8 ms·

The New Prostitution Economy

107 points by pmcpinto 10y ago

FLUX-YOU 10y ago
I'm actually jealous. That sounds like an interesting life.
- rokhayakebe 10y ago
  You can always give it a shot and see if you like it.
- Piskvorrr 10y ago
  "Interesting", as in, "may you live in interesting times"?
  - FLUX-YOU 10y ago
    Yeah. There are undoubtedly mortal risks with this lifestyle.
kelukelugames 10y ago
A prostitution ring was busted this year in my neighborhood. Most of the johns arrested were tech workers. Hmmmm...
- umanwizard 10y ago
  Maybe most of the men with ample disposable income in your neighborhood are sex workers?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - gjm11 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure you mean "... are tech workers", not "... are sex workers".
    - umanwizard 10y ago
      Erm. Yup. Thanks :)
abpavel 10y ago
$700/hr for dinner, parties, and fun? Sounds like a taunt...
MichaelBurge 10y ago
Prostitution was historically outlawed because the part of the city where it happened ended up being some run-down smelly area, where you'd catch a venereal disease just by looking at it. I don't think anyone had a problem with high-class prostitutes, but it's easier to ban X than to ban poor people doing X. For example, it was only in 2009 that Rhode Island banned prostitution; but they banned brothels long before then. Historically, it looks like the prostitution ban was mostly pushed through by this women's organization. They also did Prohibition, and this all happened around the same time women got the right to vote and WWI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance... I'm not sure how many of the historical reasons still apply: We're not in any serious war, zoning laws and city codes seem like they'd be sufficient to protect against slimy neighborhoods, there's been a 'safe sex' movement so it'd be less likely that people would freely transmit diseases, and abusive pimps don't seem as economically necessary. Also, what's up with the VC that let a prostitute run up $60k on the tab. At no level of wealth are you ever "too busy" to watch your money, and this guy's job is to manage money.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jseliger 10y ago
  Historically, it looks like the prostitution ban was mostly pushed through by this women's organization Interestingly, too, women on the whole used to vote more politically conservative than men, while today they vote more politically liberal than men: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21700425-europes-far-right-not-such-hit-ladies-lefter-sex http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21700425-europes-far-ri....
jacques_chester 10y ago
This article, and the previous moral panic piece by the same author (Nancy Jo Sales), really do remind me of Scott Templeton from The Wire. Quotes that are too perfect, stereotypes that are too stereotypical, plus a generous helping of "everyone is" quotes. Mind you, accusing a journalist of outright fabrication is very serious. What's more likely is that she was able to selectively form a narrative. Note the total absence of independent statistics. No interviews with police, independent researchers, other journalists, sociologists, economists. No quotes from people who break the narrative, creating a total absence of any alternative storyline.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  Astute observation. There have been more documentaries and stories about this topic, and plenty of those seem plausible, but these often focus on webcamming and catering to specific fetishes and interests. Those stories also seem much more down to earth and less dreamlike. Perhaps it was the 'jumbo-sized Danny DeVito's' that kinda broke the suspense of disbelief.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    But this article is focussed on a very narrow niche market - not just prostitution but sugar daddying.
bench_soup 10y ago
>“If prostitution is really just physical labor, if it’s no different than serving coffee or fixing a car, then why would we see rape as such a traumatic thing? If there’s nothing different about sex, then what’s so bad about rape?” That was my thought too, I found this story to be really depressing. But I feel like the author is trying to present this as a general and wide-adopted trend when it's probably quite marginal.
- efaref 10y ago
  Well, forced-coffee-serving and forced-car-fixing also has a name: slavery. That's pretty traumatic, too.
  - lawless123 10y ago
    Did something like it happen in Japan? compensated dating?
  - ebbv 10y ago
    That's a bit of a stretch. If you're forced to serve someone coffee one time most people would agree that's messed up but not that big of a deal. If you're forced to have sex once, you've been raped and that's a life shattering event.
    - djschnei 10y ago
      You're completely missing the point. The point isn't which is more life shattering (no one is arguing that), the point is that our laws should protect against coercion against one's body. Forced labor and rape are differing levels of infringement on ones body. However, sex and labor are still products of one's body and the individual has the right to do with their body as they wish.
      - ebbv 10y ago
        Sorry but it's you who is missing the point here. Nobody's arguing about whether we should be able to be forced to do anything. Everybody agrees that we should not. The point is that there's a difference between regular labor and sex.
return0 10y ago
This is the original sharing economy. It's terribly rigged for men, though.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
anotherarray 10y ago
"What happens in a future without work?" We like to answer with "basic income" or "we'll create new jobs", but that's not always the case. Uberization of prostitution, surrogacy, professional cuddlers. That should open our eyes.
jcfrei 10y ago
Banning prostitution is one of those silly policy mistakes that politicians around the globe have committed regularly in the past. There should be no place for morality in any modern legal framework. However prostitution still lacks a reasonable regulatory framework in most countries (with some Swiss cities being a notable exception).
- hx87 10y ago
  > no place for morality in any modern legal framework There's definitely a place for morality, but perhaps a better way to put it is that there should be no place for any non-utilitarian morality in any legal framework.
  - LoSboccacc 10y ago
    what you're thinking is ethic
  - jcfrei 10y ago
    Can you give an example for a moral and useful statute that is outside of a common ethical framework?
  - hnal943 10y ago
    But that's still a moral statement - one that privileges utilitarianism above other philosophies.
  - omalleyt 10y ago
    These thoughts scare me. Utilitarianism is far from perfect. For instance, would we as a society designate 5% of women as lacking right to their own body and allow any man to have them when he wishes? If the pleasure the men gained is greater than the suffering of the women, utilitarians say yes. And even if you say "No, because the suffering of the women will inevitably be greater," is that REALLY the reason that the action I stated above is wrong? Or is it...that women have a moral right to their body that is not subject to the whims of what is best for society
    - 10y ago
iandanforth 10y ago
If you're on the fence as to whether prostitution should be legal, I suggest listening to this articulate sex worker before you make up your mind. https://www.ted.com/talks/toni_mac_the_laws_that_sex_workers_really_want https://www.ted.com/talks/toni_mac_the_laws_that_sex_workers...
peterlk 10y ago
I want to offer a different perspective. This article is more itsightful than the comments tere suggest. I have had multiple friends seriously consider this line of work, and some undertake it. No one talks about it. It's very secretive, and somewhat dangerous. It's not talked about with girlfriends at bars. It's not told to mom and dad, but it is all around you. I once had one of these friends approach mose to ask if she could invest in my startup in cash because she had garbage bags of cash that she could no longer legally deposit in her bank. That cash put her through college. Many of their clients do have significant others, and many of those significant others know what's going on. It's just "fun on the side". When this article says "tech guys" it doesn't mean senior developers; it means twenty-something VPs and CTOs.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  > When this article says "tech guys" it doesn't mean senior developers; it means twenty-something VPs and CTOs. Exactly. Funny how the phrase "tech guys" has morphed from programmers and hackers (1990s) into VPs and senior execs (2010s). No programmers I know are able to afford to spend $700/hr on anything, let alone something you can get for free.
Wilya 10y ago
The article has the name of one particular website repeated fourteen times, and it paints its marginal niche (sugar daddies) as something that everybody is doing, and as something normal and empowering for women. And, coincidentally, this website needs to attract women. Everything about this screams "Bullshit marketing/PR piece". Is it only me?
- ctack 10y ago
  It could be, but the article didn't seem to paint the clientele in a good light.
- mangeletti 10y ago
  That was absolutely my first thought. The article basically starts out with "everyone's doing it", then talks about how all the tech guys are taking part, and even goes as far as explaining the value proposition of "...girlfriend experience, without having to deal with an actual girlfriend.". It reminds me of those "Don't buy <popular nutraceutical> until you read this" advertorials, which purportedly offer a critical look, but are actually written by the nutraceutical company. I've flagged the post. I recommend you do the same.
- mk89 10y ago
  ... man, that's vanityfair, I don't even know why it's on HN. I opened it, I saw the boobs, then I saw the boobs again, then the name. This sort of magazines are just a channel to present products and to imprint the fear of being an outcast into people, in case they don't prostitute themselves for a product-brand. Of course it's bullshit marketing piece!
- maehwasu 10y ago
  Very very high chance that this is a marketing piece by SA--this has been their main marketing strategy for awhile. At the same time, the "everybody is doing it angle" is basically true, especially in the cities with lots of attractive girls (LA, NYC, Miami, etc). My gay friends who sponsor younger dudes confirm the same on that side.
- nahiluhmot 10y ago
gyardley 10y ago
In a truly 'new whatever economy' with minimal barriers to entry and no middlemen, wouldn't the competition quickly reduce prices to subsistence levels? If these women are truly able to charge hundreds of dollars for their time, I'm thinking this is way more of a niche activity than the author's implying.
- lordnacho 10y ago
  I think 538 or one of those prominent economics blogs had an article about this; they looked at prices before and after the pill and sexual liberation of the 1960s, and concluded prices had collapsed. Basically they concluded that supply and demand (the default explanation) was working. If social attitudes change, and tech lends a hand by making it easier and discreet, I don't see why the same dynamic wouldn't continue.
  - netsharc 10y ago
    Heh, Tinder where you have several "Like" buttons, each with a different price tag...
- GVIrish 10y ago
  I think the social barrier to entry is extremely high so supply is not going to going to rise very quickly. The rich clientele here are looking for very attractive women who may have some college-education. In that group of people (and really any group) there is still a lot of stigma with this sort of thing. It can ruin relationships with friends and parents. It can also ruin prospects with long term partners. Not everyone would be willing to pay that price. I'm sure prices will be driven down as stuff like this becomes more accepted but I doubt it will be driven down to subsistence levels. Sex work is not for everyone, even if it is more socially acceptable.
j_m_b 10y ago
Prostitution is a fundamental natural right. Even animals do it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_among_animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_among_animals. To try and ban such behavior is immoral. Look at the fruits of prohibition: 1. Prostitutes can not rely on the police for protection. This leads many women who practice this to be under the "administration" of a pimp. 2. Because it is illegal, criminals are the ones who engage in the activity. With little respect for the rule of law, other laws are ignored such as age of consent, kidnapping, coercion, etc. This leads to literal human trafficking. When I read comments about a lack of "reasonable regulatory framework", I cringe. So what would this look like? A "reasonable" approach would be to have all sex workers and their customers tested for STDs. How do we enforce that? You get a certificate from a regulatory agency? How do we prevent that system from being corrupted? How often should one get tested? Would the burden and costs exceed that of engaging in "illegal" prostitution? There are lag times from when STD is detectable and transmissible. It is not possible, even within a regulatory framework, to prevent the transmission of STDs. I much prefer a technological solution. If prostitution was legal, the need to be informed about your clients would be addressed by competing interests. We don't need a government agency telling us how to engage in the oldest and most ancient of professions!
- lordnacho 10y ago
  Also, if it becomes common, there's no reason to think the network of infection would be connected in the current way. You might find a lot of casual workers who are less connected, rather than a few with a lot of connections.
GVIrish 10y ago
Sex is probably the highest demand human 'service' right behind food and medical attention. It only stands to reason that the internet would enable that demand to find people willing to be paid exorbitantly to perform sex acts. Trying to stop that via legislation is just as, if not more futile than trying to stop drug use through prohibition. What is interesting and scary at the same time is what happens to relationships and sexuality if all of a sudden anyone on both sides of the pay for dating->sex equation can find what they're looking for? Does it make it everyone more callous about sex knowing that it is a commodity with a free market? Does it increase infidelity? Will it make people more accepting of and open about sex? Does it create more angry and sexually-frustrated males feeling like they're beaten out by people who can pay? With the sugar daddy phenomenon it could create a source of modest wealth for a some of these women. In several of these exposes some of the women were using their sugar daddies to fund their business ideas or to pay for higher education. And really, it's not prostitution in the legal sense. I think there'll be a lot of surprising outcomes from this, some of the good, some of them bad.
tristor 10y ago
I found the juxtaposition interesting in this article that one of the women got into "sugaring" because she was tired of dating "immature frat bros" and then found that many of her clients were lonely tech workers. At the risk of stating something which is a bit cliched, I think that there was an opportunity here missed where the woman could have legitimately dated a tech worker who wasn't an "immature frat bro" without having to resort to "sugaring". On the other hand, it doesn't speak highly of any of these men that they consider it okay to sexually objectify women by paying for sex, although I do understand their frustrations and loneliness when you're stuck working so many hours its impossible to even try to date.
- navait 10y ago
  To me, that would indicate that there's some quality that she doesn't like about the tech workers that the frat bros have. The frat bros have qualities that are ok at first get on your nerves over time. Or maybe she's tired of dating in general. Might as well get paid for it then.
  - tristor 10y ago
    > To me, that would indicate that there's some quality that she doesn't like about the tech workers that the frat bros have. I agree. I'm curious what that quality is specifically. Both for my own personal advancement and out of a general belief that people are individuals not the labels that they are described by. I would think certainly there's both a subset of "frat bros" and tech workers that these women might find fulfilling long-term relationships with.
- sinxoveretothex 10y ago
  I never got this "sexual objectification" thing. If it is sexual objectification to pay for sex (assumed consensual), then surely it's "intellectual/creative objectification" to contract someone to make a website, right? I mean, if it was something special about sex, we wouldn't need to qualify it as sexual (prostitution is not 'sexual prostitution' or even 'sexual slavery'). So what is it that is the problem with sexual objectification? It's not the objectification proper since nobody is lamenting the objectification of plumbers and painters or what not. And it's not like anybody cares about what their feelings are like. Everyone seems to understand that it's a job. So really, the aspect of sexual objectification people don't like is that they believe no one should be allowed to sell sex. And my question is why? We sure are allowed to sell food, either at the grocery or the restaurant. We're are allowed to sell and rent living arrangements. Although it's uncommon, there's even places charging for access to toilets. So why is sex so special?
DelaneyM 10y ago
This doesn't belong here. I flinched when saw this headline, then cringed when I realized it wasn't just a terribly inappropriate reference to the "gig economy". I wish we could restrict discussion about sex work to those who have been involved in it, or at least ensure their voices are included. But I know this doesn't belong on hacker news. There's no tech, there's no engineering impact, and it's a dangerous topic given the delicacy of gender issues in a startup culture context.
- dang 10y ago
  > no tech, there's no engineering impact, and it's a dangerous topic Those are not the criteria for whether something belongs on Hacker News. The criterion is simply that a story be intellectually interesting. This one is complex in that it has intellectually interesting aspects as well as other aspects. But that's not uncommon. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
helipad 10y ago
Putting the prostitution to one side, the underlying issues are particularly concerning to me. In this article, young people appear to have either large debt or expensive taste. They're encouraged to attend college, but increasingly find that the available jobs don't meet expectations. "Vanilla", low-paying employment. The description of the young woman who learned how to present herself and even how to do an elevator pitch sound like the exception, rather than the norm. Not everyone is so ambitious. Instead, the article suggests that most young people start doing this out of desperation. Desperation for paying off increasing debt, desperation for not having been taught or learned the skills necessary to have a non-vanilla, well-paying job, desperation for not being able to have the life that seems so accessible online today but only available to a few.
heroprotagonist 10y ago
The most surprising thing in this piece was that Homeland Security is shutting down sugar daddy websites for facilitating prostitution. I thought they were only supposed to go after a different type of threat. This expansion of scope is troublesome.
transfire 10y ago
Please. They don't call it the "Oldest Profession" for no reason.
nonce42 10y ago
"... on sites like RentBoy, which was busted and shut down in 2015 by Homeland Security for facilitating prostitution." - am I the only one who finds this a bizarre role for Homeland Security? P.S. This sure feels like a PR piece: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html PS2: The article has lots of ads for luxury goods while describing women using prostitution to buy these products: "She became a sugar baby in order to buy luxury goods." I can't figure out if that is terrible ad placement or genius ad placement. And there's a strange circularity where the article creates demand for luxury goods (and sex), while simultaneously providing a solution for how to obtain the luxury goods (and sex).
YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
>> what I’m looking for in this transaction is not sexual satisfaction. Do you like everyone at your job? Obvious Jane says: no, but I'm also not expected to screw them.

107 points by pmcpinto 10y ago

FLUX-YOU 10y ago

I'm actually jealous. That sounds like an interesting life.

rokhayakebe 10y ago
You can always give it a shot and see if you like it.
Piskvorrr 10y ago
"Interesting", as in, "may you live in interesting times"?
- FLUX-YOU 10y ago
  Yeah. There are undoubtedly mortal risks with this lifestyle.

kelukelugames 10y ago

A prostitution ring was busted this year in my neighborhood. Most of the johns arrested were tech workers. Hmmmm...

umanwizard 10y ago
Maybe most of the men with ample disposable income in your neighborhood are sex workers?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- gjm11 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure you mean "... are tech workers", not "... are sex workers".
  - umanwizard 10y ago
    Erm. Yup. Thanks :)

abpavel 10y ago

$700/hr for dinner, parties, and fun? Sounds like a taunt...

MichaelBurge 10y ago

Prostitution was historically outlawed because the part of the city where it happened ended up being some run-down smelly area, where you'd catch a venereal disease just by looking at it. I don't think anyone had a problem with high-class prostitutes, but it's easier to ban X than to ban poor people doing X. For example, it was only in 2009 that Rhode Island banned prostitution; but they banned brothels long before then. Historically, it looks like the prostitution ban was mostly pushed through by this women's organization. They also did Prohibition, and this all happened around the same time women got the right to vote and WWI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance... I'm not sure how many of the historical reasons still apply: We're not in any serious war, zoning laws and city codes seem like they'd be sufficient to protect against slimy neighborhoods, there's been a 'safe sex' movement so it'd be less likely that people would freely transmit diseases, and abusive pimps don't seem as economically necessary. Also, what's up with the VC that let a prostitute run up $60k on the tab. At no level of wealth are you ever "too busy" to watch your money, and this guy's job is to manage money.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jseliger 10y ago
Historically, it looks like the prostitution ban was mostly pushed through by this women's organization Interestingly, too, women on the whole used to vote more politically conservative than men, while today they vote more politically liberal than men: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21700425-europes-far-right-not-such-hit-ladies-lefter-sex http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21700425-europes-far-ri....

jacques_chester 10y ago

This article, and the previous moral panic piece by the same author (Nancy Jo Sales), really do remind me of Scott Templeton from The Wire. Quotes that are too perfect, stereotypes that are too stereotypical, plus a generous helping of "everyone is" quotes. Mind you, accusing a journalist of outright fabrication is very serious. What's more likely is that she was able to selectively form a narrative. Note the total absence of independent statistics. No interviews with police, independent researchers, other journalists, sociologists, economists. No quotes from people who break the narrative, creating a total absence of any alternative storyline.

Freak_NL 10y ago
Astute observation. There have been more documentaries and stories about this topic, and plenty of those seem plausible, but these often focus on webcamming and catering to specific fetishes and interests. Those stories also seem much more down to earth and less dreamlike. Perhaps it was the 'jumbo-sized Danny DeVito's' that kinda broke the suspense of disbelief.
- DanBC 10y ago
  But this article is focussed on a very narrow niche market - not just prostitution but sugar daddying.

bench_soup 10y ago

>“If prostitution is really just physical labor, if it’s no different than serving coffee or fixing a car, then why would we see rape as such a traumatic thing? If there’s nothing different about sex, then what’s so bad about rape?” That was my thought too, I found this story to be really depressing. But I feel like the author is trying to present this as a general and wide-adopted trend when it's probably quite marginal.

efaref 10y ago
Well, forced-coffee-serving and forced-car-fixing also has a name: slavery. That's pretty traumatic, too.
- lawless123 10y ago
  Did something like it happen in Japan? compensated dating?
- ebbv 10y ago
  That's a bit of a stretch. If you're forced to serve someone coffee one time most people would agree that's messed up but not that big of a deal. If you're forced to have sex once, you've been raped and that's a life shattering event.
  - djschnei 10y ago
    You're completely missing the point. The point isn't which is more life shattering (no one is arguing that), the point is that our laws should protect against coercion against one's body. Forced labor and rape are differing levels of infringement on ones body. However, sex and labor are still products of one's body and the individual has the right to do with their body as they wish.
    - ebbv 10y ago
      Sorry but it's you who is missing the point here. Nobody's arguing about whether we should be able to be forced to do anything. Everybody agrees that we should not. The point is that there's a difference between regular labor and sex.

return0 10y ago

This is the original sharing economy. It's terribly rigged for men, though.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

anotherarray 10y ago

"What happens in a future without work?" We like to answer with "basic income" or "we'll create new jobs", but that's not always the case. Uberization of prostitution, surrogacy, professional cuddlers. That should open our eyes.

jcfrei 10y ago

Banning prostitution is one of those silly policy mistakes that politicians around the globe have committed regularly in the past. There should be no place for morality in any modern legal framework. However prostitution still lacks a reasonable regulatory framework in most countries (with some Swiss cities being a notable exception).

hx87 10y ago
> no place for morality in any modern legal framework There's definitely a place for morality, but perhaps a better way to put it is that there should be no place for any non-utilitarian morality in any legal framework.
- LoSboccacc 10y ago
  what you're thinking is ethic
- jcfrei 10y ago
  Can you give an example for a moral and useful statute that is outside of a common ethical framework?
- hnal943 10y ago
  But that's still a moral statement - one that privileges utilitarianism above other philosophies.
- omalleyt 10y ago
  These thoughts scare me. Utilitarianism is far from perfect. For instance, would we as a society designate 5% of women as lacking right to their own body and allow any man to have them when he wishes? If the pleasure the men gained is greater than the suffering of the women, utilitarians say yes. And even if you say "No, because the suffering of the women will inevitably be greater," is that REALLY the reason that the action I stated above is wrong? Or is it...that women have a moral right to their body that is not subject to the whims of what is best for society
  - 10y ago

iandanforth 10y ago

If you're on the fence as to whether prostitution should be legal, I suggest listening to this articulate sex worker before you make up your mind. https://www.ted.com/talks/toni_mac_the_laws_that_sex_workers_really_want https://www.ted.com/talks/toni_mac_the_laws_that_sex_workers...

peterlk 10y ago

I want to offer a different perspective. This article is more itsightful than the comments tere suggest. I have had multiple friends seriously consider this line of work, and some undertake it. No one talks about it. It's very secretive, and somewhat dangerous. It's not talked about with girlfriends at bars. It's not told to mom and dad, but it is all around you. I once had one of these friends approach mose to ask if she could invest in my startup in cash because she had garbage bags of cash that she could no longer legally deposit in her bank. That cash put her through college. Many of their clients do have significant others, and many of those significant others know what's going on. It's just "fun on the side". When this article says "tech guys" it doesn't mean senior developers; it means twenty-something VPs and CTOs.

ryandrake 10y ago
> When this article says "tech guys" it doesn't mean senior developers; it means twenty-something VPs and CTOs. Exactly. Funny how the phrase "tech guys" has morphed from programmers and hackers (1990s) into VPs and senior execs (2010s). No programmers I know are able to afford to spend $700/hr on anything, let alone something you can get for free.

Wilya 10y ago

The article has the name of one particular website repeated fourteen times, and it paints its marginal niche (sugar daddies) as something that everybody is doing, and as something normal and empowering for women. And, coincidentally, this website needs to attract women. Everything about this screams "Bullshit marketing/PR piece". Is it only me?

ctack 10y ago
It could be, but the article didn't seem to paint the clientele in a good light.
mangeletti 10y ago
That was absolutely my first thought. The article basically starts out with "everyone's doing it", then talks about how all the tech guys are taking part, and even goes as far as explaining the value proposition of "...girlfriend experience, without having to deal with an actual girlfriend.". It reminds me of those "Don't buy <popular nutraceutical> until you read this" advertorials, which purportedly offer a critical look, but are actually written by the nutraceutical company. I've flagged the post. I recommend you do the same.
mk89 10y ago
... man, that's vanityfair, I don't even know why it's on HN. I opened it, I saw the boobs, then I saw the boobs again, then the name. This sort of magazines are just a channel to present products and to imprint the fear of being an outcast into people, in case they don't prostitute themselves for a product-brand. Of course it's bullshit marketing piece!
maehwasu 10y ago
Very very high chance that this is a marketing piece by SA--this has been their main marketing strategy for awhile. At the same time, the "everybody is doing it angle" is basically true, especially in the cities with lots of attractive girls (LA, NYC, Miami, etc). My gay friends who sponsor younger dudes confirm the same on that side.
nahiluhmot 10y ago

gyardley 10y ago

In a truly 'new whatever economy' with minimal barriers to entry and no middlemen, wouldn't the competition quickly reduce prices to subsistence levels? If these women are truly able to charge hundreds of dollars for their time, I'm thinking this is way more of a niche activity than the author's implying.

lordnacho 10y ago
I think 538 or one of those prominent economics blogs had an article about this; they looked at prices before and after the pill and sexual liberation of the 1960s, and concluded prices had collapsed. Basically they concluded that supply and demand (the default explanation) was working. If social attitudes change, and tech lends a hand by making it easier and discreet, I don't see why the same dynamic wouldn't continue.
- netsharc 10y ago
  Heh, Tinder where you have several "Like" buttons, each with a different price tag...
GVIrish 10y ago
I think the social barrier to entry is extremely high so supply is not going to going to rise very quickly. The rich clientele here are looking for very attractive women who may have some college-education. In that group of people (and really any group) there is still a lot of stigma with this sort of thing. It can ruin relationships with friends and parents. It can also ruin prospects with long term partners. Not everyone would be willing to pay that price. I'm sure prices will be driven down as stuff like this becomes more accepted but I doubt it will be driven down to subsistence levels. Sex work is not for everyone, even if it is more socially acceptable.

j_m_b 10y ago

Prostitution is a fundamental natural right. Even animals do it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_among_animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_among_animals. To try and ban such behavior is immoral. Look at the fruits of prohibition: 1. Prostitutes can not rely on the police for protection. This leads many women who practice this to be under the "administration" of a pimp. 2. Because it is illegal, criminals are the ones who engage in the activity. With little respect for the rule of law, other laws are ignored such as age of consent, kidnapping, coercion, etc. This leads to literal human trafficking. When I read comments about a lack of "reasonable regulatory framework", I cringe. So what would this look like? A "reasonable" approach would be to have all sex workers and their customers tested for STDs. How do we enforce that? You get a certificate from a regulatory agency? How do we prevent that system from being corrupted? How often should one get tested? Would the burden and costs exceed that of engaging in "illegal" prostitution? There are lag times from when STD is detectable and transmissible. It is not possible, even within a regulatory framework, to prevent the transmission of STDs. I much prefer a technological solution. If prostitution was legal, the need to be informed about your clients would be addressed by competing interests. We don't need a government agency telling us how to engage in the oldest and most ancient of professions!

lordnacho 10y ago
Also, if it becomes common, there's no reason to think the network of infection would be connected in the current way. You might find a lot of casual workers who are less connected, rather than a few with a lot of connections.

GVIrish 10y ago

Sex is probably the highest demand human 'service' right behind food and medical attention. It only stands to reason that the internet would enable that demand to find people willing to be paid exorbitantly to perform sex acts. Trying to stop that via legislation is just as, if not more futile than trying to stop drug use through prohibition. What is interesting and scary at the same time is what happens to relationships and sexuality if all of a sudden anyone on both sides of the pay for dating->sex equation can find what they're looking for? Does it make it everyone more callous about sex knowing that it is a commodity with a free market? Does it increase infidelity? Will it make people more accepting of and open about sex? Does it create more angry and sexually-frustrated males feeling like they're beaten out by people who can pay? With the sugar daddy phenomenon it could create a source of modest wealth for a some of these women. In several of these exposes some of the women were using their sugar daddies to fund their business ideas or to pay for higher education. And really, it's not prostitution in the legal sense. I think there'll be a lot of surprising outcomes from this, some of the good, some of them bad.

tristor 10y ago

I found the juxtaposition interesting in this article that one of the women got into "sugaring" because she was tired of dating "immature frat bros" and then found that many of her clients were lonely tech workers. At the risk of stating something which is a bit cliched, I think that there was an opportunity here missed where the woman could have legitimately dated a tech worker who wasn't an "immature frat bro" without having to resort to "sugaring". On the other hand, it doesn't speak highly of any of these men that they consider it okay to sexually objectify women by paying for sex, although I do understand their frustrations and loneliness when you're stuck working so many hours its impossible to even try to date.

navait 10y ago
To me, that would indicate that there's some quality that she doesn't like about the tech workers that the frat bros have. The frat bros have qualities that are ok at first get on your nerves over time. Or maybe she's tired of dating in general. Might as well get paid for it then.
- tristor 10y ago
  > To me, that would indicate that there's some quality that she doesn't like about the tech workers that the frat bros have. I agree. I'm curious what that quality is specifically. Both for my own personal advancement and out of a general belief that people are individuals not the labels that they are described by. I would think certainly there's both a subset of "frat bros" and tech workers that these women might find fulfilling long-term relationships with.
sinxoveretothex 10y ago
I never got this "sexual objectification" thing. If it is sexual objectification to pay for sex (assumed consensual), then surely it's "intellectual/creative objectification" to contract someone to make a website, right? I mean, if it was something special about sex, we wouldn't need to qualify it as sexual (prostitution is not 'sexual prostitution' or even 'sexual slavery'). So what is it that is the problem with sexual objectification? It's not the objectification proper since nobody is lamenting the objectification of plumbers and painters or what not. And it's not like anybody cares about what their feelings are like. Everyone seems to understand that it's a job. So really, the aspect of sexual objectification people don't like is that they believe no one should be allowed to sell sex. And my question is why? We sure are allowed to sell food, either at the grocery or the restaurant. We're are allowed to sell and rent living arrangements. Although it's uncommon, there's even places charging for access to toilets. So why is sex so special?

DelaneyM 10y ago

This doesn't belong here. I flinched when saw this headline, then cringed when I realized it wasn't just a terribly inappropriate reference to the "gig economy". I wish we could restrict discussion about sex work to those who have been involved in it, or at least ensure their voices are included. But I know this doesn't belong on hacker news. There's no tech, there's no engineering impact, and it's a dangerous topic given the delicacy of gender issues in a startup culture context.

dang 10y ago
> no tech, there's no engineering impact, and it's a dangerous topic Those are not the criteria for whether something belongs on Hacker News. The criterion is simply that a story be intellectually interesting. This one is complex in that it has intellectually interesting aspects as well as other aspects. But that's not uncommon. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

helipad 10y ago

Putting the prostitution to one side, the underlying issues are particularly concerning to me. In this article, young people appear to have either large debt or expensive taste. They're encouraged to attend college, but increasingly find that the available jobs don't meet expectations. "Vanilla", low-paying employment. The description of the young woman who learned how to present herself and even how to do an elevator pitch sound like the exception, rather than the norm. Not everyone is so ambitious. Instead, the article suggests that most young people start doing this out of desperation. Desperation for paying off increasing debt, desperation for not having been taught or learned the skills necessary to have a non-vanilla, well-paying job, desperation for not being able to have the life that seems so accessible online today but only available to a few.

heroprotagonist 10y ago

The most surprising thing in this piece was that Homeland Security is shutting down sugar daddy websites for facilitating prostitution. I thought they were only supposed to go after a different type of threat. This expansion of scope is troublesome.

transfire 10y ago

Please. They don't call it the "Oldest Profession" for no reason.

nonce42 10y ago

"... on sites like RentBoy, which was busted and shut down in 2015 by Homeland Security for facilitating prostitution." - am I the only one who finds this a bizarre role for Homeland Security? P.S. This sure feels like a PR piece: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html PS2: The article has lots of ads for luxury goods while describing women using prostitution to buy these products: "She became a sugar baby in order to buy luxury goods." I can't figure out if that is terrible ad placement or genius ad placement. And there's a strange circularity where the article creates demand for luxury goods (and sex), while simultaneously providing a solution for how to obtain the luxury goods (and sex).

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago

>> what I’m looking for in this transaction is not sexual satisfaction. Do you like everyone at your job? Obvious Jane says: no, but I'm also not expected to screw them.