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Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

If the "sexual economy" is so rich, why aren't there any rich and retired prostitutes? This article seems to walk right over the problems that are endemic to that "industry" in an effort to paint it in an acceptable light.

It then claims, without reference, that the VCR was a market replacement for physical sexual encounters. It goes on to ignore that AIDS was a health epidemic related to these sexual encounters, and that when the seedy operators are finally taken out of an area the real estate values increase.

It seems to me to be trying to out of it's way to flatly ignore the human cost of these "sexual markets," where the profit comes _from_ and where it ultimately _goes_.

I'm left wondering: What value is this essay supposed to have to this particular forum?

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>If the "sexual economy" is so rich, why aren't there any rich and retired prostitutes?

there are, they just aren't public about it because it's illegal.

and, a large number transition into other lines of work before they retire, and that's what they end up known for.

>It then claims, without reference, that the VCR was a market replacement for physical sexual encounters. It goes on to ignore that AIDS was a health epidemic related to these sexual encounters,

it's speaking specifically about pornographic theaters, which VCRs obviously compete with. AIDS is mentioned immediately in the next sentence

That seems like a just-so story; plenty of sex workers are extraordinarily public about their work, legal and otherwise; why is it just the millionaires who are hiding? Is this meant to be an IRS thing?

There is plenty of young woman publicly getting amazingly wealthy off of only fans and what is effectively softcore porn on twitch. They retire into obscurity as well when they start loosing their youthful good looks.

To the extent that it’s accurate: it’s a summary of one aspect of the history, culture, and economy where many of the site users do or have once lived and which has plaid an outsized role in the development of the startup culture this site is explicitly premised on.

To the extent that’s it’s inaccurate in its assertions (I wouldn’t know) point it out! Substantive critiques of submissions are welcomed and encouraged by basically everyone around here. Projections of personal morality judgements unannotated by clarification that they are just that go over, less well.

The child comment got flagged into oblivion, which I feel is a bit harsh.

I express personal moral judgements on HN, and I read tons of others doing so every time I come here. I just try hard to annotate them as such.

I don’t have any problem with, and IMHO the community shouldn’t have any problem with, moral opinions of users who hold minority (on HN) views.

I think the commenter just needs to clarify that “substantive critique ends here, personal opinion begins here”.

I’m puzzled as to why posts critical of sex work are being downvoted on HNs lately?

Downvotes aren’t supposed to be for “I disagree” or “I think differently” - they’re supposed to be for contributions against the spirit of the site.

It’s perfectly fine to think prostitution is a bad thing that shouldn’t be encouraged - that’s not hateful lack of inclusivity for sex workers - it’s an ethical viewpoint concerning human dignity and likely negative social outcomes that’s reasonable to express.

The GP came across to me as having personal, preconceived emotional reasons for taking issue with the subject, and then skimming the content for things to support that without actually reading it very closely. To me that's a low-quality comment

> Downvotes aren’t supposed to be for “I disagree”

That’s incorrect.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314

> It’s perfectly fine to think prostitution is a bad thing that shouldn’t be encouraged - that’s not hateful lack of inclusivity for sex workers - it’s an ethical viewpoint concerning human dignity and likely negative social outcomes that’s reasonable to express.

When you look at the consequences for said viewpoint, they're all extremely negative for sex workers. At that point it stops being so philosophical.

>It’s perfectly fine to think prostitution is a bad thing that shouldn’t be encouraged

There are two problems here. First is that US has a long history of trying to handle the problem by prosecuting the victims (sex workers) instead of offenders (clients). Another is that this happens to be usually justified using religious gibberish.

> It then claims, without reference, that the VCR was a market replacement for physical sexual encounters. It goes on to ignore that AIDS was a health epidemic related to these sexual encounters, and that when the seedy operators are finally taken out of an area the real estate values increase.

I don't think you read the article very carefully. The sentence immediately after the mention of the VCR is about how AIDS led to the closing of many venues. The one after that is about the role of property values (though it claims causality in the other direction--that sex clubs were priced out as neighborhoods got richer).

> What value is this essay supposed to have to this particular forum?

Overall the essay reads to me as being very light on editorializing, and much more of a straight-ahead narration of an important facet of the city's history. I learned a lot from reading it, despite having lived in SF for many years.

> If the "sexual economy" is so rich, why aren't there any rich and retired prostitutes?

As I recall, during the Gold Rush the prostitutes were some of the wealthiest in the towns and had quite a lot of influence.

Remember Heidi Fleiss? She made a whole lot of money. Her mentor did, too, and was a lot quieter about it. I suspect there was a successor who was also a lot quieter.

Eliot Spitzer spent like $3K-$4K per session. We know for a fact that top Playboy centerfolds will do it for $100K.

Like any market, though, the majority of the money goes to a very few and the Power Law means that a whole lot make very little.

The other issue is that the sexual economy also often attracts the desperate. So, for every person who is there because its a voluntary job choice, there are 100x there because they have no other choice.

> So, for every person who is there because its a voluntary job choice, there are 100x there because they have no other choice.

Citation needed.

As someone who is very interested in epistemology, I would like to know where you came up with this number. From what I can tell, we don’t have any accurate way of arriving at the numerator or denominator.

You're so full of crap. You can walk out your door and for a couple hundred bucks start gathering data.

Do you know of no one who works in that economy? Do you know of no one who has availed themselves of services from that economy? You probably know more of those people than you think...

Simply out of my acquaintenances that I know who have worked in that economy, I know exactly 2 who worked it specifically for the money and then got out well--not rich, but they used their money to bootstrap themselves to something else. The rest got sucked into it and got used up by it and definitely didn't come out ahead. That's >x10 right off the bat out of the people I actually know. So that's the bottom estimate.

If I match against the stories of the ones who got out, that x10 is low. By a lot. There are a lot of shady people actively always trying to put workers in the category where they can use them up. Is x100 high? Maybe, but not off by an order of magnitude.

And this is just a standard, middling blue-collar kind of area. We're not talking desperate poverty or sex trafficking as part of those numbers.

Now, Covid and OnlyFans has probably shaken this up some. That combination has meant that online interaction has gone way up. That will certainly change the calculus. But probably less than you think--after a bit of grace period, OnlyFans pimps started organizing things.

Nevertheless, very few people voluntarily choose to go into the sex economy if they have other valid options. The combination of stigma that may follow you due to permanent record (cell phone cameras, porn posting sites, etc.) as well as the possibility of getting something on your legal record permanently are both strong disincentives.

I recommend going and collecting some data, Mr. Epistemologist. Meeting some working stiffs who are just trying to figure out how to navigate life will do you some good.

Your response here is very kneejerk and innappropriate. It would have been much better if you left out the name calling at the beginning and end and just kept the part in the middle that was focused on explaining how you came to the "100x" number.

GP was obviously using "100" to mean "many", not "literally exactly 100".

Yes, that's obvious.

> I recommend going and collecting some data, Mr. Epistemologist.

My overriding point is that “collecting some data” in this industry is fundamentally faulty.

It’s not that we have zero anecdotes or data. It’s that we can’t know if the little data we have is truly representative of the wider data set.

> You probably know more of those people than you think...

Of course that is likely. That just reinforces my point that there is more that we _don’t_ know about statistics in the industry than we _do_ know.

> That's >x10 right off the bat out of the people I actually know. So that's the bottom estimate.

You haven’t proven that your sample is random, so you have no basis for calling this the floor.

> Is x100 high? Maybe, but not off by an order of magnitude.

How do you know it’s not off by a magnitude?

My whole point with epistemology is that this entire data set is shrouded. We can’t know if our estimates are accurate or not.

Your methodology is clearly not accurate. I don’t have any confidence that mine would be any better. But at least I’m intellectually honest enough to know what I don’t know.

Sex work is an outlet for people. Prostition ensured that men could do their thing in an age were good decent women remained virginial. And even in the modern age men have kinks that they can't get anywhere else.

I don't like drugs but I know that millions need their snuff snuff to get through life so may as well legalize it and keep the worst atrocities at bay.

The same reason there are no rich and retired cocaine importers. It's an illegal industry. Anyone who gets big enough to retire in wealth will get whacked by the .gov before they get to do so.

Like any business it is the owners that profit.

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