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Original poster

Economist article - 'The Sex Business'

35 replies

Sevillemarmalade · 09/08/2014 14:09

Hi, I'm a long-term lurker rather than a poster, but I love reading the FWR threads. They keep me sane. I wanted to know if anyone had read the above article? I've just finished and feel - well, upset and uncomfortable more or less sums it up.
I know that The Economist takes a reductionist view of everything - that's it's raison d'être - but a graph showing how much female prostitutes are worth according to their physical characteristics I thought was taking it too far. It also referred to 'frustrated married men' requiring the services of prostitutes less these days because of sites like Tinder offering h

OP posts:
CaptChaos · 09/08/2014 22:04

There has been a fair amount written about the subject in the last few days.

A critique of an academic 'john' apologist

US comedian apologist for 'johns'

Response to the above

Original poster
Sevillemarmalade · 09/08/2014 18:16

I didn't see the author was a woman. Oh dear. I'm genuinely surprised it's been published. Discussing prostitution in the modern world is fair enough, but the angle taken is astonishing. Again, I know that's what this paper does - but I feel here its completely inappropriate. I think they're also trying too hard to tell one side of the story about the reality of prostitution with the 'happy hooker' anecdotes and I don't buy it.
And if you're not a barbie lookalike apparently you'll earn less as a prostitute. I don't even know where to begin with that. It's utterly depressing, all of it.

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cailindana · 09/08/2014 17:45

The thing is, it was written by a woman. How she can justify classifying women as to how saleable they are based on the ratings of men who clearly don't even see them as animals never mind humans is beyond me.

Original poster
Sevillemarmalade · 09/08/2014 17:16

Cailindana - I'm glad I'm not alone.
A Bland - I see what you mean about drivers. I hope the writers of the article felt the same way about choice. I had loads of casual sex in my twenties and I daresay if tinder etc had been available back then I'd have used them. I just feel like the paper is taking a male entitlement stance on this issue though - the whole 'women as gatekeepers' stuff. It seemed to imply that women looking for no-strings sex are merely providing a service for men in the same way prostitution does. Thanks for the replies.

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ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy · 09/08/2014 16:15

". So does this mean women looking for casual sex are unpaid prostitutes"

No, not at all, because it's their choice. It's true that the internet allows two people in other relationships to hook up when before they might never have met or might never have broached the subject of cheating if they had met.

But I'm not sure that the drivers of someone looking for a mutually satisfying sexual encounter and those of someone looking to pay for sex are the same.

cailindana · 09/08/2014 15:47

I didn't just find the analysis uncomfortable, I found it absolutely disgusting.

Original poster
Sevillemarmalade · 09/08/2014 15:38

Link here: www.economist.com/news/briefing/21611074-how-new-technology-shaking-up-oldest-business-more-bang-your-buck

The article does deal with men buying sex from women - it explicitly refers to 'frustrated men' in the same paragraph as Tinder; it might be this male-centric point of view that's influencing my train of thought. They are analysing data from PunterNet, so no information about male prostitutes (even though they reckon they make up a fifth of the sex working population).

The point of the article is to demonstrate how the Internet is making prostitution easier and safer. I feel it is accentuating the positive rather. For me, I found the analysis of women by body part uncomfortable reading. I feel reports like this add to the general media de-humanising of women, although maybe here it's justified? Possibly I'm reading too much into data analysis.

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AICM · 09/08/2014 14:52

"So does this mean women looking for casual sex are unpaid prostitutes?"

"Tinder offers hook-ups which men are using more."

Or you could say "So does this mean men looking for casual sex are unpaid prostitutes"

"Tinder offers hook-ups which women are using more."

Why make a gender difference?

cailindana · 09/08/2014 14:46

Is there a link to the article?

Original poster
Sevillemarmalade · 09/08/2014 14:11

Sorry - on phone! Tinder offers hook-ups which men are using more. So does this mean women looking for casual sex are unpaid prostitutes? I wondered if anyone else had seen this and had any thoughts. Maybe IABU but it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. Thanks for reading.

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