As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. – Josh Billings
One year ago today I published “Numerology”, my most-viewed post of all time (discounting the three with extremely popular illustrations). As of today it has been viewed 3790 times, and that doesn’t count all the times it was viewed on the home page. I’m really quite proud of that article because as far as I know it’s the only realistic estimate ever done of the number of professional whores in the United States; previous estimates either counted only streetwalkers (and were therefore far too low), or else presented wild guesses dressed up as facts. Despite what the trafficking fanatics claim, figures based on sound methodology and realistic estimates are very important, unless of course one wants to sound like an idiot by claiming that about one in ninety teenage girls in America is a “sex slave”, that the number of “sex slaves” in the world exceeds the population of Australia by a considerable margin, or that there are as many one-year-old hookers as 25-year-olds.
So, I’ve decided to observe this column’s first birthday by presenting a catalog of other essays and studies, both mine and others’, arranged by title, with a short description after each. I hope it proves especially useful to those of you who are writing essays of your own or debating prohibitionists and need a convenient list of supporting materials.
All Shapes and Sizes: Basic data on the size and shape of human genitalia.
Amazingly Stupid Statements: My answers to a number of common non-statistical prohibitionist arguments.
As Young As Possible: My debunking of The Schapiro Group’s Atlanta “study”.
Bad Fantasy, Good Reality: The truth about 10% of women declared “trafficked sex slaves” by the U.S. State Department.
Bad Jobs: The ten most depressing jobs in the U.S.; sex work is not among them.
The Ban on Purchasing Sex in Sweden: The So-Called “Swedish Model” by Bob Wallace, Principal Policy Officer, Office of the Prostitution Licensing Authority of Queensland (See Down Under)
Beyond Gender: An Examination of Exploitation in Sex Work by Suzanne Jenkins (See Out of Context)
Bone of Contention: Contains links to a few different (but very similar) estimates of the percentage of all prostitutes who work on the street.
By the Numbers: An analysis of how Prostitution and the Sex Discrepancy in Reported Number of Sexual Partners (see below) supports my estimate of the total U.S. prostitute population.
Chupacabra: Demonstrates that the fraction of prostitutes with abusive, controlling pimps is almost the same as the number of women in the general population with abusive, controlling husbands/boyfriends; also links statistics of underage girls with pimps.
Coming and Going: Contains a calculation of the annual amount of money the state of Texas wastes on incarcerating prostitutes.
A Commentary on “Challenging Men’s Demand for Prostitution in Scotland” by Teela Sanders et al (See A Load of Farley)
The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York City by Ric Curtis, Meredith Dank, et al (The John Jay Study; see A Narrow View and Water Seeks Its Own Level)
The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico by Richard Estes and Neil Weiner (See A Tale That Grew in the Telling)
Counterfeit Comfort: Reports on the cost and ineffectiveness of sex offender registries.
Deconstructing the Myth of Careful Study: A Primer on the Flawed Progression of the Child Pornography Guidelines by Troy Stabenow (a scathing critique of federal guidelines for “child pornography” sentencing)
Dirty Whores: Statistics on STI transmission and the shocking rate by which the infection rate in promiscuous amateurs exceeds that in professionals.
Dirty Whores (update): Statistics on the rise of STIs among British amateurs, including the admission that sex workers are not an important vector of such infections.
Dog Bites Man: Reports on Catherine Hakim’s study which demonstrates that the rate of hypergamy (“marrying up”) among Western women has actually increased since the 1940s.
Don’t Buy It: My debunking of the notion that major sporting events are accompanied by a rise in prostitution (with links to evidence).
Down Under: My synopsis of The Ban on Purchasing Sex in Sweden (see above)
The Growing Moral Panic Over Prostitution and Sex Trafficking by Ronald Weitzer: I think the title is self-explanatory.
Handy Figures: A compilation of figures which appeared in other columns, with links.
Harm Reduction (May update one): Links to a study showing that Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs actually reduced their use.
Human Trafficking, Sex Work Safety and the 2010 Games: Assessments and Recommendations by the Sex Industry Worker Safety Action Group: An exhaustive study which conclusively demonstrates that there is absolutely no correlation between mega sports events and either sex trafficking or a dramatic increase in prostitution (See Don’t Buy It).
Imaginary Crises: My report on Christina Hoff Sommers’ debunking of the claim of a “rape epidemic” on American university campuses.
In Their Own Words: A short list of very telling quotations from neofeminists.
John Jay Study: See The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York City
July Q & A: Reports on surveys of favorite sexual positions, by percentage of respondents.
The Law of Averages: My calculation of the real average age at which American prostitutes enter the trade, with a link to Emi Koyama’s debunking of the “average entry at 13” propaganda.
A Load of Farley: My debunking of Melissa Farley’s work in general and “The Growing Demand for Prostitution” in particular, with links to other articles debunking her as well.
Lying Down With Dogs: Contains an unflattering list of all countries in which prostitution is criminalized.
Meretrices and Prostibulae: A glossary of the many types of whores found in ancient Rome.
A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse by Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman: A vilified, censured study which demonstrates that (contrary to popular belief) consensual sexual contact does no psychological or emotional harm to most legal minors.
Moloch: Facts on “children” (i.e. legal minors) committed to the “sex offender” registry.
More Q & A: What percentage of men see prostitutes?
Mortality in a Long-term Open Cohort of Prostitute Women by John Potterat, et al: Study of streetwalker mortality rates misquoted by Melissa Farley (see A Load of Farley) to claim that “the average prostitute dies at 34”.
The Mythology of Prostitution by Ronald Weitzer: A general critique of neofeminist anti-prostitute propaganda
A Narrow View: Introduces the John Jay study (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York City, see above), which demonstrates that few underage prostitutes have pimps.
New Directions in Research on Prostitution by Ronald Weitzer (See Out of Context)
Not an Addiction and Neither Addiction nor Epidemic: Debunking the notion of “sex addiction”.
Out of Context: Quotes and links several studies of sex worker satisfaction and reveals the sources of many of the false claims made by prohibitionists about sex work.
The Pigeons Come Home: A synopsis of Calum Bennachie’s complaint to the APA about Melissa Farley (see below), with links.
Pimps: Contains my calculation of the fraction of prostitutes controlled by abusive pimps.
Pornography, Public Acceptance and Sex-Related Crime: A Review by Milton Diamond: Demonstrates that as availability of porn increases, sex crimes decrease.
Pornography’s Effects: The Need for Solid Evidence by Ronald Weitzer: A review of two neofeminist anti-porn screeds (by Karen Boyle and Gail Dines)
The Pro-Rape Coalition: Contains statistics (with links) demonstrating the positive effects of porn on society.
The Proper Study: Explains why there are so many bogus prostitution studies and links a number of good ones.
Prostitution and Sex Crimes by Kirby Cundiff: Demonstrates that sex crimes decrease when prostitution is decriminalized and predicts a 25% decrease in rape if it were decriminalized in the U.S.
Prostitution and the Sex Discrepancy in Reported Number of Sexual Partners by John Potterat et al: Contains a census of streetwalkers and demonstrates that most male infidelity is conducted with prostitutes. (See By the Numbers)
The Punitive Mindset (update): Links to a number of resources on the subject of masturbation in prison, including laws restricting it, statistics on female guards in male prisons and studies (including Pornography, Public Acceptance and Sex-Related Crime) demonstrating that pornography reduces rape.
Request to APA to revoke Melissa Farley’s Membership by Calum Bennachie (See The Pigeons Come Home)
Sales Pitch: My synopsis of The Swedish Sex Purchase Act: Claimed Success and Documented Effects (see below)
Schadenfreude: Contains a number of links to material detailing the abuses heaped upon sex workers by those who claim to be “rescuing” them.
A Short Glossary of Prohibitionism: I think this is self-explanatory.
The Social Construction of Sex Trafficking by Ronald Weitzer: I think this is also self-explanatory.
The Soft Weapon: Synopsizes and links the Village Voices’s debunking of Schapiro Group “studies”.
The Swedish Sex Purchase Act: Claimed Success and Documented Effects by Susanne Dodillet and Petra Östergren (See Sales Pitch)
A Tale That Grew in the Telling: My debunking of the Estes & Weiner study (The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, see above), from which so much “trafficking” propaganda is derived.
A Tale That Grew in the Telling (update): Reports the latest absurd lies about “sex trafficking”.
Terminology and More Terminology: Short glossaries of terms used by hookers, both online and off.
That’s the Ticket!: My debunking of the 2012 “prostitution census” and accompanying map released by French prohibitionist group Fondation Scelles.
A Thousand Words: A visual demonstration of why “trafficking” fanatics should support decriminalization.
Validation: Describes Jennifer Hafer’s University of Arkansas study, which demonstrates that most women make a rational decision to enter prostitution.
Validation (update): Describes Nick Mai’s study, which debunks several key aspects of trafficking propaganda.
The View from the North: Links to a Canadian study which demonstrates that “most prostitutes are consenting adults who do the work to pay the bills like any other job, that only about 15% are streetwalkers, and that very few are forced into the work by men.”
Village Voice Strikes Again: My synopsis of Village Voice’s attack on Ashton Kutcher’s spurious claims about “sex trafficking”.
Waking Up: Contains a short synopsis of data from several studies on the attitudes of female university students toward sex work.
Water Seeks Its Own Level: A synopsis of information from the John Jay Study (“The typical [underage hooker] is not a tween girl, has not been sold into sexual slavery, and is not held captive by a pimp“) and Nick Mai’s study (“Most foreign prostitutes in London are not trafficked and choose to sell sex because it earns more money than other jobs“).
We Told You So: Reports on U.S. government findings of waste, fraud and abuse among groups who receive anti-trafficking grants.
What’s the Cost of a Rumour? by Julie Ham: Yet another study (this one commisioned by the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women) demonstrating that there is absolutely no link between large sporting events and either prostitution or “human trafficking”.
Where are the Victims? The Credibility Gap in Human Trafficking Research by Johnny McGaha and Amanda Evans: I think this title is also self-explanatory.
Who Watches the Watchmen?: Quotes and links a study showing that only a miniscule percentage of “missing” minors are actually abducted.
A Whore in the Bedroom (November 2011 update): Describes and links a study showing that a husband’s sexual satisfaction is the single greatest indicator of whether a marriage will succeed.
Wild Guessing (Part One) and Wild Guessing (Part Two): My debunking of the Schapiro Group’s “study” for the Dallas Women’s Foundation.
Other Resources (PDF)
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Fredrick Federley’s Anti-Swedish Model Speech to the Riksdag (May 12th, 2011) translated by Michael Goodyear
The Himel Decision (September 28th, 2010) overturning prostitution law in Ontario (complete text)
The Power of the Powerless by Václav Havel
The Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, June 2011 (recommends decriminalization of drugs in all countries)
Short critique of Janet Shibley Hyde’s “gender similarities hypothesis”
TSA waste graphic by Online Criminal Justice Degree (click to enlarge)
Twenty-One Different Frameworks of Sex Work Law and Still Counting by Cheryl Overs (various ways of categorizing legalization status)
Maggie, the Eve Bit First woman again.
http://evebitfirst.wordpress.com/page/2/
She writes about whores.
I’d like to know our diagnosis of what appears to be her delusion.
Maggie will have a better diagnosis – but my personal one is the woman is kind of afraid to defend her own position since she closed off comments to that post after one (favorable) comment. Not that I was going to post a comment though – I wasn’t.
See, there is the whole problem with her right there – it’s very hard to read anything else in that article after this very naïve statement from her – which completely ignores human evolution and human reality for the last 20,000 years …
I sound like an ass, every time I say this … so let me just say right up front. I think women are EQUAL to men – actually, maybe SUPERIOR. I LOVE women – everything about women … and not just the physical aspects … I like to talk to them about deep subjects and get their opinions on real issues. Women TEACH me things with their opinions. I don’t listen to them from a position of “patriarchy” – I listen to them as equals … actually no, normally when I talk to women – I’m making a conscious effort to make them think I am THEIR equal, when in many ways I don’t think I am.
Having said that … I will tell you that, I love my wife’s mind and her stimulating conversation, but if it weren’t for her vagina – I would have married some intellectually stimulating man and made him my life partner.
Every single woman I see on the street – my mind evaluates her as a potential sex partner. Every woman I get introduced to at work, or at a party – I’m evaluating her as a sex partner – straight off the bat. Even if I have no intention of having sex with the woman – I’m still making the evaluation in my mind.
Women shouldn’t fear this evaluation. First of all, my standard for “doable” is a very big window – one that probably 75% of the women on the planet probably fall into as long as they aren’t too young or too old. If you’re 20 to 65 and not related to me, hey sister – you’re in there!
Second thing is – I’m totally capable of grasping your mind whether you pass my sexual partner test or not – and I don’t treat you any differently (I just won’t be fantasizing about you later if you don’t pass my test).
I came REALLY close to cheating on my wife once with a coworker – and I felt guilty as shit about it – like … guilt of an order of magnitude I’ve never experienced before.
I have had sex with a high-class hooker … but I didn’t feel guilty about that. I WAS worried about STD’s … which is why I insisted on two condoms (which turned out to be a bad idea – no problem, just ripped one off).
Now – the REASON I felt guilty about the coworker that I did not have sex with – is because I was actually surrendering my heart to that woman. That is something that only belongs to my wife. I can easily separate sex from love. Love is exclusively for my wife.
But sex with the hooker – she was fun … there was no love involved, just a lot of clean and slippery fun. And, I was “quarantined” for 6 weeks in a remote location after that so I would have plenty of time to see if I caught anything from her (I didn’t).
This is the way guys are (I think) – and this is the way that they’ve always been. And this is what “Eve Bit The Apple” can’t comprehend. That men and women are different this way.
I think women are EQUAL to men – actually, maybe SUPERIOR. I LOVE women – everything about women … and not just the physical aspects … I like to talk to them about deep subjects and get their opinions on real issues. Women TEACH me things with their opinions. I don’t listen to them from a position of “patriarchy” – I listen to them as equals.
Women are essential which is a lot more important than being considered equal to some man. Aside from sex/reproduction, they function as a sort of “social glue” holding society together, and have a calming/civilizing effect on males generally. Plus their unique and valuable viewpoints as you mention. In short, when females are marginalized, societies tend to stagnate and become more brutal.
My inferiority complex with women stems from their ability to completely disconnect their thinking from their sexual desires. It also stems from their independence. I really don’t feel a lot of self-worth unless I’m part of an organization, or a group. A lot of my identification with myself comes from my position in the organization or group – or the value of my contributions to it. Women are not that way, I kind of admire that.
Having said that – I will say that women have their problems. One is … other women. They don’t work as well with other women as men do with men – I witnessed this on my ship with the integrated crew. Can’t tell you how many “cat fights” I had in female berthing over piddly-assed things. One fight was caused over the use of a stool. One fight was caused by a woman who walked routinely out of the shower to her bunk – naked (where’s the problem?) … LOL.
And they brought every single one of those cat fight issues to me to resolve – which I handed off to a female Senior Chief.
In male berthing – they sometimes held “WWE” wrestling matches – with blood and everything. I never heard one word about those.
This compilation is more awesome than the Beatles “1967-1970” album! I’m bookmarking this!
I hadn’t read your article on hypergamy (women marrying up) … I wasn’t reading your blog a year ago. I DID get into a debate with someone over this Ruth Marcus OpEd – about how the marriage gap is exacerbating economic mobility …
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-marriage-gap-presents-a-real-cost/2011/12/16/gIQAz24DzO_story.html
She seems to actually try saying that women aren’t “marrying up” the way they used to be – at least in total numbers.
I’m not that happy about the state of marriage in America these days – because I’m believer in the institution. However, I’m not concerned that it needs to be encouraged – or worse, forced, upon anyone. I think marriage … or some form of it – is a natural human condition and it’s been around since humankind began. I believe that the “nanny state” now devalues what men could traditionally contribute to a marriage – but this is completely a temporary condition – since every nation in the world is about to shed its “nanny governments” due to economic unsustainability. When humans can no longer rely on the government as a safety net – they (men and women) will start to rely on one another again.
Anyway – that was my argument to what Ruth Marcus wrote … yeah, it’s probably a problem – but not for long and it will solve itself.
Thank you, Krulac! 🙂
Robert Heinlein once wrote an essay in which he criticized those who attacked “Doc” Smith stories for featuring a traditional male-female dynamic; Heinlein pointed out that considering men and women related that way for all of human history and have only pretended to be “equal” for a generation (he wrote the essay in the early ’80s) it’s both culturally chauvinist and ridiculous in the extreme to imagine that all future societies will follow our present pattern rather than the one which was the norm for hundreds of times longer.
I agree. I think that treating one sex as legally inferior to the other is probably doomed in the Western tradition (for however long that will last), but it appears that social sex roles are already starting to make a comeback (much to the chagrin of the neofeminists). The attempt at a “genderless” society will eventually be nothing but an historical curiosity.
Maggie,
The problem is that the legal — esp. in the increasingly hysterical and punitive regime of feminism — defines the “social.”
There is very little western life outside the law.
This is the ever-worsening problem.
Considering that the Doc Smith series was written in the ’30s and ’40s, it can be forgiven for whatever mild sexism it has. That was typical for science fiction at the time. But anything that I read that was written from the ’60s forward either has equality of the sexes, or it’s garbage. And that includes Heinlein’s work.
An exception to this would be if the future society had inequality, but worked or struggled to equality.
My favorite was the John Norman “GOR” series. I really “dug” the male / female dynamic in that one!
Very easy reading for a dummy like me – and the Boris covers were a plus! 😛
And I dated, for six months – the only woman on the planet that dug “GOR” as much as I did. I’ll digress no further on that point.
That wasn’t Heinlein’s point in the essay; the people he criticized weren’t attacking legal inequality, but gender-role disparity. In other words they wanted to believe that in the future men and women would be indistinguishable other than for the glands, and Heinlein pointed out that’s not going to happen.
So when Smith had 40 leading scientists all male, and their 40 assistants all female, that’s a reasonable representation of the inclinations and abilities of men and women? To be sure, that was a constructed example for a purpose, but in the absence of systematic discrimination, there’s no way they’d get out of dock without having some pointed questions asked simply on the basis of the extreme the improbability of that arising by chance. You don’t need to have forced quotas for that kind of low-entropy arrangement raising eyebrows.
That it didn’t raise those eyebrows until way too late… well, I kind of lost him there.
@Gorbachev
Eve’s Daughter’s defintion of rape is so broad it fits every male in existence. Example: if you describe what kind of woman you are attracted to, you are a rapist. As a brunette, I might be offended by a man saying he likes blonds better, but that’s not rape.
Methinks this woman is off her rocker.
Maggie,
I’m curious if you have seen the Swedish movies based on Stieg Larsson’s series starting with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and, if so, what you thought about them.
No, I haven’t seen many movies in theaters since we left New Orleans in 2006; the nearest theater is 20 miles away and they always show movies at idiotic times like 4:00 or 6:00 (I prefer matinees).
You should read the books then, not that I’m saying that the film (I’ve only seen the first) isn’t good, but you are a librarian 😉
If you knew how many books are stacked up waiting for me to read…and seriously, I rarely if ever read novels any more. I did read a few short ones just a few months before I started this blog in 2010, but before that I hadn’t tackled one in a decade, since I started stripping. No, stripping didn’t atrophy my brain cells; I was just too tired when I got home to read anything longer than a short story, and once I started escorting I wanted short pieces I could read with less chance of being interrupted by a call.
I understand the time crunch. I’ve only been to 4 movies in the last year and I also prefer matinees. In the 3 years before that I had only seen “Batman Begins” and the followup with Heath Ledger and the movie “300.”
All three of the “Millenium” movies are on NetFlix. My younger brother bought me a year’s subscription.
I don’t go to many movies because my reaction too often is, “Well, that’s $10.00 and two hours I’ll never get back.
Exactly. We just wait for the reviews, buy the DVD used and watch it at our leisure.
Well, I just put a couple more .pdf on my hard drive.
Thanks.
Yet another bookmark of awesomeness to add to my collection.
Thank you!!! 😀
Wow….this is going to take some reading…thanks for putting so many links in one place..I will put this in CAF so I can find it again easily.
Thanks for this Maggie. I do appreciate it.
You’re welcome.