And Another Article About Escorting

[+ quoththeraven]

This one's by a Russian expat who was a high-end female escort in NYC. I'm not excerpting it because while well-written, it's kind of obnoxious for reasons that will become clear upon reading. For one thing, some of the content is arguably homophobic. (When a client threatened to report her to the police if she didn't give him sex for free, she told him she'd post an ad on Backpage listing him as a gay escort.) For another, she comes across as kind of shallow.

 

It's interesting to see the differences in approaches between male and female escorts, much (if not all) of which comes down to gender differences. We can argue, and some of us definitely disagree, over whether nature or nurture explains the bulk of these differences. However, if the ego of the heterosexual male is so inherently fragile as to require the kind of dishonesty that's described here, as opposed to primarily conditioned to such fragility due to societal attitudes, something is really seriously screwed up.

 

Sex is Sex. But Money is Money. (Medium)

[BaronArtz]

I enjoyed reading this article. I have never hired a female escort, so it was interesting to hear a different perspective. What surprised me the MOST though, was reading about the STAGGERING amounts of money the girls make - some $1,000 per hour or more. Is this realistic? I don't know of any male escort making that much money ...

[+ quoththeraven]

I enjoyed reading this article. I have never hired a female escort, so it was interesting to hear a different perspective. What surprised me the MOST though, was reading about the STAGGERING amounts of money the girls make - some $1,000 per hour or more. Is this realistic? I don't know of any male escort making that much money ...

 

It's not only realistic, it's accurate. The three "industries" in which women earn more than men on average are porn, escorting, and modeling. Think about what they have in common, and it will be clear what society values women for.

[Kevin Slater]

The three "industries" in which women earn more than men on average are porn, escorting, and modeling.

 

I'm not sure that that data exists for escorting. Do you have a source?

 

Kevin Slater

[BSR]

Not a source, per se, but I know from my decade in Las Vegas that the average working girl here will charge $500 for a "date." A date means vaginal intercourse, but no kissing. The working girl usually quotes the rate for an hour of her time to avoid legal problems; but really, once the guy cums, she dresses and leaves, no snuggling or chitty-chat to finish out the hour. The high end of the by-the-hour girls charge $1000 for a date, but still no kissing or snuggling. This I know from the horse's mouth because I've talked to quite a few working girls. Working girls can be very chatty with a gay poker player because they see me as a "girlfriend," one who spends a lot of time in casinos.

 

What I heard from an MSNBC documentary about the industry is there is a top-tier of female escorts who charge $5K for a 5-hour evening or $10K per 24 hours for the girlfriend experience. They kiss, show affection, and for whatever time they're with a client, they are the perfect girlfriend. These girls are educated, polished, and of course beautiful. They advertise by means of their own websites and never ever work by the hour. That is considered low-class. And while there aren't that many of these $5K girls, the ones who command such rates apparently rarely lack for clients. If the top tier of the hourly girls have no problem getting a grand for an hour, I don't doubt that there are girlfriend experience girls who get $5K/evening.

[+ quoththeraven]

Kevin -- I'm positive I've read it at least once, maybe more, in an article or blog post of a type that's journalistic enough to be the equivalent of an article, but I can't direct you to one off the top of my head. If I can make the time, I'll see if I can track something down using one of the interweb's vaunted search engines.

 

There's also the reportage on Eliot Spitzer's use of an elite escort service based out of NYC, Emperor's Club VIP, that wound up ending his governorship; I just looked up a NYT article about the affidavit that broke the case open and it indicates he paid approximately $3200 for an appointment at the Mayflower Hotel in DC that was supposed to last 4 hours but ended shortly after one. In addition, the essay itself is some proof of it, as I assume the veracity of the rates she quotes is something that was fact-checked.

[Steven_Draker]

What surprised me the MOST though, was reading about the STAGGERING amounts of money the girls make.

 

It's not only realistic, it's accurate. The three "industries" in which women earn more than men on average are porn, escorting, and modeling.

I'm not surprised and I'm in agreement with quoththeraven.

 

It's well-established that high-class escort girls can command astronomical fees and earn more than male escorts.

[+ WilliamM]

It's not only realistic' date=' it's accurate. The three "industries" in which women earn more than men on average are porn, escorting, and modeling. Think about what they have in common, and it will be clear what society values women for.[/quote']

 

Sort of joking but it's also true. Female presidents of Ivy League universities and perhaps the other 22 universities listed in the top 30 in U.S. New and World Reports annual survey make the same amount or more than male presidents. Only sure about the Ivy League presidents.

[Kevin Slater]

The three "industries" in which women earn more than men on average are porn, escorting, and modeling.

 

There's also the reportage on Eliot Spitzer's use of an elite escort service based out of NYC, Emperor's Club VIP... he paid approximately $3200 for an appointment at the Mayflower Hotel in DC that was supposed to last 4 hours but ended shortly after one.

 

Cool, but now we've gone from talking about "on average" to some high profile outlying anecdotes.

 

It may well be the case that female escorts charge more per hour. I probably misread the initial statement as trying to imply female escorts clear more a year than males.

 

Kevin Slater

[BaronArtz]

I'm not surprised and I'm in agreement with quoththeraven.

 

It's well-established that high-class escort girls can command astronomical fees and earn more than male escorts.[/color]

 

 

I mean. $1,000/hour was mentioned in this article. I don't know of any male escort who gets that ... Zeb Atlas, at he peak of his career, was $500/hour for full service, no?

[bigvalboy]

It's not only realistic, it's accurate. The three "industries" in which women earn more than men on average are porn, escorting, and modeling. Think about what they have in common, and it will be clear what society values women for.

 

Excellent observation and a very interesting article QTR.

[Steven_Draker]

I mean. $1,000/hour was mentioned in this article. I don't know of any male escort who gets that ... Zeb Atlas, at he peak of his career, was $500/hour for full service, no?

 

The economics of high end prostitutes

[+ FreshFluff]

It's not only realistic, it's accurate. The three "industries" in which women earn more than men on average are porn, escorting, and modeling. Think about what they have in common, and it will be clear what society values women for.

 

For the two bolded services, another hypothesis is that the demand-supply imbalance is greater for porn and escorting aimed at straight males than it is for porn and escorting aimed at gay men and straight women.

[AdamSmith]

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20140809_FBC249.png

 

To be sure, there are outliers such as the worker who wrote the article cited by QTR here, and those hired by such as Spitzer. But this research from The Economist seems to reflect what one sees advertised on such places as eros.com and on web sites of agencies, and is broadly in line with what I've seen across a dozen years of hiring women in various U.S. cities from such sources. (I have to wonder if Spitzer's precious anonymity might have been at less risk had he procured in this price range, where neither the agency's nor the client's financial movements are typically at a level to attract high-profile RICO-type criminal investigations.)

 

The authors discuss their methodology and findings:

 

...We have analysed 190,000 profiles of sex workers on an international review site. (Since it is active in America, it was not willing to be identified for this article. A disclaimer on the site says the contents are fictional; we make the assumption that they are informative all the same.) Each profile includes customers’ reviews of the worker’s physical characteristics, the services they offer and the price they charge.

 

The data go back as far as 1999. For each individual we have used the most recent information available, with prices corrected for inflation. Some of those featured may appear under more than one name, or also work through agencies. The data cover 84 cities in 12 countries, with the biggest number of workers being in America and most of the rest in big cities in other rich countries. As this site features only women, our analysis excludes male prostitutes (perhaps a fifth of the commercial-sex workforce). Almost all of those leaving reviews are men.

The most striking trend our analysis reveals is a drop in the average hourly rate of a prostitute in recent years (see chart 1). One reason is surely the downturn that followed the 2007-08 financial crisis. Even prostitutes working in places that escaped the worst effects have been hit. Vanessa, a part-time escort in southern England, finds that weeks can go by without her phone ringing. Men see buying sex as a luxury, she says, and with the price of necessities rising it is one they are cutting back on. Even when she offers discounts to whip up interest, clients are scarcer than they were. In places where the job market slumped, the effect is more marked (whether prostitution is legal may affect prices, too, but the wide variation between American cities shows that this is not the only factor). The cost of an hour with an escort in Cleveland, Ohio, where unemployment peaked at 12.5% in 2010, has tumbled.

 

Large-scale migration is another reason prices are falling. Big, rich cities are magnets for immigrants of all professions, including sex workers. Nick Mai of London Metropolitan University has studied foreign sex workers in Britain. He has found that as they integrate and get used to the local cost-of-living, their rates tend to rise. But where the inward flow is unceasing, or where the market was previously very closed, immigrants can push prices down.

Since the European Union enlarged to include poorer eastern European countries, workers of every sort have poured into their richer neighbours. By all accounts prices have been dropping in Germany as a result of the arrival of new, poor migrants, says Rebecca Pates of the University of Leipzig. Sally, a semi-retired British escort who runs a flat in the west of England where a few “mature” women sell sex, says English girls are struggling to find work: there are too many eastern European ones willing to accept less.

 

Twenty years ago most prostitutes in Norway were locals who all aimed to charge about the same, says May-Len Skilbrei, a sociologist at Oslo University. Today, with growing numbers of sex workers from the Baltic states and central Europe, as well as Nigerians and Thais, such unofficial price controls are harder to sustain.

 

Inexperience is another reason newcomers to prostitution may underprice themselves, at least at first. Maxine Doogan, an American prostitute and founder of the Erotic Service Providers Union, a lobby group, learnt her trade from a woman who worked for years in a brothel in Nevada, the only American state where prostitution is legal. The older woman taught her what to regard as standard or extra, and how much to charge. When Ms Doogan started out, in 1988, standard services (vaginal sex and fellatio) cost $200 an hour, the equivalent of $395 today. But some of those starting out now still charge $200, she says, or offer extra services, including risky ones such as oral sex without a condom, without charging an appropriate premium.

The shift online has probably boosted supply by drawing more locals into the sex trade, too. More attractive and better-educated women, whose marital and job prospects are therefore better, are more likely to consider sex work if it is arranged online. Indoor sex work is safer than streetwalking, and the risk of arrest is lower. Rented flats or hotel rooms are more discreet than brothels, so family and friends are less likely to identify the new source of income. Anonymity becomes a possibility, which lessens the fear of stigma. Creating an online profile separates the decision to take up the work from parading for punters.

Meanwhile, broader social change may be reducing demand—and thus, prices. Free, no-strings-attached sex is far easier to find than in the past. Apps such as Tinder facilitate speedy hookups; websites such as Ashley Madison and Illicit Encounters, adulterous ones. Greater acceptance of premarital intercourse and easier divorce mean fewer frustrated single and married men turning to prostitutes.

Dearer for johns

Our analysis shows how a prostitute’s hourly rate varies according to the nature of the services she provides and her reported physical characteristics. As in other bits of the economy, clients who seek niche services must pay more. Sex workers who offer anal sex or spanking earn on average $25 or $50 more per hour, respectively (see chart 2). Those who will accept two male clients at once or do threesomes with another woman command a larger premium.

 

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20140809_FBC102.png

 

Appearance matters a great deal. The customers who reported encounters to the website we analysed clearly value the stereotypical features of Western beauty: women they describe as slim but not scrawny, or as having long blonde hair or full breasts, can charge the highest hourly rates (see chart 3). Hair that is bleached too unconvincingly to be described as blonde attracts a lower premium, but is still more marketable than any other colour. For those not naturally well endowed, breast implants may make economic sense: going from flat-chested to a D-cup increases hourly rates by approximately $40, meaning that at a typical price of $3,700, surgery could pay for itself after around 90 hours. The 12% share of women featured on the site who are described both as athletic, slim or thin, and as being at least a D-cup, suggests that quite a few have already taken this route.

 

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20140809_FBC048.png

 

A prostitute’s rates also vary according to her ethnicity and nationality. What attracts a premium in one place can attract a penalty in another. According to our analysis, in four big American cities and London, black women earn less than white ones (see chart 4).

 

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20140809_FBC067.png

 

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

[Steven_Draker]

this research[/url] from The Economist

 

 

Déjà vu

 

http://www.companyofmen.org/showthread.php?99868-Prostitution-And-The-Internet-How-New-Technology-Is-Shaking-Up-The-Oldest-Business

[AdamSmith]

Ah! Forgive my senescence.

[+ FreshFluff]

Very interesting article, Adam. Thanks for posting.

 

http://s5.postimg.org/5rdt9xs6f/Screen_Shot_2014_10_24_at_3_40_11_PM.png

 

LOL, talk about endogeneity bias. Unlike the cup sizes, "flat" is not an exogenously determined description but a function of the client's own tastes. Because of its negative connotation, it simply means that the woman's chest size was much smaller than the client preferred, and thus the client wasn't that attracted to her. Of course the clients would be willing to pay a lower rate to escorts they are less attracted to, regardless of the reason.

 

It's as if "ugly" were included as one of the body types.

 

As for hair length: As a long-haired Persian, I'm happy to hear this. However, it's far from clear that the escorts hair length actually determines the price she commands. From observation, younger women are more likely to have longer hair. So it could be that the higher prices the graph attributeds to hair length are in fact driven by age, which happens to be correlated to hair length.

[+ FreshFluff]

Meanwhile, broader social change may be reducing demand—and thus, prices. Free, no-strings-attached sex is far easier to find than in the past. Apps such as Tinder facilitate speedy hookups; websites such as Ashley Madison and Illicit Encounters, adulterous ones. Greater acceptance of premarital intercourse and easier divorce mean fewer frustrated single and married men turning to prostitutes.

 

An excellent point. Similarly, the prices of MtM escorts have probably decreased since Stonewall. Increased acceptance of GLBT identity makes it easier for gay men to find each other.

[+ WilliamM]

Ah! Forgive my senescence.

 

To be fair to you and everyone else who misses it, Steven posted the article in the "Ask an Escort" Forum. A good argument could be made for posting it in any one of several places here. Speaking just for myself, I seldom read comments in "Ask an Escort."

[Steven_Draker]

http://s5.postimg.org/5rdt9xs6f/Screen_Shot_2014_10_24_at_3_40_11_PM.png

 

 

http://images.boomsbeat.com/data/images/full/24385/cat_5-jpg.jpg

 

Aww

[Steven_Draker]

I mean. $1,000/hour was mentioned in this article. I don't know of any male escort who gets that ... Zeb Atlas, at he peak of his career, was $500/hour for full service, no?

 

Meet the Male Escort who makes $7,000 a night:

 

http://www.vice.com/read/an-interview-with-britains-most-expensive-male-escort-873

[AdamSmith]

Notice Josh doesn't confirm that figure thrown around by the reporter.

 

Another profile of him, which puts his rates at "up to" 1500 British pounds per night, and 4000 for a weekend:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2734845/One-man-wanted-buy-3-million-tried-New-York-penthouse-The-UK-s-successful-male-escort-writes-guide-getting-rich.html

[BaronArtz]

Meet the Male Escort who makes $7,000 a night:

 

http://www.vice.com/read/an-interview-with-britains-most-expensive-male-escort-873[/color]

 

I don't find him attractive at all, but that is besides the point. $7,000 a night still does not equate to $1,000 per hour

[Steven_Draker]

$7,000 a night still does not equate to $1,000 per hour.

 

Exactly, Baron.

 

$7,000 is a "bargain" comparing to the $1,000 an hour.