Salacious Sunday

With that title, you’ve been warned. All courtesy Sudhir Venkatesh.

First, much sex is about status:

I’ve been studying high-end sex workers (by which I mean those who earn more than $250 per “session”) in New York, Chicago and Paris for more than a decade, and one of my most startling findings is that many men … pay for sex, but end up chatting or having dinner and never get around to physical contact. Approximately 40 percent of high-end sex worker transactions end up being sex-free. Even at the lower end of the market, about 20 percent of transactions don’t ultimately involve sex. … “Men like it when you listen. … and to tell them how great they are.” (more)

Ghetto clergy charge for everything, accept sex as payment:

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Venkatesh’s [ghetto] account is the role of neighborhood ministers. Clergy resolve disputes, but they don’t do it for free. Numerous ministers accept “contributions” from gangs and drug dealers for their services. They take other forms of payment, as well; Bird, the prostitute, has serviced “most of the preachers in this community.” Other ministers have been known to hide guns, drugs, and stolen property for a fee. Nannies rely on preachers for referrals to families but must pay a 10 percent commission. The residents are unshocked by all of this. (more)

Street walkers do it less than honeymooners; more details of their lives:

[Chicago] street prostitution yields an average wage of $27 per hour. … This generates less than $20,000 annually for a women working year round in prostitution. … The wage of a prostitute is four times greater than the non-prostitution earnings these women report (approximately $7 per hour). … A prostitute would expect an annual average of a dozen incidents of violence and 300 instances of unprotected sex. … Prostitutes are officially arrested only once per 450 tricks, with johns arrested even less frequently. Punishment conditional on arrest is limited – roughly 1 in 10 prostitute arrests leads to a prison sentence, with a mean sentence length of 1.2 years. …

For prostitutes who do not work with pimps (and thus are working the streets), roughly three percent of all their tricks are freebies given to police. … On average the prostitutes work roughly thirteen hours per week, performing roughly 10 sex acts total. Average revenues generated per week are about $340. … Prostitutes also steal an average of $20 per week from customers. … The women report being a victim of violence on the job (either by a client or a pimp) about once per month of working. … Women who work with pimps are much less likely to be injured by customers. … Pimps, however, hurt their prostitutes enough to roughly equalize the number of injuries. … Total weekly earnings from these outside [non-prostitution] jobs … total … $110 per woman. (more)

I failed to find average weekly sex rates for high end prostitutes – anyone do better?