Gawker: valleywag, department of corrections

What this week's news means for high-end escorts, take 8

Melissa Gira Grant — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:00:00 EDT

The impending Depression Lite will be a boon to high-end sex workers, researcher Sudhir Venkatesh assures Slate readers. Venkatesh has made a name for himself in the post-Freakonomics, après-Spitzer era of hooker metrics, and the high end of the industry is his niche. Venkatesh actually does get that the sex trade is way more about moneyed escapism than anything else. But when he spins off onto the subject of "high-tech" hookers, he loses his credibility.

The long tail functions in sex work, too. Half of the 300 sex workers Venkatesh has interviewed work in the so-called "high end" of the business, but they hardly constitute half of sex trade workers. The majority are pulling the equivalent of paycheck-to-paycheck for barely middle-class wages; few get paid vacations or stock grants. Never does Venkatesh define what the high end is. Slate's photo of a high-heeled model leaning into a car is a cliché from another decade, before the Internet made streetwalking unprofitable.

Lawyers are a saving grace. Venkatesh proposes that client diversification is essential to sex workers, just as it is to financial firms, for making it through an economic downturn. Yet he believes this is difficult for workers to pull off in our closed professional networks. He's halfway there. Even though I had the reputation among my colleagues for entertaining (and consensually humiliating) lawyers, hedge fund guys, ex-military, and even a few who made good with their startups, that didn't mean those were the only types of clients we collectively had access to. Honestly, lawyers — the bread and butter of the $1,000+/hour market — were the clients who hopped from escort to escort the most, sampling everyone. A few were notorious for this, and we all did well for it, by sharing them.

Even high-end workers lose money by "paying for protection." He's part right, again: Successful high-end workers are more likely to pay a premium to start a corporation under a proxy board, or hire a private detective to figure out if they are under surveillance, or keep an understanding attorney/accountant on retainer just in case. This is the reality of running a cash-rich business, gray market or not — not an inevitable risk assumed from fucking for money.

(UPDATE: Original pic swapped out, Aug 21 2009)

(Pic via)

Getting off on the economics of hooking

Melissa Gira Grant — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:00:00 EDT

The continuing post-Spitzer articles about why-high end escorts make so such money are, let's admit it, porn. Wonking about the economics of high-end sex and money is a great way to pretend there's nothing titillating about it. This week, Economist blogger Allison Schrager asks how these girls can charge so much — that is, she asks everyone but the escorts themselves.

Who does Schrager poll?

Men in airport lounges
Men she works with
The male commenter who triggered the piece in the first place

Their consensus? Hookers are so unmarriageable after they leave the biz that they're calculating their retirement into their rates. True, no escort agency I know of offers 401(k). But after all her digging into the details of what the women who do this work look like and fuck like, she ignores the most basic Adam Smith answer: Supply and demand.

What makes a highly paid escort successful isn't mere ability to fake enjoyment on the job, but to convince the most boring hedge fund manager that he's James Bond — daring, sexy, and of a class above mere mortals. It's a luxury experience, one most women just can't deliver. You might as well ask why having Robin Williams keynote your conference costs so much.

Back to my original point: Why is it when journalists want to talk about hooking, they pass over the hookers themselves for a bunch of econ profs? It's not like there aren't any MBA or Ph.D. call girls out there that The Economist could have sourced. Seriously, Allison, how do you think they pay for those degrees?

(Photo: Mistress F)

The myth of the myth of the high-class call girl

Melissa Gira Grant — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:40:18 EDT

Sudhir Venkatesh, hooker economics expert, is back. Just yesterday he was on Slate saying New York governor Eliot Spitzer was caught with a call girl because he didn't pay enough. Today he's in the New York Times claiming that high-class hookers are imaginary — no matter how much they make, Venkatesh frets, the poor girls are all exploited, miserable and in physical danger. Is there really no one else to go to for expertise on the business? What about some of the high-end providers themselves — or has Venkatesh convinced reporters they don't exist? (Photo by jamesyu)

What Slate got wrong about Internet prostitution

Melissa Gira Grant — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:35:50 EDT

"Did Eliot Spitzer get caught because he didn't spend enough on prostitutes?" Slate contributor Sudhir Venkatesh deserves credit for reporting that Spitzer's alleged $4,300 date was not premium pricing. But his generalizations are far too broad for such a diverse industry as Web-powered prostitution. Were I his editor, I'd have sent back these redlines:

The Red Light District moving online didn't open up new markets. It gave existing businesses better infrastructure. Online escorting has gotten more sophisticated, but indoor prostitution isn't new. In modern times it has long made up the majority of transactional sex. Even some street-based prostitutes may advertise online and stay in touch with clients using cell phones.
$2,500-$10,000/session rates do exist, but ... A "session" in this case is, on average, at least two hours long, and at most a week. An on-call girlfriend is what's being bought here, not seven days and seven nights of straight sex. $10K for 15 minutes, as Venkatesh claims? Possibly — in a long-term arrangement, where a client is already paying a set monthly fee high enough that an in-office quickie runs at Daddy Warbucks rates.
40 percent of clients don't want to fuck? Oh, come on. It does happen, but it's highly unusual for a regular client to never go all the way.
An escort will wear your ring, but that doesn't make her like a second wife. A client once gave me a wedding ring so I could pretend to be his blushing new bride when we saw one another. It was sweet. But at the end of the night, what do you think? The ring came off.
Physical abuse is not a necessary danger of working as a escort. The biggest fear all prostitutes share isn't their clients. It's rogue law enforcers.

(UPDATE: Original photo swapped out, Aug 21 2009)