This essay first appeared in Cliterati on April 14th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.
Intellectual laziness can manifest itself in many ways, of which one of the most common (and irrational) is black and white thinking. Humans are highly variable creatures whose characteristics, behaviors, beliefs, preferences, tastes, etc are often very different from one another; between the two most extreme points on any scale there are an incalculable number of different positions, and in any population one is likely to find as many different opinions on any given subject as there are people. But one would never know this from talking to the dualist; he insists on pretending that everyone is clustered near the endpoints, and willfully ignores every shade of grey in between. But this view of human reality is not only limited, it’s wrong; on most subjects, only a small minority of individuals can be found in those extreme endpoints, and the great majority fall somewhere in the middle.
What makes this fallacious dichotomization even worse is that people who might not be inclined to think that way often fall into it as a response to someone else’s extreme viewpoint. For example, when faced with the bogus claim that some drug (cannabis, for instance) is universally horrible, destructive and addictive, some supporters of drug decriminalization respond with equally-spurious claims that the drug is a physical or spiritual panacea. The truth is not only in between those two points, but also varies with individuals; any given drug has both beneficial effects and harmful effects, and the proportion of one to the other can vary considerably between individuals. Each individual must decide whether the drug is right for him, and in a free society he is allowed to make that decision for himself without fear of authoritarian violence. And though there are ample moral reasons to support the principle of self-determination, there are practical reasons as well: criminalizing consensual behavior adds artificial harmful effects to those inherent in it, and makes it much more difficult for anyone to make an informed choice because data about criminalized activities is often hidden or distorted.
Sex work provides good examples of this syndrome on both sides of the transaction, worker and client. Under criminalization and even quasi-criminalization (i.e. legalization schemes which criminalize some actions such as solicitation, kerb crawling, brothel-keeping, etc) prostitution is pushed into the shadows due to fear of arrest or other police harassment, thus creating dangers not inherent in the work itself. It also becomes impossible to collect comprehensive and reliable data on the subject, and as a result prohibitionists are free to make the sort of outlandish claims with which everyone is familiar (all sex workers have pimps, we were all abused as children and/or suffer from PTSD, the average age at debut is 13, most of us are coerced, etc, etc, ad nauseam). Unfortunately, in reacting to these lies many sex workers espouse a false dichotomy; as I explained in my column of that name,
…they believe there are two and only two kinds of prostitutes, free-willed high-dollar independent escorts and pimped, coerced slaves. This, of course, is pure poppycock…The only people who…have…absolutely free choice to do any kind of work are the Paris Hiltons of the world, those who have a guaranteed inheritance, income and secured future no matter what they choose to do with the present. Every other person has no choice but to work in some fashion; the choice not to work at all simply doesn’t exist unless one considers starvation an option. At that point, then, the choice boils down to what kind of work one is able and willing to do.
Some harlots absolutely adore their work; others like it but don’t love it; others tolerate it for the high income and flexibility; still others dislike it but prefer it to their other options; and some dislike or hate it but have no other options (due sometimes to literal coercion, but more often to conditions such as drug addiction or a criminal record). The distribution may be fairly even along the spectrum, or it may be a classic bell curve; it’s difficult to be sure because of the issues discussed above. But one thing is certain; the majority lie not on the ends, but somewhere in the middle.
Clients are, if anything, even harder to get data on than sex workers; after all, even in countries where prostitution is decriminalized most men have good reasons to be discreet (including wives and social stigma). In the 19th century nearly every man paid for sex from time to time, but as sexual mores progressively relaxed decade by decade in the 20th, that fraction undoubtedly dropped because at least some men could obtain casual sex without direct payment. In the 1940s Kinsey found that 69% of men had paid for sex at least once in their lives, and though it’s probably lower now (due, again, to the increased availability of “free” sex), it still gives us a reasonable baseline to work from. But when we look at modern claims about this percentage, we find them all over the map. A few studies still produce reasonable figures, but most go wildly in one direction or another due mostly to questions and categorization criteria specifically designed to give the “researcher” exactly what she’s looking for. On the one extreme, early in 2011 the well-known prohibitionist Melissa Farley defined “paying for sex” so broadly she literally couldn’t find any men who hadn’t (and therefore had to redesign the parameters to produce a less-obviously-bogus result). On the other, the General Social Survey claims only 14% have ever paid, a figure so ludicrously low the industry would collapse; reader Kevin Wilson (a research consultant) showed that when taken with other claims from the survey, this would mean the average American sex worker only has about 10 clients per year (a number I exceeded every week of my career).
Obviously, neither of these extreme claims can be true; logic dictates that the fraction of men paying for sex now could neither be higher than it was before the sexual revolution made casual sex socially acceptable, nor too low to support the observable economic reality. The most credible studies I’ve seen indicate that though a slight majority of men have directly paid for sex at least once, most don’t repeat the experience; about 20% of all men do it occasionally and 6% regularly. So once again, we see the same pattern; sex-worker-hiring is neither ubiquitous nor rare but, like most other human behaviors, somewhere in the middle.
Once again, a very thought-provoking article, Maggie, and one that helps bolster something I think about often. Whenever I see or read two people screaming at each other from the ends of a given spectrum (be it political, religious, etc.) I am always prompted to say to myself “as always, the answer lies somewhere in between….”
😀
Black and White – pretty much a key concept used by tyrants to keep people in line. It is used all the time in the military. Admittedly – there are a few circumstances where it was warranted. For instance … it’s never okay to smoke dope in the military because you’ve voluntarily taken an oath and signed a contract that you know excludes drug use. But for most other things the thinking should be along the lines that … you can violate the rules for honorable reasons – but you’d better be ready to accept the consequences like a man.
> any given drug has both beneficial effects and harmful effects
For a sufficiently narrow definition of drug, maybe. Drugs being sold when laced with poison severe enough such that a user wouldn’t even get what they were looking for… well, that’s happened. Sometimes, things are just bad for you.
Yes, I mean the drug itself. Under criminalization, a lot of what is claimed to be a particular drug is either garbage or poison. But that’s subsumed under “criminalizing consensual behavior adds artificial harmful effects to those inherent in it, and makes it much more difficult for anyone to make an informed choice because data about criminalized activities is often hidden or distorted.“
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.single.html
Or even deliberate poisonings as detailed above. She talks about the repeat attempt in 1972 but doesn’t mention the trial balloons floated br Gingrich and Bennett (he of the “book of virtues” fame) to do the same to coca and heroin in the 1990’s. Funny, but I wonder how mass poisonings would look in the “book of virtues” vein.
I mentioned this before, but during capital “P” Prohibition, the government deliberately, and with the intention of increasing human misery and death, deliberately increased the amount of poison in industrial alcohol so it would be even less safe to drink, even if it was run through some sort of purification filter.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.html
That was almost unfathomably evil, and I say that as a pretty strict teetotaler. (I’ve literally never been drunk or even buzzed. I’m a soft drinks guy.)
I think that even if men cut down on their hiring of escorts because Free Love became more popular, I expect it increased again when the Internet made it so much easier to check things out before you took the plunge.
I remember the transition. Originally I would walk into a brothel cold with no idea until I got inside what it or the girls working there would be like or calling a girl out of the classified ads in one of those adult magazines you could get for free in adult video stores. Later I would be able to research an escort or an incall location on the Internet, and the experience was like night and day. (I went to some pretty depressing brothels back in the day, let me tell you.)
I agree with a lot of that. Brothels, Massage Parlors … you just never knew what you were walking into or what sad women you’d find there. Sometimes you’d find gold though – but, in a lot of cases you really had to temper your expectations beforehand. I remember the first place I walked into in Hawaii – the lady at the desk paired me (age 21) with a lady that was 35.
LOL – I love 35 year old ladies now! They are the “young-uns” to me! But back then I always hoped for someone a bit closer to my age!!
The internet (I know Maggie don’t like it) – but it brings everything into light (well, almost everything). Email – I can get a really good feel for a girl’s motivation by her correspondence on Email. Reviews help me to spot which girls are associated with pimps or unsavory types, or may have drug problems. Usually you can’t say much about these things in most online forums – but guys have coded language to get the message across.
And of course – the pictures are invaluable – when they’re accurate!
What makes you think I don’t like the internet? 🙁
Admit it … you HATE it! We all know that!!
I was referring to the internet as it applies to the paid sex business. Maybe I got that wrong?
You definitely got it wrong. The internet has made it easier to become a whore, easier to find a whore, easier for whores to advertise, easier for both whores & clients to avoid cops and easier for activists to tell the truth about our work despite vast expenditures by prohibitionists to spread disinformation & myths.
The Internet is definitely democratizing. It allows somebody without hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach an audience in a way only the rich or the lucky could before.
The establishments had a lot of power back in those days too. Disposable cellphones, Google Voice, all the little tricks girls can use nowadays to have a secure number they can feel safe giving out simply didn’t exist back then. No Emails of Websites either. What did that mean?
Well, it meant you’d call up and ask “Is #NAME scheduled to come in today?” and get back “#NAME no longer works with us.” That was it, you didn’t get to see her again until you accidentally bumped into her on campus and she told you the new place she was working (after discretely checking the parking lot to make sure none of the other students over heard her…)
Hmm… that last part was oddly specific, wasn’t it?
You didn’t tip enough! 😛
Back in the day – if one of my girls switched agencies or establishments she always gave me a phone call!
Except for one, that I lived with – and when she took off I never heard from her again! 🙁
Another thing that has probably decreased the percentage of men who pay for prostitutes’ services is prohibition. Add the surveillance governments which has gotten better at tracking its subjects (oops….citizens’ LOL!!!) whereabouts and doings with the subjects knowing that they are being watched too closely and could be caught at any time dampens customers who would pay for sex. Then you add the increasing feminization of men via propaganda, misandry laws, demonization of whores etc., and then people don’t even know how to think right anymore and are such children trying to please mommy government instead of being sovereign adults. It’s hard to collect data under such a regime. It would be hard even in Holland where it is legal, but is much worse in the USA.. Most of my fellow Americans are not sane, rational and humane when it comes to the issue of prostitution be it the whore, john or someone else associated with it. It’s sad, really.
But you can’t please Mommy Government!
You’d be better off trying to please Mommy Dearest.
Amen
“No wire hangers EVER!!”
As part of the 31%…
Most human behavior (most animal behavior, when you get down to it) falls into a bell curve distribution. A society should be judged not only by how they treat the extremes, but how they deal with behavior that is more common. By that standard, most human societies have been irrational to some degree. And when an irrational policy is challenged, it’s defended vigorously, because no one wants to admit to both being wrong and being out of touch with reality, even if it’s only in one aspect of their viewpoints.
I’m going to go with “having paid for sex” *is* a broad brush.
I’ve been married to someone who was unbelievably hot by my estimation, and I’m honest enough to say that it was, in very large part, a means of securing sex with that particular individual. Also, when the sex petered out, as it almost inevitably does, I divorced her, and again, I’m honest enough here to tell you that was basically *why*. The moment she lost interest, for whatever reason, I immediately turned to the door. For the record, no, I hadn’t lost interest. But the effort she put into things was slipping steeply downhill; at some point along that slope, I was just all “the heck with this.”
I’ve taken women out and bought them dinner, taken them to a show, driven them here and there, all with the very specific aim of trying to cross whatever their threshold was for putting out. I’ve paid dating agencies to attempt to match me with a compatible person (kinda worked… but not great.) I’ve given sexually specific gifts with the one and only idea that doing so would lead to use of said gifts, whereas otherwise, it’d probably be just another night sleeping in the same bed, facing in opposite directions. I have flown women to foreign countries with the idea that doing so would result in sex. It does, btw. That one is 100%. I’ve never taken a new prospect on a cruise, but I think that’d also deliver a pretty regular return on the investment.
Personally, and yes, this is just an IMHO, but I think that if you cast “paying for sex” as requiring the direct exchange of fiat government currency, you’re closing your eyes to reality.
Paying for sex is the act of establishing a payment imbalance and hoping to see that balance collected. If it isn’t collected, generally speaking, you made a bad investment. But you *still* paid for it. You just didn’t *get* it.
Perhaps there’s a line where the other person admits that they owe you based on the payment made, and that’s where “paid sex” resides in most people’s minds. But again, the reality is quite different.
And of course, I view anyone complaining about whores or prostitutes as an idiot wearing blinders with the “I am stupid” tag prominently displayed.
Just my .02c.
The bit about Melissa Farley reminded me of a piece about Michael Gove, the UK Education Secretary. He presented “evidence” that the teaching of history in the country was crap, and wanted to use this “evidence” to change things. (The “evidence” came from a poll for a hotel chain ect.)
Anyhow, rather than using “evidence based policy” he was rightly accused of “policy based evidence”, a neat turnaround.
And when the spectrum is anything more complicated than a very narrow issue, people are not only “somewhere in the middle” but at several different places in the middle at the same time.
Even people who self-identify as being on one end or the other are usually in the middle on a few things, or even to the other side on a few. Probably all of us here are as against the “abusive pimp with child sex slave” model of prostitution as any anti; we just know that that’s not what it’s mostly about.