The SuperFreakonomics of Prostitution: Levitt and Dubner in Trouble Again

Actually, Allison, I am a woman who worked as a call girl and was never beaten by a pimp (didn't have one, unless you consider the IRS one) or a client (John is a term used by those who don't respect what we do) and am happily married to a man I am madly in love with and have been with for 34 years. Perhaps in your sad world women are treated like that, but I found it a much different experience, where my clients treated me better then men I used to date for free. And it was the best job I ever had.

For most married women, the risk of having a husband who abuses them is greater than a sex worker having a client who does so... Except for those who work on the street... but that is like being a taxi driver, which is the most dangerous profession of all because you are dealing entirely with strangers who can 'hit and run.' Only 10% of prostitutes work on the street- the rest work off street where we can better control our working environment.

And Adam of NJ, you are right, there are many male sex workers and always left out of the discussion. Perhaps women like Allison of UT believe that men can only rape and not be 'raped' and therefore aren't worth talking about.

Sex worker activists like myself want consenting adult commercial sex decriminalized rather than legalized. But we do not believe that the prices will come down that much if it were not a crime, so Allee doesn't have anything to worry about. What will change is not having the cops force us to either be informants, give them free sex and or money, or get arrested for non cooperation and be "rescued."

The shameful part is that people like Allison will never listen to us, because they have their own warped fantasy of what our work is like and refuse to give it up regardless of how many of us there are who say our work is not "rent a rape." These are the people who infantilize us, who think women who become sex workers are incapable of making informed choices, so they want to impose their own views and values on us regardless of what WE want. They use subjective, emotional arguments to influence legislators and legislation which continues to make us criminals.

People like Allison will not debate us because they know they have no rational argument to defend their irrational position. Instead they make ill-informed proclamations about "daily beatings" by pimps and johns, to make us appear as chronic victims who must be on drugs to survive. Do some prostitutes use drugs? Of course, as do some athletes, musicians, actors, lawyers and even cops. And, just like there are wives who are victims of domestic violence, there are prostitutes who are abused by their pimps- if they have one, but why don't we treat such victims the same way we treat victims of spousal abuse? Do we arrest the person who is the victim or do we arrest the perpetrator? Most likely, because the Allisons of the world wish to punish us for selling what we could otherwise legally give away!

Norma Jean of CA 12:44PM November 17, 2009