I’m in love with an escort who has some very severe mental health issues; is it true that most escorts have such issues?
There’s no good evidence that sex workers (escort or otherwise) are any more likely to have mental health issues (and yes, that includes substance abuse issues or a history of childhood sexual molestation) than women in the general population. That having been said, some women with mental health issues find sex work a good fit for the simple & practical reason that it’s both flexible and lucrative. The high hourly rate means that even a woman going through a bad spell with her mental health can usually keep going for long enough to see a gent, make a few hundred bucks, and then do self-care the rest of the day. No boss breathing down her neck, no arbitrarily-limited number of sick days, no busybodies micromanaging her time, no having to stay in one place for eight hours straight or else, and no production quotas except what’s necessary to get the bills paid. So while prohibitionists want you to believe that sex work is a symptom or product of mental illness, the actual truth is that it can in some cases be a tool for managing it. In other words, it’s a lot more like therapy than it is etiology; we don’t look at therapy as a “symptom” of mental health issues, and sex work isn’t one either.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
Given the fanatics that they are, it’s no surprise that prohibitionist crusaders are not able to distinguish between correlation and causation.
I also wonder, based on my own anecdotal experience, if any effort has been made to study the prevalence of untreated mental health issues among prohibitionists themselves.
Most people are unfortunately not able to distinguish between correlation and causation. The thing is that most people think primarily in fuzzy associations (i.e. correlations, often of dubious strength) and have no understanding what a chain of reasoning is or how it works or why the direction in causation is everything. My personal estimate from academic teaching is that typically only around 10-15% of all people are able to argue using a causal approach about real-world subjects. These are, incidentally, pretty much the independent thinkers, i.e. these that do not simply believe what they are told, but try to verify the chain of reasoning.
While this estimate does not fulfill hard scientific requirements, I believe it is pretty accurate on a qualitative level and it does explain a lot about the demented views (and they way they are justified) that many people hold. No actual intelligence is applied by them to verifying these beliefs or to find the truth, they just check what the perceived authority level of those making the claims is.
Incidentally, this is pretty much what non-intelligent “AI” (called “weak AI” or traditionally just “automation”, and the only one the human race has available) does: Correlations without understanding. That may also be a reason why so many people mistake present day “AI” for intelligent: Not because it is, but because for most purposes, they themselves are not actually intelligent.
Interestingly, a similar solution can be found in being a consultant provided one has first earned the reputation to create demand. I have both medical (migraines) and mental health issues (clinical depression). Consulting allows me a similar type of freedom. I’m not getting rich but I am making ends meet and I don’t think I could hold down a traditional full time job at this time. Those of us with issues have to find flexible and creative solutions or we become a burden on society.