Prostitution

I argued that <women are wired by evolution to hate rape>. The main reason is that they care deeply about who fathers their children and when. A woman's ideal is choosing to have sex exactly when and with whomever she chooses. This will typically be with a husband who agrees to support her and any resulting children. (Taking in mind that <women cheat sometimes>, she also might choose a secret sexual encounter in search of better genes for her children.) Also note that this woman's ideal is without dispute the only possible ethical position according to modern values.

People may marry for love these days in the West, but in other places and in earlier times, marriage was itself an economic arrangement. The woman grants a man the exclusive right to father her children and in return he supports her and those children. In the West, when love fails and divorce happens, child support reinstates this explicitly economic relationship.

An economic relationship between sex and resources introduces the concept of prostitution. This is on one end of a spectrum that goes down from economic marriage through mistresses and "kept women" to females who informally trade sex for various favors, and then to the explicitly commercial relationships of one-time sex for cash.

I want to set aside from this continuum sexual slavery, where women are forced into prostitution and would face reprisals if they left or perhaps cannot leave at all. That is rape.

The market for male prostitutes is very limited, while the market for female prostitutes is substantial. Here is a controversial claim: this situation is a way that society favors females over males. Most young females have the option to visit that continuum of prostitution at some point, though they do not need to take it. Very few males have the option.

Are there related, compensating advantages to being male? One is that a man can drift from place to place or even be homeless with very little risk of rape. That is a serious disadvantage of being female. In line with my philosophy of recognizing qualitative differences without needing to fit them into a war of the sexes, we can recognize both as valid, even if the downside of possible rape is bigger.

But if a woman remains within her community, that risk of rape is relatively low. Trading sex for support or protection is an option a woman has. A desperately poor woman could opt for prostitution, while a desperately poor man starves.

We can also put prostitution on a continuum along which female agency increases. Some might choose it given grim economic circumstances with the competing opportunities very limited. Some choose it because although they can get by OK, they can earn significant income. Eliot Spitzer's prostitutes would seem to fit that pattern. One young woman reportedly earned her semester's college tuition in just a few sessions.

If you started with a "blank slate" mentality, you could imagine women saying to themselves that when done right sex is safe regarding STIs and contraception, physically pleasant, and it is a natural human act. As long as it pays much better than most other jobs, it should be an attractive choice. And yet the same forces that make women hate rape will make them tend to hate prostitution. The woman's goal a wired by evolution is lifelong support from a man. Even $500 per hour is not on the same scale when there is no guarantee it will go on indefinitely. Her modern self might know that she is safe from pregnancy and STIs, but it does not affect her gut-level feelings that evolution has endowed her with.

It has also been proposed that in society, the bulk of women have a strong incentive to discourage their sisters from prostitution -- or to at least keep the price high. (They have an even stronger incentive to discourage women who offer sex freely.) If the only way a man can get sex is to marry and support any resulting children, he is motivated to do so. If he can get sex for a reasonable price and retain his independence, he might consider that a better deal. The "women's union" wants to curtail that option as much as possible. There is an internal logic to this story, but it seems more speculative than most evo psych. It might be a cultural adaptation.

Evolutionary tendencies are not destiny. Sometimes people can overcome them. When women who are not desperate overcome their own instincts against prostitution, and explicitly reject condemnation by society (mostly other women), it can affect society, as it takes only a small number of prostitutes to alter the sexual "market". There is a divide today within the feminist movement between those who support sex workers and those who do not. I believe the ethical thing to do is to support them in choosing their own personal destiny. Without getting into detailed policy options, I believe that legal and regulated prostitution is much better than total prohibition. If feminists want to work in parallel to reduce prostitution by way of trying to reduce the demand for it (to change men's behavior), they can.

Changing men's minds seems like a tall order. I think most men much prefer sex with women who have an intrinsic interest in it. According to <this chart>, at most 1 in 5 men in the US and northern Europe visit a prostitute even once. Those countries are rich enough that you figure most men aren't deterred by the price if they really want it. Perhaps those men do objectify women's bodies, but at 20% I would say it is a relatively minor problem. If part of support for sex workers extends to encouraging men to purchase their services, that's a slant I have never heard. But it's worth reflecting that reducing demand for prostitution reduces women's choices. Perhaps we should have a stronger safety net so fewer women are desperate, and I would support that (for men and women alike), but I can't see linking the two issues.

To summarize the effect of natural selection on prostitution, it is not at all surprising that most women would dislike the prospect and those who do enter it usually only do so when they are truly desperate or when they can command a very good price.