Five myths about prostitution

[RobX 2084]

Five myths about prostitution

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091002670.html

 

By Sudhir Venkatesh

Sunday, September 12, 2010; B03

Last weekend, .........., the popular provider of Internet classified advertising, halted publication of its "adult services" section. The move followed criticism from law enforcement officials across the country who have accused the site of facilitating prostitution on a massive scale. Of course, selling sex is an old business -- most say the oldest. But as the .......... controversy proves, it's also one of the fastest changing. And as a result, most people's perceptions of the sex trade are wildly out of date.

 

1. Prostitution is an alleyway business.

It once was, of course. In the late 1800s, as Northern cities boomed, the sex trade in America became synonymous with the seedy side of town. Men who wanted to find prostitutes combed alleys behind bars, dimly lit parks and industrial corridors. But today, only a few big cities, such as Los Angeles and Miami, still have a thriving outdoor street market for sex. New York has cleaned up Times Square, Chicago's South Loop has long since gentrified, and even San Francisco's infamous Tenderloin isn't what it used to be.

These red-light districts waned in part because the Internet became the preferred place to pick up a prostitute. Even the most down-and-out sex worker now advertises on .......... (or did until recently), as well as on dating sites and in online chat forums. As a result, pimps' role in the sex economy has been diminished. In addition, the online trade has helped bring the sex business indoors, with johns and prostitutes increasingly meeting up in bars, in hotels, in their own homes or in apartments rented by groups of sex workers. All this doesn't mean a john can't get what he's looking for in the park, but he had better be prepared to search awhile.

Although putting numbers on these trends is difficult, the transition from the streets to the Internet seems to have been very rapid. In my own research on sex workers in New York, women who in 1999 worked mostly outdoors said that by 2004, demand on the streets had decreased by half.

 

2. Men visit sex workers for sex.

Often, they pay them to talk. I've been studying high-end sex workers (by which I mean those who earn more than $250 per "session") in New York, Chicago and Paris for more than a decade, and one of my most startling findings is that many men pay women to not have sex. Well, they pay for sex, but end up chatting or having dinner and never get around to physical contact. Approximately 40 percent of high-end sex worker transactions end up being sex-free. Even at the lower end of the market, about 20 percent of transactions don't ultimately involve sex.

Figuring out why men pay for sex they don't have could sustain New York's therapists for a long time. But the observations of one Big Apple-based sex worker are typical: "Men like it when you listen. . . . I learned this a long time ago. They pay you to listen -- and to tell them how great they are." Indeed, the high-end sex workers I have studied routinely see themselves as acting the part of a counselor or a marriage therapist. They say their job is to feed a man's need for judgment-free friendship and, at times, to help him repair his broken partnership. Little wonder, then, that so many describe themselves to me as members of the "wellness" industry.

 

3. Most prostitutes are addicted to drugs or were abused as children.

This was once the case, as a host of research on prostitution long ago confirmed. But the population of women choosing sex work has changed dramatically over the past decade. High-end prostitutes of the sort Eliot Spitzer frequented account for a greater share of the sex business than they once did. And as Barnard College's Elizabeth Bernstein has shown, sex workers today tend to make a conscious decision to enter the trade -- not as a reaction to suffering but to earn some quick cash. Among these women, Bernstein's research suggests, prostitution is viewed as a part-time job, one that grants autonomy and flexibility.

These women have little in common with the shrinking number of sex workers who still work on the streets. In a 2001 study of British prostitutes, Stephanie Church of Glasgow University found that those working outdoors "were younger, involved in prostitution at an earlier age, reported more illegal drug use, and experienced significantly more violence from their clients than those working indoors."

 

4. Prostitutes and police are enemies.

When it comes to the sex trade, police officers have in recent decades functioned as quasi-social workers. Peter Moskos's recent book, "Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District," describes how police often play counselor to sex workers, drug dealers and a host of other illegal moneymakers. In my own work, I've found that cops are among the most empathetic and helpful people sex workers meet on the job. They typically hand out phone numbers for shelters, soup kitchens and emergency rooms, and they tend to demonstrate a great deal of sympathy for women who have been abused. Instead of arresting an abused sex worker, police officers will usually let her off with a warning and turn their attention to finding her abusive client.

Unfortunately, officers say it is becoming more difficult to help such women; as they move indoors, it is simply more difficult to locate them. Of course, many big-city mayors embrace this same turn of events, since the rate of prostitution-related arrests drops precipitously when cops can't find anyone to nab. But for police officers, it makes day-to-day work quite challenging.

Officers in Chicago and New York who once took pride in helping women exit the sex trade have told me about their frustration. Abusive men can more easily rob or hurt a sex worker in a building than on the street, they say. And while cops may receive a call about an overheard disturbance, the vague report to 911 is usually not enough to pinpoint the correct apartment or hotel room. There are few things more dispiriting, they say, than hearing of a woman's cries for help and being unable to find her.

 

5. Closing ..........'s "adult services" section will significantly affect the sex trade.

Although .......... offered customers an important means to connect with sellers of sexual services, its significance has probably been exaggerated.

Even before the site's "adult services" section was shut down, it was falling out of favor among many users. Adolescent pranksters were placing ads as hoaxes. And because sex workers knew that cops were spending a lot of time responding to ads, they were increasingly hesitant to answer solicitations. I found that 80 percent of the men who contacted women via .......... in New York never consummated their exchange with a meeting.

How the sex trade will evolve from here is anyone's guess, but the Internet is vast, and already we are seeing increasing numbers of sex workers use Twitter and Facebook to advertise their services. Apparently, the desire to reveal is sometimes greater than the desire to conceal.

 

[email protected]

Sudhir Venkatesh is a professor of sociology at Columbia University and the author of "Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets."

Want to challenge everything you think you know? Visit the "Five Myths" archive.

[whatsup 11893]

Interesting post, thanks for sharing.

[Old Dog 179138]

5 More myths

 

1. Sex workers have super powers and can spin magical orgasmic webs with their genitalia, kinda like Spiderman only different.

 

2. If you take a sex worker with you to buy a car, they will use their hypnotic powers to seduce the salesperson into a better price.

 

3. Sex workers only eat strawberry Twizzlers, popcorn and Mentos. They only drink water and white wine.

 

4. Sex workers never have to go to the bathroom, ever.

 

5. A sex worker rescued a trapped child from 30 feet down in an abandoned well using only her vajayjay and kegel exercises.

[Carrie Moon 68826]

#2 is complete bunk! In my 20 years escorting neither I nor any of the other escorts I've met can confirm this at all! 99% of clients end up having sex of one sort or another. The girls he claims to have interviewed are playing games in my opinion.. and avoiding having sex by waiting for the client to make the first move and then not having sex as a result. That is not at all common in the industry. I would assume he either has a small pool of individuals he's interviewed...or a made up one.

 

Even 20% on the lower end? 40% on the upper? complete bunk!

[Old Dog 179138]

#2 is complete bunk! In my 20 years escorting neither I nor any of the other escorts I've met can confirm this at all! 99% of clients end up having sex of one sort or another. The girls he claims to have interviewed are playing games in my opinion.. and avoiding having sex by waiting for the client to make the first move and then not having sex as a result. That is not at all common in the industry. Not having looked deep into the article because of this.. I would assume he either has a small pool of individuals he's interviewed...or a made up one.

 

Carrie... was that the author's # 2 or mine? Cuz if my #2 is bunk, we are going car shopping!!!!

[Guest s******ecan****]

I simply don't believe this part of the article ....

 

".... Approximately 40 percent of high-end sex worker transactions end up being sex-free......"

[Carrie Moon 68826]

uh.. based on what I said.. Does that mean you want to have sex in the car or me have sex in the car with the salesperson?:bddog::bddog: I'm better at sex than hypnosis

[Old Dog 179138]

uh.. based on what I said.. Does that mean you want to have sex in the car or me have sex in the car with the salesperson?:bddog::bddog: I'm better at sex than hypnosis

 

Even better!!!!

[stevecurious 42059]

I simply don't believe this part of the article ....

 

".... Approximately 40 percent of high-end sex worker transactions end up being sex-free......"

 

Well I am afraid I will have to disagree. I have found myself spending an entire session just chatting and conversing. Granted I have only ever done this with one lady, but I have found it to be quite rewarding and very enjoyable. However as I said I have only ever done this with one lady and I could not see myself doing it with every lady I meet...

[40ishsxaddict 203]

I doubt 40%, however i too have done the no-sex thing on a first visit on occasion, just conversation and getting to know her, so I want her even more next visit... A slow build up if you will...lol

[Guest s******ecan****]

I doubt 40%, however i too have done the no-sex thing on a first visit on occasion, just conversation and getting to know her, so I want her even more next visit... A slow build up if you will...lol

 

 

Yes...my quibble is with the 40% figure. I know that there are times when no sex occurs but there is no way it is anywhere close to 40%.

 

I'd be surpised if it was even 4% of the time.....at least here in Canada. Perhaps since the article is US and prostitution there is illegal a higher level of encounters are simply dinner dates, escorting at special events, or just talking, but even taking this into account I would think the 40% figure sounds like an outlier.

[Doc Odd 103]

What about #4 on the original list? It seems police are being counted as allies of prostitutes on the basis that police try to help them get out of the business; I was under the impression that many prostitutes don't want that kind of help. Further, the article doesn't address the fact that as I understand it it's still very common in the states for police to demand freebies from prostitutes in exchange for not arresting them, which seems more like enemy than ally behavior to me.

[rickoshadows 937]

How about sex and conversation?

 

What could be better than screwing with someone you can have a pleasant conversation with. Too often conversations in our mundane lives have too much "real life" in them. Money, kids, and relatives are not usually subjects in a conversation with a companion.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Then again, what is this "sex" that 40% of transactions does not include?

No Consensus in Definitions of 'Had Sex,' Study Finds

 

ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2010) ?

When people say they "had sex," what transpired is anyone's guess.

A new study from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University found that no uniform consensus existed when a representative sample of 18- to 96-year-olds was asked what the term meant to them.

 

Is oral sex considered sex? It wasn't to around 30 percent of the study participants. How about anal sex? For around 20 percent of the participants, no.

A surprising number of older men did not consider penile-vaginal intercourse to be sex. More than idle gossip, the answers to questions about sex can inform -- or misinform -- research, medical advice and health education efforts.

 

"Researchers, doctors, parents, sex educators should all be very careful and not assume that their own definition of sex is shared by the person they're talking to, be it a patient, a student, a child or study participant," said Brandon Hill, research associate at the Kinsey Institute.

 

The study, conducted in conjunction with the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention in IU's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, delves deeper into a question first examined in 1999 -- in the midst of a presidential sex scandal where the definition of sex was an issue. Researchers from The Kinsey Institute asked college students what "had sex" meant to them, taking the approach, which was unique then, of polling the students on specific behaviors.

 

No consensus was found then, either. The new study, published in the international health journal "Sexual Health" in February, examined whether more information helped clarify matters -- study participants were asked about specific sexual behaviors and such qualifiers as whether orgasm was reached -- and researchers also wanted to involve a more representative audience, not just college students.

 

"Throwing the net wider, with a more representative sample, only made it more confusing and complicated," Hill said. "People were even less consistent across the board."

 

The study involved responses from 486 Indiana residents who took part in a telephone survey conducted by the Center for Survey Research at IU. Participants, mostly heterosexual, were asked, "Would you say you 'had sex' with someone if the most intimate behavior you engaged in was ...," followed by 14 behaviorally specific items. Here are some of the results:

Responses did not differ significantly overall for men and women. The study involved 204 men and 282 women.

 

95 percent of respondents would consider penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI) having had sex, but this rate drops to 89 percent if there is no ejaculation.

 

81 percent considered penile-anal intercourse having had sex, with the rate dropping to 77 percent for men in the youngest age group (18-29), 50 percent for men in the oldest age group (65 and up) and 67 percent for women in the oldest age group.

 

71 percent and 73 percent considered oral contact with a partner's genitals (OG), either performing or receiving, as having had sex.

 

Men in the youngest and oldest age groups were less likely to answer "yes" compared with the middle two age groups for when they performed OG.

 

Significantly fewer men in the oldest age group answered "yes" for PVI (77 percent).

Hill said it is common for a doctor, when seeing a patient with symptoms of sexually transmitted infections, to ask how many sexual partners the patient has or has had. The number will differ according to the patients' definitions of sex.

 

William L. Yarber, RCAP's senior director and co-author of the study, said its findings reaffirm the need to be specific about behaviors when talking about sex

 

"There's a vagueness of what sex is in our culture and media,"

Yarber said. "If people don't consider certain behaviors sex, they might not think sexual health messages about risk pertain to them. The AIDS epidemic has forced us to be much more specific about behaviors, as far as identifying specific behaviors that put people at risk instead of just sex in general. But there's still room for improvement."

 

Co-authors include lead author Stephanie A. Sanders, Kinsey Institute, Department of Gender Studies and RCAP at IU; Cynthia A. Graham, Kinsey Institute and RCAP at IU, Doctoral Course in Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford; Richard A. Crosby, Kinsey Institute and RCAP at IU, Department of Health Behavior at the University of Kentucky; and Robin R. Milhausen, Kinsey Institute and RCAP at IU, Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph.

 

Yarber is professor in the departments of Applied Health Science and Gender Studies at IU and is a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute. Hill also is a researcher in the Department of Gender Studies at IU.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100304072713.htm

[Annessa 22743]

I think a more realistic approach would be to say that 40% of a session consists of non-sexual interaction...or that 20% of the bulk of sessions sometimes consist of a social outing that may or may not end up in the bedroom after.

 

But yeah I agree that the writer maybe didnt interview enough ladies in the same category or that the ladies may not be being truthful with whom he interviewed....I mean really, lets be realistic.

[Amanda Bella 421]

Annessa is right they have not interviewd enough people.

 

This business has a class issue either the lady has a upper middle class background or she comes from lower class and have not a clue on emotional and social intelligence and self care and manners etc..

 

I do not do drugues and most of the sex workers i know are busy doing their PHD or in Law school they cannot afford drugues etheir. I have done it but i would not do it with clients given i prefer to be aware of my surrounds while in the presence of a male person that i am not familiar with. And what is drugues anyways? Coffe? TV? Internet? Alcohol?

 

I have never worked on the streets although i completely understand someone who does. Most of my friends are like me they will spend money on expensive hotel rooms and care for their apparence and see their clients as luxurious dates who have good manners and health life style and formal education.

 

Women work on the streets because

it is expensive to rent a hotel room and some guys are game players no show thus things can either be great or turn sore.

 

True some guys just want companionship but i believe that if they walk out without sex they would be very desapointed for guys are rather sexual beings.

[Andee 220524]

#2 is complete bunk! In my 20 years escorting neither I nor any of the other escorts I've met can confirm this at all! 99% of clients end up having sex of one sort or another. The girls he claims to have interviewed are playing games in my opinion.. and avoiding having sex by waiting for the client to make the first move and then not having sex as a result. That is not at all common in the industry. I would assume he either has a small pool of individuals he's interviewed...or a made up one.

 

Even 20% on the lower end? 40% on the upper? complete bunk!

 

Agree! What, are those intereviewed afraid to admit they're having sex? 40% no way, more like 4%.

[VedaSloan 119179]

I completely disagree with #4.

 

At least in terms of Ottawa. In my experiences, the police in Ottawa have preferred to work against us, implementing the street crimes unit last year.

[Annessa 22743]

I completely disagree with #4.

 

At least in terms of Ottawa. In my experiences, the police in Ottawa have preferred to work against us, implementing the street crimes unit last year.

 

exactly...I disagree with this point as well....even Sex workers in Ottawa who have heard of cops extending the olive branch will be cautious as there are always sketchy areas as to why and what team they really are playing for.

 

about the ladies being truthful as to how much sex they are having on the job....this survey was conducted by a male outside the indurtsry....OBVIOUSLY the answers are not going to be truthful...find an article that was conducted by a retired escort or a lady with some attatchment to the industry and you will find way more truthful answers.

 

There was a documentary and article not too long ago that brought x-workers into brothels in the states to interview the ladies...IMO this was the best approach ever to get the truthful answers because the women fel they could be open without being judged....even the highest rate escort in canada cant say that she doesnt expect her clients to expect *some* form of intimate contact.

 

yes we can all say that our rate is for "our time"...and yes it is...but generally its to be expected that something intimate happen during that time period.

 

bottom line I think the numbers were swayed greatly by who was being interviewed...and *especially* because of WHO was doing the interviewing...no one is going to be honest to a male they do not know who has no connection to the industry and has already set out to ignore the stereotypes of escorting.

 

we provide pleasure for pay.........pleasure does not mean we sit and chat about the weather for the entire session......but it doesnt rule out the fact that we could spend have the session chatting or cuddling. I think this guy was just trying to be the first to have some form of breakthrough about escorting...unfortunately he failed miserably. just my two cents

 

...-

 

my own *myths about escorting* to add:

 

we are not all "ladies of the night"...in fact for many of us our work happens durring the 9-5 hours and very seldom do we choose to see clients after 10pm. :)