13, and 14), and so on. The average among all of these youth will be…13.7 – which is almost one year younger than the actual average age of entry. This discrepancy is caused by limiting the research subject to minors. [One] who entered into prostitution at age 12 has six years in which he or she might be surveyed…while [one] who entered at 17 has only one year, which artificially inflates the proportion of research participants who entered early. In short, we cannot know the actual “average age of entry” by simply averaging the age of entry reported by research participants.
Though Estes & Weiner didn’t share their data the charts provided by the anti-prostitute organization Shared Hope International (which seems to be the original source of the distortion from “the average underage prostitute” to “the average prostitute”) demonstrate (as Emi calculates) an average of 15.91, three years higher than their verbal claims and slightly higher than the average reported by the John Jay study, which was 15.15 for girls and 15.28 for boys. Incidentally, it also found that only 15% of teen hookers entered the trade at an age below 13, which absolutely demolishes any notion of 13 as “average”.
In last November’s essay I reported a study of 100 independent escorts which asked how old they were when they entered the trade; it generated the following results:
Younger than 15: 3%
15-17: 11%
18-20: 13%
21-23: 18%
24-26: 16%
27-29: 10%
30-32: 10%
Older than 32: 19%
A secondary poll of the “over 32” respondents revealed that the average age for that category was 42; we can estimate the average for the “under 15″ category as the fanatics’ beloved 13. Given these figures, the average age of entry into prostitution for American escorts is 26.46, which we’ll round down to 26. It’s difficult to know what percentage of all American prostitutes are escorts, but I would suspect 60% is a good guesstimate; with our standard 15% streetwalker estimate that would allow 25% in brothels and massage parlors.
At the time I wrote the previous article I had not yet made my study of the New Zealand figures and so was forced to err on the fanatics’ side regarding the number of streetwalkers who are underage. But based on that data, we can now make a much better estimate: there are roughly 16,000 underage female prostitutes in the U.S., of whom roughly 12,000 (75%) are streetwalkers. The total U.S. streetwalker population is approximately 70,000, therefore underage streetwalkers are about 17% of the total. Assuming that the average adult streetwalker starts about the same age as the average escort (which is probably a bit too high, but we’ll make it up on brothel girls in the next paragraph), and that the average underage streetwalker starts at 15 (the John Jay figure), we arrive at an average streetwalker entry age of 24.
There are about 443,000 prostitutes in the United States, of which we’ve estimated 25% (111,000) work in brothels or massage parlors. If we assume that the 25% of underage prostitutes who aren’t streetwalkers work in brothels (the percentage who are escorts is miniscule), that gives us 4000/111,000 = 3.6% of brothel workers who are underage, essentially equal to the total underage figure of 3.54%. I’m going to err on the fanatics’ side and assume that the average adult brothel worker begins at the overall streetwalker average of 24, and that the average underage brothel worker begins at the same age as the average underage streetwalker, namely 15; this gives us an average starting age for brothel workers of 23.68, which I’m going to round down to 23 to be on the safe side.
So let’s crunch the numbers: if 60% start at an average age of 26, 15% at an average age of 24 and 25% at an average age of 23, the average age at which American hookers enter the profession is 24.95, which we’ll round off to 25; I think everyone can agree that’s safely into the adult range.
Well, these guys are just out there “hiding the decline” the same way the East Anglia climate “scientists” were rigging their data in favor of global warming scaremongering.
Those guys were exposed – when their emails were released which showed they had an agenda that had nothing to do with “science”.
Why don’t some hookers get together to get “close” with these guys? I’m sure they’d gain a lot of intel and insight that could explode their mythical “data” to itty bitty pieces.
Bullshit. What the Anglia folks were hiding was misleading non-data, and the fact that they were hiding it was itself not hidden. How do you think they knew what the trick WAS? They didn’t invent it – they read it in a paper!
You’re right of course, but I wonder if it even matters. The enmity towards climate change isn’t based on news or scandal or science or anything else but this: if it is real, and if we are causing it, then we should do something about it. That would require governmental action. Governments are always the problem, never the solution. Therefore, any problem requiring a government solution does not exist.
Faith is the ability to believe whatever you want without evidence. Most religions require a devil, and for some of the faithful, government fills that role. Satan can’t be a good guy, even occasionally. You can’t argue with faith.
>A secondary poll of the “over 32” respondents revealed that the average age for that category was 42;
Just a few years younger than me, now. You inspire me to want to get back in the game…
Ok, why isn’t anyone asking the obvious question- If we accept, just for argument’s sake, that the streets and backpages are awash in underage hookers, why?
What is so wrong with the Red White and Blue, Apple Pie, Good Capitalist All-American Upright Christian Family that the kids are out turning tricks to survive?
That seems to be the real question.
Now I was on my own before I was 16. And let me tell you, it’s scary. Turning your first trick as a teenager is even scarier. Sure, at that age you think you are bullet proof, and nothing bad will happen, still, it’s right terrifying to actually do.
So what drives these kids to do it? Are they just bored in school one day, tired of their happy families, all the love and support, the plush existence, and say “I can’t be bothered with all this- I’m off to be a street hooker.”
I don’t think so.
So what’s so wrong at home that’s driving them to choose that?
Or is it perhaps that our picture of families is really, really off? Or maybe the kids ending up in sex work aren’t from those happy families, maybe home is bad enough to make the streets look better? Maybe they are making a rational, and for them positive choice? And what does that say about the alternatives we offer them?
Oh, we can’t think on that. In our capitalist society, we can’t even consider that perhaps we need a few social programs, perhaps there are problems in society we could address with them. Perhaps we should ask the rich bastards to chip in a bit of taxes. These kids are being good capitalists, they’re going out and making money. Aren’t we all happy with that?
But no, we can’t ask those questions, or consider that option. Better to launch hysterical witch hunts.
The nature of the sex business is that there are people who will take advantage of you. It’s probably so in every business. Doesn’t matter if you’re 15 or 50. There are clients whose whole joy is in getting the woman to go beyond her rules and comfort zone, and then bragging about it. There are always users.
But there’s a huge world of difference between being a scared 15 year old and a comfortable, experienced professional seeing screened clients. It’s chalk and cheese. Perhaps, if we won’t help the teens not have to leave home, or provide a place for them when they do, perhaps we’d best just get honest and admit that we really don’t give a damn about the actual teen hookers, and maybe do the best thing for them and provide them with ways to do what they do with more safety. Make it easy for them to get condoms, Make it legal to work.
But that’s not what it’s really about, and we all know it. It’s just another attempt to make an anti-sex hysteria look reasonable.
We’ve been running social programs for almost 60 years now but the problem gets worse.
My thoughts on this is that we have created a society where fathers have been replaced by the government. The only thing that’s changed is the number of single-parent households – which has skyrocketed.
Women don’t have to hold fathers to a standard anymore – because the government is there as a safety net.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m a Libertarian (definitely not a Socialist or fanatical Capitalist) – but kids do need both parents as role models. I know a lot of people want to minimize the role of fathers to simply “sperm donors” – and that’s pretty much what they’ve been since the 60’s.
However – we know the problem has only gotten worse because of this.
And … I consider myself somewhat of an expert on this because as a CMC in the Navy I had to deal with a LOT of troubled youths who joined the Navy (hundreds). A common thread in most of the problems was a single parent household or … a household in which there were two parents with at least one being completely dysfunctional.
Well, we’ve been fighting wars now for thousands of years, and they just get worse too. We’re no more secure than ever.
Sure, we’ve done social programs, mostly badly, because down deep, we really don’t believe in them.
>My thoughts on this is that we have created a society where fathers have been replaced by the government.
Really? Pretty easy, that was, wasn’t it? The government didn’t have to bust down doors, and drag resisting men away from their families. Seems to me like many men couldn’t wait to bail.
And I don’t totally blame them. We are, and remain, animals. And male animals, mostly, tend to fertilize and leave. That’s still the drive, down deep. We might as well admit it.
Also, see, we are so totally wedded to our concepts, that the two family hetro model is the very best, we won’t consider seriously anything else.
Let me tell you, from my experience- Any kid who has left home young, and has been on their own for a while is not going to easily go back to being someone’s child. It just doesn’t happen. They’re not adult yet, but they’re not children. And when you’re 15 and on your own, there aren’t many programs you can turn to that don’t get you shipped home or locked up.
No we are in agreement that men are childish these days – complete agreement there but that is because government covers up for our lack of commitment.
Am I an animal – well sure. However, I’m also capable of some pretty heavy reasoning and this makes me a bit different from most animals. I don’t think most animals really care about what kind of legacy they leave – I do. I don’t think most animals care about their reputation – I do. Perhaps most male animals don’t care about their offspring – I do. This isn’t something that a belief in God bestowed upon me – because I don’t know the nature of God. I think something is out there – but I’m not sure he or she is all too concerned with us. So I don’t get this from a religious belief – it is a functional part of my being.
As far as hetero families goes – I have no experience at all with homosexual parents and can’t say they’d be better or worse than hetero parents. Until I see something that says they’re worse – I’m just as willing to accept homosexual parents as I am hetero.
I’m totally not opposed to social programs for kids who need them – but what kind of programs are you talking about? Midnight Basketball? That doesn’t seem to be a serious way to address the problem and we all know government is very inefficient at whatever it does.
Just one more thing on us “men” …
No one is more upset with the state of manhood on this planet that me. I’m attempting to bring that status up but I think you are enabling bad male conduct when you “excuse” it with the rationalization that we’re “just animals” so what else can one expect?
Men … are capable of more.
I think hookers tend to expect less from men because you normally see us when we are cheating on our wives – which probably isn’t one of our “best” moments. I’m guilty of that too but I’ve only indulged in that kind of conduct when I knew I could afford it and my family wouldn’t suffer as a result of it – otherwise I’d have taken a pass on it.
On the few occasions (really only one) where I did cheat on my wife – it really wasn’t any better than with my wife. She’s still, by far, more exciting to me than any other woman … even after 25 years of marriage. But I must admit – the smell of another woman and the feeling of her body was something that definitely excited me. It didn’t negate any of the intense attachment I have for my wife though. Not even close.
But that also doesn’t show the full picture of who I am as a man. I have also raised three kids … took them fishing … took them to the hospital when they were sick … helped them with schoolwork … taught my son how to be a good man and my daughters how to spot a good man.
I’m not sure hookers see that part of us. It is, the major part of who we are though.
“And I don’t totally blame them. We are, and remain, animals. And male animals, mostly, tend to fertilize and leave. That’s still the drive, down deep. We might as well admit it.”
Perhaps my family is the exception, but the genealogy work I’ve done, confirmed by Y-chromosome analysis indicates stable families going back at least nine generations. Coming forward the same is true for a lot of families descended from that common ancestry.
There’s a rather old german saying.
“Traue niemals einer Statistik, die Du nicht selbst gefälscht hast!”
And it’s true, you cannot ever trust any statistics – unless you know for a fact that it was you who manipulated them to whatever end.
I commend you for your effort, however, I fear it to be almost meaningless, just a voice in the woods nobody will hear.
Sorry if I am ranting a bit here. The lack of options for teens from unsuitable homes is one of those topics I have strong feeling about, as I have experience with it.
I’m not bashing men. I don’t have a low opinion of them at all. I’m just pointing out that women’s role in producing and raising children is biologically built in, part of the structure. That’s not to say women don’t neglect, and abandon their children, but it’s more rare, and more difficult.
For men, after fertilization, their role is socially constructed, and thus easier to break. (Ok, admittedly, I’m going on theory here. I’ve no personal experience, and can’t really know what being a father means to a man, so feel free to tell me I’m talking bollocks.)
Most teens on their own are frightened, and so try to build as tough a shell as possible. They’re suspicious (Rightly so, it’s a good survival trait). Any effective program would not try to coddle or control, wouldn’t ask questions, would simply offer a safe space and help if wanted. If the kids are going to hook, we could make it safer for them. There’s a point of view that the more dangerous we make it, they are more likely to be deterred. We see how well that’s worked. The possibility of future disaster versus the need for a meal doesn’t equal out in the teen age mind.
No CG, you are right about men these days.
I just think there is a negative dynamic at play here (several of them actually). Personally, I think women “give it up” to easily. The price a man has to pay (for “free” sex) – is incredibly low these days because women have birth control, abortion, and when all else fails – the government to mitigate the cost to them of getting pregnant.
In the past – women didn’t have these safety nets and therefore demanded a higher price for sex … usually some kind of commitment from the male.
I really don’t see where any “normal” woman can look down on a prostitute. At least the hooker has established a price for what she’s providing to the man. It’s ironic to me that any woman can look down at a prostitute as someone who is “cheap” and of lesser morals.
Another dynamic at play here is the death of the family. My great grandfather didn’t have social security to fall back on. Instead, he reared a large family and it was his kids who took care of him in his old age when he could no longer work or support himself. This was the way it was – so there was a stimulus there for men to commit to a relationship and a family – because the quality of his life depended on it. No longer though. Men can go through life any way they please – and have the government provide for them in their old age.
I really don’t see where any “normal” woman can look down on a prostitute. At least the hooker has established a price for what she’s providing to the man. It’s ironic to me that any woman can look down at a prostitute as someone who is “cheap” and of lesser morals.
Exactly. The only advantage a typical promiscuous amateur has over a professional is social status – which is entirely artificial anyway. In terms of ethics, skills, cleanliness and beauty, the prostitute wins comfortably (on average).
You are talking about the Good Old Days, which sucked big green donkey dicks. In particular, the Days weren’t Good if you were Old. In the Days, being old = being poor, unless that family you committed to was a wealthy one. If not, then yeah, your family did what it could for you, which wasn’t much.
We tend to act like things were so much better in the past, when by most metrics, it was horrid. Children worked in dangerous conditions, advancing age meant not only declining health but declining wealth, and the streets stank of both horseshit and peopleshit. Many parents stayed together and screamed at each other all night for the sake of the children. A reporter in London hired a ten year old prostitute with less than a single day’s effort, just to show how easy it was. Even the antis don’t claim that for today.
I like jousting, Elvis, steampunk, Zorro and campfires as much as the next guy, but if there is any Golden Age, we have yet to reach it. It lies not in the past, that’s for damned sure.
I don’t have a link for that London ten-year-old thing, so feel free to throw it out. Eight year old male chimney sweeps will substitute nicely. If the story about the girl is true, one almost feels relief that she had less onerous options.
“Young age of entry…was identified as an age-old myth by Winick and Kinsie (1971) in their classic book on prostitution. Contemporary studies have reported varying percentages of individuals who started selling sex when they were minors. These studies (e.g., Hester and Westmarland 2004) have documented that only a minority began to prostitute before age 18 and an even smaller percentage before 14.”
(from The Mythology of Prostitution: Advocacy Research and Public Policy by Ronald Weitzer Sex Res Soc Policy (2010) 7:15–29)
…and yet the myths live on, which is one matter, but to have them consistently appear on official Government web sites is the really galling thing.
Maggie,
Here are more stats for general indigestion.
Apparently, 1/5 women in colleges are sexually assaulted.
If this were true, it would make American colleges more dangerous than any warzone in history. Something smells like Agenda or Nefarious Stinkitude here.
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/11/28/schools-must-protect-students-from-sexual-violence/
Actually, that’s down from their old claim of “one in four”. I discussed the most recent developments on that front in “Setting Women’s Rights Back a Century“.
“Average” is another weasel word; is it the mean — the arithmetical average, the median — the value in the middle, or the mode — the most common value? Any creative sort can use whichever to effectively manipulate the data.
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maybe im misunderstanding, but i feel like through alot of this the author is saying theres no difference between forced prostitution/sex trafficking vs a person willing going into prostitution, and that there is nothing wrong with forced prositution/sex trafficking…
A wise person might look around a bit before making silly comments, rather than doing the equivalent of writing a review after reading one page out of a book of essays.
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