Summer LC thread

Scott Cunningham has done a lot of work in this area. He’s got a 2011 publication in the Journal of Urban Economics that reports mean weekly earnings of $2,577 among sex workers who solicit on the Internet (no median reported). There’s a 2007 unpublished working paper by Steven Levitt (Freakonomics) and Sudhir Venkatesh (Gang Leader for a Day) that surveys Chicago sex workers, and they find average weekly wages of $336.

These are obviously wildly different numbers. The Cunningham (and Kendall - shouldn’t leave him out) paper reports an average transaction time of about 120 minutes, with a cost of $487. The Levitt and Venkatesh paper documents an average price per transaction of $49.45, but more than half of their sample are either “manual” or “oral” tricks, which I imagine last far less than 2 hours. Overall, they estimate an hourly rate of $27 or so.

No they shouldn’t, for the same reason that being in favor of decriminalizing drugs doesn’t mean you should be pro-heroin . The number of sex workers who aren’t emotionally damaged and socially exploited is vanishingly small. Nobody dreams of being a prostitute when they grow up. That’s a career you enter when the world has already fucked you over so many different ways you figure you might as well get fucked for real if it’ll pay the bills.

4 Likes

This is pure bias and simply false.

The problem is people are conflating all sex work with the worst kind of sex work. It’s like saying all jobs are terrible because the worst jobs are terrible.

Of course there is just like there is a huge difference between workers in ever single industry.

Part of the solution to fix that is decriminalization.

I remember having to argue that 8-year-olds shouldn’t be allowed to buy crack at 7-11 - on the AC-dominated 22. Good times.

Are all the old posts from Politics gone? Not searchable anymore?

A couple of dollars seems pretty cheap for a blow job, wp sir.

It’s all still there, you just have to change the settings to show posts from all time because the 2+2 default is 2 months.

Man Clovis. You’d think occasionally you’d be something other than embarrassingly wrong just by pure coincidence.

I know dozens of sex workers and have worked with sex worker advocacy groups for 6 years.

What percentage of sex workers in developed countries are doing their job for non-problematic reasons?

Problematic reasons include but are not limited to being coerced, fueling a drug habit, desperation for money, entering the profession at a young age.

I’ll write a longer post tonight with background research.

The response itt is common and coming from the right place. Everyone wants to fight trafficking and forced prostitution. The problem is those admirable goals nearly always end up with legislation that hurts all sex workers both consensual and not.

Amnesty International supports full decriminalization which should tell you something.

Proprietary is probably closer to word you were looking for. What I find interesting is that Apple has never had a big market share in PCs and yet their interface decisions have almost universally become the standard; no floppy drive, no cd/dvd drive, using dongles instead of full size ports on laptops. I suppose it isn’t surprising they are doing the same in markets they have more market share. My impression is they went to the lightning connector because it was better than the USB connectors that were common at the time, but you are welcome to believe it was just a money grab, they are good at that too.

Depends what you mean by non-problematic. Are they doing it out of economic necessity? This is true of not only many sex workers but nearly all workers period.

To answer your question we would need to specify more.

A productive discussion of sex work is only possible under two conditions.

First distinctions needs to me made between consensual and non consensual.

Second distinctions need to be made between economic levels of sex work.

The lightning adapters are better, way better. My problem with Apple is how flimsy and garbage their cords are. Every single apple cord I have ever used – phone, laptop, whatever – has exposed wire in a shockingly short amount of time through normal use.

2 Likes

It is weird how they build everything else so well but their cords are pure trash. It hasn’t to be on purpose

I’ve only had one charger I had to put electrical tape on but I was upgrading fairly regularly and didn’t use cables that long.

And nobody come at me victim shaming me for my normal use habits. No, I don’t painstakingly wrap my laptop cord up before I put it in my backpack like a mental patient. I toss it in like a normal human being. Every single non apple laptop charger I’ve owned stood up to that sort of treatment for years. An apple charger wears out after a few months.

Knock on wood I’ve only had to replace my MBP charger once so far in 4 years of owning it.

Apple cord vs. roomba :(

I would guess the problem is orders of magnitude smaller than you think not half but of course I can’t be sure unless we talk actual numbers.