When it comes to the authors’ reasoning, it’s a wonder why all women aren’t prostitutes.
Photo: Lauren Close
Always ones to stir up controversy about our long-held beliefs, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner have a new book out, SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance.
Along with arguing that the world is actually experiencing a cooling trend, which has been hotly contended all over the net, there is also a less debated chapter on prostitution.
In it, Levitt and Dubner compare two women – “call girls” if you will – who brought in two very different brackets of money. One, “LaSheena,” worked on the streets on the South Side of Chicago and made about $350 a week; the other, “Allie” worked in her apartment in a “chic” Chicago neighborhood and made the same amount per hour. Why the difference?
Well, according to an excerpt from the book:
[Allie] is the kind of person who sees something good in everyone — and this, she believes, has contributed to her entrepreneurial success. She genuinely likes the men who come to her, and the men therefore like Allie even beyond the fact that she will have sex with them.
LaSheena, on the other hand, doesn’t like “turning tricks.” Her reasoning? “Cause I don’t really like men. I guess it bothers me mentally.”
You don’t have to read far into this excerpt to see that Levitt and Dubner make Allie’s life out to be some sort of Cinderella/Pretty Woman/Business Week character (she “she represents the ideal wife: beautiful, attentive, smart, laughing at your jokes and satisfying your lust“), while LaSheena barely necessitates a mention, except to open up the piece for comparison value.
Blaming the Victim
But something deeper is at work here, as Sady Doyle notes in her rebuttal piece, Prostitution, for fun and profit.
Photo: Capitan Giona
For one, “the fact that Allie is probably white, and that LaSheena is probably not, is never once addressed,” along with the reality that we learn about the inner workings of Allie, while no real history of LaSheena’s life is outlined.
Did LaSheena have no other choice but to be a prostitute? Was she beaten by some of the men she had sex with? Doesn’t really seem to matter to the authors.
The overwhelming feeling that comes off the page is that LaSheena’s poverty is LaSheena’s fault.
Doyle adds:
Hey, here’s an interesting thought: Maybe LaSheena doesn’t like men because she’s trapped in a cycle of poverty, and one of the only ways for her to stay alive is to have sex with men, whether or not she really wants to. Maybe that’s enough to make LaSheena dislike men.
Interestingly enough, although Allie “enjoyed her work,” she got out of it because she was tired of hiding it from her family and friends, and, most importantly, she understood “her commodity was perishable.” I think that statement just took women back 200 years.
Probably my absolute favorite part of this whole damn story is the moral that Levitt and Dubner end with:
So the real puzzle isn’t why someone like Allie becomes a prostitute, but rather why more women don’t choose this career. You have to like sex enough, and be willing to make some sacrifices, like not having a husband (unless he is very understanding, or very greedy).
Thanks, Levitt and Dubner, for your amazing insights on prostitution and what it means to be a woman.
What do you think of Levitt and Dubner’s take on prostitution? Share your thoughts below.
About the Author
More By This Author
Related Posts
15 Comments... join the discussion!
-
-
……wow. I’m embarrassed to ask this, but just how sarcastic/tongue-in-cheek are they being here, especially with that ending? I read Freakonomics ages ago, but I don’t really recall the tone one way or the other.
And I don’t understand the beginning – of course Allie made more money. She’s in a “chic” neighborhood. Or do they argue that that’s really not why she earns more, and it’s because of her winning, “good wife-ly” personality?
I’m too confused by their logic to know whether or not I should find it offensive.
↵ -
Michelle, not tongue-in-cheek at all, as far as I can tell…they are basically saying that Allie made more money because she liked what she did (and was also business savvy, and hit the right market).
↵ -
Seriously? My head just exploded. How did that get published? Sloppy research.
↵ -
Well, that’s insane…who isn’t business savvy enough to realize that a more affluent neighborhood will equal more money?
I’m not even going to argue that Allie didn’t enjoy what she did – I’m sure some of them do, some are indifferent, and some absolutely loathe it. But if that’s what they wanted to prove, why didn’t they observe two prostitutes in the same “chic” neighborhood, one who likes the work and one who doesn’t, and compare their salaries?
↵ -
Not sure what’s worse–the specious logic put forward by reputed experts or their “passive” misogyny… (ok, it’s the misogyny).
↵ -
Dubner and Levitt’s reasoning? “I LIKE – HIGH FIVE!!!”
↵ -
Sadly, data has nothing to do with morality. The authors are merely deducing their assumptions based on the information on hand.
↵ -
Hi seachild, I don’t think that Christine’s article is pointing out a morality question so much as that the authors are overlooking very basic facts in the differences between these women’s situations.It’s easy to look at “Allie’s” situation and assume the state of prostitution is well and great, but that is not a terribly insightful or complete look at why women participate. It’s just poor reporting and analysis all around.
I really like your articles Christine, they are very thoughtful!
↵ -
Thanks, Stephanie!
↵ -
Thanks for this article Christine. I actually really enjoyed reading Freakonomics a few years back and my husband just bought SuperFreakonomics a few days ago. I haven’t yet read it, but it disappoints me that the researchers came to this conclusion. They are obviously talented guys, but perhaps their unrecognized misogynist outlooks clouded objective reasoning. To me it’s plain and simple: Allie made more money because she lived in a higher class neighborhood and had higher-up connections and clinetele. No woman wants to be a prostitute and it’s degrading to all womenkind to ask why more women don’t do it.
↵ -
I don’t really have a comment to make. I just love those legs in that picture. My, my…
↵ -
I think it’s funny that they didn’t study LaSheena’s life more. Her experience sounds way more interesting, and sheds a lot of light on choices people make in environments where jobs and training are scarce and need is high.
There’s also some writing about queer women who make the choice to be prostitutes to largely male clientele, which is heartbreaking and to me, a fascinating area for that should be researched more.I am also interested in the authors’ implication that a wifely (to borrow the great word you used), ultra-feminine woman would attract the most clients.
I think that despite cultural norms about sexuality, most people actually have ideas, desires, and fantasies that do not mirror what they should, culturally speaking.
In short, I think that often people pay for sex when they are embarrassed by their desires, and would rather not speak openly to their partners about them. I think more often vanilla, straight relationships come closer to what the authors claim Allie offered her clients, so to me it makes little sense that her services were so sought-after.
I wish sex and sex work was less stigmatized in our society. Imagine how the U.S. would be if sex workers could join unions, have wider access to health care, and a venue in which they could discuss grievances! Imagine the relationships we could have if we could honestly and openly talk about sex with our parnters!
↵ -
I have not read the latest book, hope to do so soon as i enjoyed the first one, however,I see nothing wrong the conclusion the authors arrive at, first Lasheena is pushed to prostitution because of her dire circumstances, while Allie made a conscious decision to be a prostitute for commercial and love for sex. This situations plays itself out everyday, highly prices hookers its their career and they invest in it much more than the person who simply wants to put food on the table.
While we may feel sorry for Lasheena, we should not do so for the likes of Allie their attitude is “morality does not pay bills” and they don’t have a shame in doing what they are doing, we should not judge them.
↵ -
Am I missing something? This article gave no physical description of either woman. i’m assuming one made quite a bit more than the other because she was more attractive. One gets stuck in a cycle of “surviving” which mean she can’t actually spend on apearance much. The other cycles ” up ” ….more money, better appearance, higher end clients ” ………
Now I’m curious to read this full article. I really don’t understand that with the risk of std’s and dying from them that the authors could come to the conclusion that this is a good thing to do.
↵
