Actually, that may not be fair. I think this research paper is dull. But honestly, it is so incomprehensible that it’s hard to tell. It’s written by physicists at Swedish universities, and perhaps to other physicists the observations are sexy. Here’s a sample for you:

The probability distribution of the time between two subsequent
posts ΔTposts … is narrower than a power-law, but wider than an exponential or Poisson distribution, and consistent with a powerlaw with an exponential cut-off P(ΔTposts) = C exp(−α ΔTposts) / (ΔTposts + β)γ. That the distribution is broader than Poisson suggests a more complex dynamic than just sex-buyers posting independent of each other; that it is not a power-law means that the problem cannot be mapped onto other studies of human response dynamics.

Well, I’m glad the Swedish taxpayer has invested in sorting that out for us, then.

The paper makes a pretense of being important because sexually transmitted infections are passed through the networks of the sex trade. The physicists, who include glorious graphics like this:

note that the sex workers who get the highest ratings go on to have more clients in the future (now there’s a revalation). This worries them, because the more clients a girl has, the more likely she is to be exposed to diseases, right? Well no, actually. The more clients she has unprotected anal or vaginal sex with, the more likely she is to have an STI. But really, what’s the likelihood of a girl getting consistently high ratings if she’s sending clients home pissing glass? She gets high ratings because she’s not exposing them to infection.

As an aside, I was interested to note that the forum allows punters to record three specific exotic or unusual practices: anal sex, oral sex without a condom, or kissing on the mouth. Note that in Brazil, which has one of the strongest HIV prevention programmes in the world, unprotected anal or vaginal sex with clients doesn’t even make the list, very possibly because it is too rare to mention.

Thanks to Paul for putting me in the way of a paper I’d never have found, by way of Technology Review.

This video, not to be taken tooooo seriously (though the science is spot on), is the product of a rainy afternoon with the incomparable Candy Gourlay. Check out Candy’s wit, wisdom and illustration at Notes From the Slushpile

(copyright: Rodney)
With a minimum of hand-wringing, Rodney makes it clear what’s at issue:

“The women all are very smart. Their key motivation is always to earn large sums of money in a relatively short time by what they feel is an effortless way, despite the mental and physical dangers. All of the workers have talked of their dreams to leave and lead conventional lifestyles.”

In other words, these women, like many others in different professions, do a job they don’t particularly like to earn a relatively good living. The girls get a flat fee of 85,000 rupiah (about US 9) for a half-hour session — rather less in this area on the grimy outer petticoats of Jakarta than the national average, though twice the minimum wage for a whole day’s work. Most sex workers report getting extra tips; one reported getting 40 dollars extra for being nice to (but not even having sex with) a regular client.

Though the grimy outer petticoats of Jakarta are my regular stomping grounds, I was alerted to this post by Amanda Brooks of the Sex Workers’ Outreach Project in the US.

It is abundantly clear from the debate on Bound, Not Gagged and other sex worker sites that people who sell sex for a living have as much to offer artistically as people in any other profession. More, perhaps, given a sex worker’s position as counselor and confidante to clients who often come with special needs, illusions and fantasies. How did we get to a point where supporting artistic output from competent artists becomes a reason for losing your job?

Two things in the study by Levitt and Sudhir Venkatesh surprised me. One is that the raw hourly wages for selling sex are so similar in rich and poor countries. In Chicago, sex workers report earning US$ 25 – 30 an hour. That’s roughly the same as sex workers are earning in Indonesia (according to data from over 4,700 women in nine provinces). In China, too, even street-based sex workers are earning between US$ 20 and US$40 per client. That’s up to ten times as much in an hour as their colleagues in the factories earn in a day. The reward for selling sex over doing other boring, repetitive and sometimes unpleasant jobs seems to be a lot bigger in poor countries than it is in rich countries.

The other thing that surprises me is not that women in Chicago get paid a little bit more for sex without a condom (although we emphatically do NOT find this in any of the Asian data I’ve looked at). It is that three times out of four, women don’t use condoms with their clients. And I’m only talking in vaginal or anal sex, here. In CHICAGO, the fourth largest city in the world’s leading superpower, three quarters of johns are not using condoms. Even in Indonesia, which trails close to the bottom of the safe sex stakes in Asia, sex workers say they use condoms 60% of the time. In Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, large parts of India, China, Nepal, the Philippines and most other places I can think of, condom use in commercial sex tops 85%.

So here’s my question: What’s with johns in America?

Finally, a question of concern to policy-makers in Washington: will organisations working to secure safety for robots and their clients be allowed to accept funding from the US government, or will they, too, have to sign the “loyalty oath” that prevents us from improving working conditions in the sex industry?

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