Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

Another way to look at Levitt and Dubner on prostitution in their clunky sequel to Freakonomics: when you’re totally mired in the bogus First Rule of Desire in particular and the dominant “no-sex” class paradigm in general you’re going to miss the most important piece of information in your hard research (pdf) on prostitution in general and your latest column in particular: prostitution is becoming a niche activity.

A decline in the prostitution market to 20% of it’s 19th- and early-to-mid 20th-Century levels, and a shift in requested prostitution services from historic mainstream acts (PIV intercourse in particular but also oral) to relatively marginal higher-risk and fetish/kink activities is not “more of the same.” It’s not “market segmentation.” It’s not “value-added” or “working smarter, not harder.”

The story in Levitt and Dubner’s column about the woman who flies to Texas to do “erotic” things to a guy with his briefcase is emblematic not of advances in prostitution. (I’ll give you a nickel if I can’t find an example of similar fetish-serving sex work any time between, say, 1809 and 1959.) It’s emblematic of all that’s left! (And not to put too fine a point on it, but if the gentleman in question joined one of the kinky-centric equivalents to Match.com he’d almost certainly find someone closer with sharable interests.)

And where did all that demand for prostitution go?

Well, an important part of it has come from not so much the sexual revolution as the feminist revolution: as women have gained in social, economic, and political stature and as they’ve gained access to reproductive health choices the significance of their sexual choices has diminished, given them a lot more (if still not enough) room to not only say no and mean it but also to say yes. Funny, as Echidne hints, what not having to worry about being stoned to death (most places) can do for one’s libido.

Something else that’s happened since prostitution’s “heyday” in the 19th and early 20th centuries is that masturbation is no longer considered some kind of death sentence either literally in the criminal sense, morally in the philosophical or religious sense, or medically in the erstwhile-mainstream-quackery sense. Funny how we see that big drop off in demand for commercial intercourse when sex for men — with others or by yourself — is no longer a sin, a crime, or a cause of tuberculosis, insanity, or cancer. (Or, my favorite, as bad for the health as losing a pint of blood… each time.)

So yeah, we still see a lot of prostitution where the acts in question are non-routine acts, and we still see prostitution in areas where masturbation is more stigmatized. But in general while we do still see it we’re seeing it more as a niche market than a major activity.

Levitt and Dubner… completely miss all this in their analysis in part.

\* Or, more precisely, based on Levitt’s original research with Sudhir Venkatesh, the bottom falls out of the market for core, non-risky, non-fetish prostitution but that’s largely beside the point: the market for those kink/fetish activities will continue to shrink as well as those activities become more popular in mainstream partnerships.