From the Street to the Web

Words I have lived by my whole life. Wired ran an article at the end of January, written by Sudhir Venkatesh, on his work studying the sex trade in New York, New York. What he found was fascinating stuff, makes for a good read and infographics. This stuff fascinates me, it is so foreign as to be near alien. Interesting highlights include...

• Technology has played a fundamental role in this change. No self-respecting cosmopolitan man looking for an evening of companionship is going to lean out his car window and call out to a woman at a traffic light. The Internet and the rise of mobile phones have enabled some sex workers to professionalize their trade. Today they can control their image, set their prices, and sidestep some of the pimps, madams, and other intermediaries who once took a share of the revenue.
• They (High-End Escorts) might maintain four to six clients—each of whom pays at least $20,000 a year. They often rent an apartment just for sessions.
• It’s hard out there for a pimp—especially now. Changes in the sex industry have rendered them superfluous. I met 11 pimps working out of midtown Manhattan in 1999, and all were out of work within four years. One enlisted in the military; two have been homeless. Only one now has a full-time job, working as a janitor in a charter school.
• Of the women I talked to, 61 percent said they’ve used craigslist, mostly for advertising. But even before the crackdown on the site’s adult-services section, sex workers were turning to Facebook: 83 percent have a Facebook page, and I estimate that by the end of 2011, Facebook will be the leading on-line recruitment space.