Author’s Note:

This post has been sitting in my queue for months. I withheld it for fear of being perceived as insensitive to the plight of young women, especially economically-disadvantaged women in the third world who are coerced and abused. However, this post is not about those women.

I fell prey to my own avoidance and denial of “undiscussable” content. That lack of candor is not in keeping with the mission of Mating Straight Talk. I decided to release this post about sex work because it is based on credible economic research and underscores critical issues about the evolutionary dynamics of mate and sexual selection.

I am not endorsing prostitution, especially for women under the age of 18. Based on the study appearing in Evolution and Human Behavior, I assume that Indonesian authorities (more or less) monitor the safety and informed consent of their regulated sex worker industry.

Prostitution is indeed the oldest profession, but modern-day sex work is ubiquitous and comes in many different manifestations, as described below.

Preference for Younger Women – the Prostitute Studies

My last post about Chris Rock* provided research that explained why men are attracted to younger women. Pretty obvious stuff — based on evolutionary biology. In compiling that information, I ran across studies about the age of prostitutes and their earnings, and also a little nugget about why older women disapprove of sex work (I will start there). I have no salacious interest, moral judgments, or personal experience with sex workers, but find the topic fascinating, primarily in its revelations about the complexities of female sexual psychology. But female sexual psychology is not the main focus of this post except as it relates to a service agreement: sex (or “comfort”) provided to men willing to pay for it.

Motivations of Men in the Context of Barter and Trade

The pertinent psychological spotlight here is more about the motivations of men. This post is primarily an addendum to prove further the point of men’s intractable, mainly hard-wired attraction to young fertile women. But, I will also provide brief commentary on sex for barter and trade from the book, Why Women Have Sex, which directly comports with three truths delivered by Chris Rock about sexual selection. I will revisit those truths and examine the direct and indirect manifestations of sex work and how female sexuality is a fungible asset.
*Chris Rock’s Selective Outrage – The Truth of Sexual Selection and Preference for Younger Women

Disapproval of Sex Work and Age-Discrepant Couples

Yael Sela at Oakland University did a study with 430 men and women to determine why men and women might condemn age-discrepant couples. She found a unique variable. Older women’s condemnation of relationships between older men and younger women was partly explained by their greater disapproval of sex work. Younger women expressed less disapproval of prostitution. Sex work was correctly perceived as an exchange-based relationship – money for sex, inspiring more moral outrage from older women than from younger women.

Prostitute’s Age and Earnings Research

As I reported in a prior post** (proving that the male sex drive is more robust than a woman’s), men pay for sex – not women. The professions of prostitution, escort, and other forms of sex work are almost exclusively a business where women provide the service and men pay for that service. **Biological Differences – Part 5.2: Aggression, Risk-Taking, and Sex Drive

The Price of Younger Prostitutes

A study published (2016) in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, examined the link between a prostitute’s age and the price she charges. Economist Kitae Sohn used prostitutes’ earnings to address a much broader scientific question that applies not only to paid sexual exchanges, but to everyday concerns: what does the opposite sex actually find attractive in a partner?

Universal Biological Constraints on Mate Choice

The age women and men desire in a mate is important because it addresses interesting questions about the relative importance of universal biological constraints on human mate choice. In particular, biological theorists expect that men’s uniform attraction to women should be altered because female fertility peaks in early adulthood, drops from 25 to 45, and goes to zero after age 50. Hence male teenagers and their grandfathers may be similarly desirous of women in their early 20s. However, each may have difficulty attracting a woman of that age for different reasons.

“Revealed Preference” for Choice of Prostitutes

By examining what men are willing to pay for sex, Sohn provided a new “window” into the issue of fertility and attraction. Men have a restrained choice in whom they marry or date, but they do get to choose whether or not to pay a prostitute for sex, and the amount they are willing to pay reveals something about what they most prefer. Economists call this “revealed preferences,” assuming that the amount we are willing to pay for any commodity gives a good index of how much we value it.

Prostitutes of Indonesia

Sohn’s sample included 8,560 prostitutes from 15 different cities in Indonesia. As Sohn notes, Indonesia provides an ideal place to examine this issue because prostitution is “quasi-legal” and tacitly supported by the government, which keeps official records on prostitutes’ income alongside incomes from other professions.

Prostitutes Aged 35-40 Earn Much Less

When hiring the short-term services of a prostitute, men pay the most for women between their late teens and early twenties. Between the ages of 25 and 35, the price men are willing to pay for a prostitute drops significantly.

An Equation Related to Prostitute’s Earnings

Sohn provided an exact equation related to age and a prostitute’s earnings.
For each increase of a year in age, a prostitute’s hourly wage decreases by 4.5 percent. Sohn found that prostitutes between the ages of 35 and 40 earned 52.8 percent less per hour than women under 20.

Evolution Predicts Similar Results in Other Countries

Although this data comes only from Indonesia, Sohn argues that: “evolution influenced all humans, so we expect that future research will find similar results in other countries.” Evolutionary psychologist Douglas Kenrick supports Sohn’s argument and asserts that age preferences found in this research are consistent with findings from other methods in other societies worldwide.

Sex Work Manifestations and Sexual Selection

The Synergy of Beauty, Youthfulness, and Erotic-Economic Exchange

In my post about Chris Rock’s Selective Outrage, I said that Rock told the truth about three things related to sexual selection:

1. There is a collusion between men and women related to sex and money – i.e., the “erotic-economic bargain” is the underbelly of sexual selection (with ancient and modern forms) that includes sexual access granted in exchange for provision and protection – calculations of mate value for mate selection.
2. Female beauty provides immense power and particular privileges.
3. Men have a powerful and evolutionarily sensible sexual attraction to young women.

In that previous post, I outlined studies and data sets that illustrate the ubiquitous nature of men’s attraction to young women. Now I have described research that shows that younger prostitutes are valued more by their clients than prostitutes above the age of 25. Obviously, there is a direct synergy between youthfulness, beauty (as a signal of fertility), and the economic “bargain” afforded a woman because of male sexual attraction.

“Sex-Work” Has Direct and Indirect Manifestations

The “sex industry” has many manifestations. There is a robust and diversified market created by the supply of men desirous of (in demand for) young beautiful women who will pay for the opportunity to be with them. Researchers define prostitution in two broad categories, “direct” and “indirect.” Direct prostitution includes everything from the brothel or street women in Indonesia to exclusive and expensive “escorts” in major cities worldwide. “Indirect” prostitution (sexual favors for money in some form) includes lap dancing in strip clubs, massage parlor services, internet modeling (e.g., Onlyfans), and chat lines, to name a few. The possibilities are nearly endless.

One “Possibility” — Men Want to Be Cuddled

Liz Plank in For the Love of Men says that men need intimacy (a point that seems correct and inarguable***) by citing the booming “cuddle industry,” where “someone meets up with you and will nuzzle you for a set amount of time for a set amount of money.” As Plank explains, “most of the clients seeking out this service aren’t ladies; they’re straight men in their fifties.” Yikes, Liz, of course, the clients are men in their fifties! These men are desperate for female attention and touch. They are willing to pay for that! (***All humans seek cuddling as a return to the mother-child attachment bond.)

Is Cuddling Indirect Sex Work?

Maybe cuddling is an indirect form of “sex work.” The absence of intercourse or other overt sexual activities is irrelevant to the central male-female sexual dynamic. Straight men are paying for female company, not the warm arms of other men. It may or may not prove the point about the male need for intimacy, but in no way does it prove (as Plank implies) that the male sex drive is subservient to the need for intimacy. It is (I contend) the heterosexual male sex drive that is the driving force underneath the willingness to pay to be cuddled – the emotional connection is an artifact, a bonus. Cuddle contracts just prove that men need female touch, and some men can only get it by swiping their credit cards.

Why Women Have Sex – One Reason Among Many

Let me close by offering the sobering (and revealing) words of researcher and evolutionary biologist Nancy Burley: “Gift giving or even cash payment for sexual intercourse cannot be used as criteria to define prostitution, for these occur in courtship or even marital situations. Since prostitution and courtship exist as a continuum, the vast majority of copulatory opportunities involve costs to males in terms of time and/or material goods.” These thoughts appear in Chapter 8 – “Barter and Trade,” in Why Women Have Sex by David Buss and Cindy Meston. The narrative stories from women in this chapter are stunning in their descriptions of how sex is used to acquire goods and services. However, the motivation to receive something of material value is just one of the many reasons women have sex, according to Buss and Meston.

Female Sexuality and Beauty is a Fungible Asset

Buss and Weston asserted that “these observations, along with an avalanche of other findings, strongly support a basic fact about human economics: women’s sexuality is something that women can bestow or withhold, something that men want and value highly, and consequently, something that women can use to secure resources they desire. Women, in short, have the power [apropos to Rock’s statement in my prior post] in many sexual transactions.” Buss and Weston continue: “Because women’s sexuality is so highly prized, it can be regarded as an asset that economists call fungible — it can be transposed or exchanged for many other kinds of resources” — from a comfy cave with fresh-killed meat to an address in a tony modern neighborhood where (to use Rock’s words) “women wear yoga pants at 12:15 on a Wednesday afternoon.”

References

Harcourt, C. & Donovan, B. “The Many Faces of Sex Work,” Sex Transm Infect, 2005.

Sohn, Katie. “Men’s revealed preferences regarding women’s ages: evidence from prostitution.” Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume, 37, Issue 4, July 2016.

Additional Related Posts

Dynamics in the Mating Economy: Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference
• erotic-economic bargain – the ultimate exchange in the mating economy

Mate Value of High-Income Men: Seeking Arrangements and the Erotic-Economic Bargain
• research by Rosemary Hopcroft: Evolution and Behavior (September 2021)
• research by Catherine Hakim (Univ. of North Carolina) on “erotic capital”

Why Women Have Sex

Science of Attraction and Beauty

Notes about Future Writings

• I will suggest a new frame for male behavior and character (what I call): the “nice guy – bad boy sweet spot” — how to find “edge” and empathy in the age of consent, and how to provide “edge” and empathy as an “integrated” man in a heterosexual relationship, with forward-looking lessons and understanding for both men and women.
• I will share an updated version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs from a prominent evolutionary psychologist – a new pyramid of human motives.
• I may outline the gender divide in American dating and relationships as revealed in recent surveys and illuminated in a video with Scott Galloway.