My best guess is that the sample size is way too small for any of this to be remotely meaningful.  Not to mention that, by it’s very nature, it’s a subject people usually aren’t terribly inclined to be fully honest about. 

Personally, I’m mainly appalled at the idea that the uber-wealthy are sitting around, looking at their investment portfolios and such, and drawing up a Sugar Daddy Budget for 2009.  Especially if you’re explicitly not talking about people who are just prostitutes, plain and simple.  I mean, it’s probably pretty easy to say, “OK, I’m gonna have to cut the whore line in my personal spending budget by 30% this year…”  It’s a little harder to put a price on someone you honestly believe you’re having a legitimate relationship with. 

Which might explain the gender differences - formal prostitution is much less open to women, even wealthy women.  The women in this sample are probably talking about people they consider lovers, while that 82% of the men are talking about prostitutes.

My guess is that women might have more to lose if their illicit lovers are exposed than do men and so have an bigger incentive to keep the paramours happy and content.

Maybe men, because they’re socialized to “play the field” as opposed to just sticking with one paramour, generally have more lovers at a time than women.

A man with one mistress – and especially in a long-term affair – may remain generous in a time of recession whereas his ‘Brothers In The Lie’ simply couldn’t afford the lavish payments required to keep a stable of trophy women.

Or maybe, as Amanda pointed out, kept women are more common than gigolos, so that the pool of new recruits is much larger for men whose mistresses have upped their monetary demands.

You might also be mischaracterising the arrangement as “prostitution” per se.  In any relationship with a wealth disparity between partners, there are going to have to be understandings about who pays for what, and whether one should get an “allowance” from the other to have some form of parity in living standards.  This would apply to long-term extra-marital affairs as well as to conventional marriages.  Having never been in that situation myself (although crossing my fingers for winning the Lotto tomorrow), I would imagine people would have to budget to support their formal households as well as paramours.

On the other hand, PIATOR, I would also speculate that when people are talking about long-standing paramours, they’re going to be a little less mercenary than they’d be when talking about prostitutes.

Or maybe that’s the key? Maybe women are reluctant to be so frank about our lovers, while men are more jaded about it?  I mean, think of the pile of stigmas here.  Women aren’t supposed to take lovers.  Women aren’t supposed to be in relationships just for the sex.  Women aren’t supposed to have more money than the men in their lives, especially if that money comes from our own personal success.  Women aren’t supposed to be in the habit of “keeping” a younger, poorer lover.  All those things probably create walls around the ability for women to speak frankly about their financial plans vis a vis their paramours.  On a certain level you have to pretend at least that there’s some emotion or mutual affection, that you don’t have that much power over your lover, and that you’re not really that financially empowered over a man’s life.

“sure, the money may even be the <strike>primary</strike> determining factor”

Fixed that for ya.

While I have nothing against “kept” paramours of either gender I find it hard to feel more sympathy for them than any other casual-hire employee.  (And no, I don’t care much for casual hiring. Worked that.  Hated it.  Felt treated like shit.)  If you’re hired like this then you can be laid off.

Amanda is spot-on: it’s prostitution.  The fact that you may like your employee and socialize with him or her and even develop a friendship with them doesn’t change the employee-employer relationship.  Prostitution like the kind detailed here is just like that.

I agree that it’s prostitution, but it’s certainly of a different sort than streetwalking.  Which is why, of course, we have phrases for it—“kept woman/man,” “sugar daddy/mommy,” etc.

Or maybe that’s the key? Maybe women are reluctant to be so frank about our lovers, while men are more jaded about it?

I have no idea.  I’d be loathe to draw any “men are like this, women are like this” from such a limited collection of unique situations.

To give just one possibility - are there equal numbers of women and men involved who earn their money themselves as opposed to having inherited it or have gotten it from spouses?

there’s a range here, obviously, but if you’re sleeping with someone you would not be sleeping with if they weren’t rich and passing some of that wealth along to you, you’re on the spectrum.

Uh-huh.  And wealth doesn’t play a part in “normal” relationships? That spectrum is damned tricky - a long-term paramour lies somewhere way to the left of a hooker and possibly way to the right of a spouse.  Consider where a “trophy wife” (or whatever is the male equivalent) would fit in.

I think the key difference between calling someone a prostitute and a ‘kept woman’ is how exclusive the relationship is on the prostitute’s side.  If you’ve got more than one person paying you for sex, you’re a prostitute.  If you’re exclusively seeing one client, then you’re a ‘mistress’.

It’s like the fact that you’re a ‘call girl’ because you get paid a lot and you charge by the hour instead of by the act.

I agree that it’s prostitution, but it’s certainly of a different sort than streetwalking.

Well wait.  There are a lot of kinds of prostitution aside from streetwalking.  And the difference, ultimately, is of price or “class”, not really a fundamental difference.

Where is your proverbial “line” for prostitution?

Prid pro quo.

If I wouldn’t give you the time of day if I weren’t reaping very substantial monetary rewards, it’s ultimately prostitution. 

Paying for dinner is not prostitution, btw.  I might not be very well off, and in fact I might often be significantly less well off than the people I date.  But chances are there would at the very least be a packet of ramen noodles waiting for me at home if we weren’t going out.  And last I heard, you can’t actually deposit coq au vin in most ATMs.

Didn’t John O get banned a while back for threadjacking or otherwise making every thread All About Him?

“...last I heard, you can’t actually deposit coq au vin in most ATMs.”

I call bullshit.  Opoponax lives in NYC and they can totally do that there.  I read it somewhere.

Considering the raison d’être of this blog, there seems to be an odd baseline assertion here that there aren’t any old women doing the same thing with young men.

I don’t think anyone here has said that.  In fact, I believe I said the opposite—that one reason the women might not be willing to admit that they planned to downsize their paramours was because it’s generally not acceptable for women to admit that they even have younger, less well-off and relatively disempowered lovers.  Let alone whine audibly about how they’re only going to be able to fly Tristan out to the villa in Tuscany for two weeks rather than the whole summer.

Oh, all right.  I admit it.  Well you can deposit chicken, but not beef or lobster.  That won’t be fully available until at least 2010.

What if one of these “whores” were doing nothing but really great things with the money?  From putting themselves through college to feeding their families?  And everything in between?

Doesn’t all that change the equation a bit?

Uhhh, no.  It’s definitely still prostitution, even if your mistress is using the money to pay for her little brother’s heart transplant.

Am I the only one who doesn’t want the word “whore” to describe an actual prostitute, but does want to retain it as an especially acidic form of pejorative to describe people who rent or sell their deepest and most important principles?

I kind of like the word “whore”, in just a phonetic sense.  In almost any use, aside from the sex-negative and slut-shaming ones.  I find it perfectly acceptable to use interchangeably with prostitute/hooker/mistress/kept woman/call-girl/etc.

I agree, it’s acoustically suited: that harsh “h” sound in “whore” provides its own grating contempt, and it’s a word whose sting is increased by slightly lengthening the time it takes to say.  But it’s just that acidic quality which makes me reluctant to apply it to sex workers (whether pros or `compensated amateurs’ as they used to say about Olympians).  They’re just folks doing a job.  “Whore” (go on, drag out that sound) should be restricted for people who have acted immorally and having sex for money ain’t immoral.  I think the word sits, for example, much better on the shoulders of a man who has slept with his sister-in-law, or a politician who always has a kind ear for contractors who employ their spouse than it does on a woman who works for an escort agency.

I get that, but the childish part of me rebuts, “but it’s just sooooo much fun to say!”

Kind of the way I like referring to myself as a slut.  90% of it is based on the fact that I really like saying the word “slut”.

I’m always fascinated by the men who will come out of the woodwork to tell you that sex workers find their work emotionally rewarding in ways that are just like being in a real relationship you aren’t paid for.  Whatever gets you through the night, I guess, but don’t expect me to coddle certain illusions.  That’s not really my thing.  People who want real relationships get those kinds of relationships.  No one is stopping them.

I’m not bashing sex workers, by the way.  The opposite, really.  I’m defending them and pointing out that they’re human beings, and not at all the exotic creatures straight out of a fantasy.

But let me just pose the question:  Where is your proverbial “line” for prostitution?  Three dinners and pleasant conversations?  Ten?  A hundred platonic objective interpersonal interactions?

And, after a hundred, what if the woman initiates the next step?  Does that make the man a prostitute?...
John O on 02/12 at 06:09 PM

Oh hell, it’s “just where is the LINE?!?” trolling time again at Pandagon…

“but it’s just sooooo much fun to say!”

I never underestimate the appeal of this!  And I deny that we’re childish about it. We’re euphony whores.

“but it’s just sooooo much fun to say!”

I never underestimate the appeal of this!  And I deny that we’re childish about it. We’re euphony whores.
seeker6079 on 02/12 at 08:05 PM

Um, if you’re doing it because you enjoy it so much you say, “Fuck the consequences!” doesn’t that make one a euphony slut?

doesn’t that make [you] a euphony slut?

I <strike>stand</strike> lie down corrected.

As far as I’m concerned, a “slut” is someone who shamelessly engfages in a vice, a “whore” is someone who sells themself out, and a “prostitute” or “hooker” is a subset of “sex worker”, which is someone who sells sex for money.

There are honest prostitutes, who shouldn’t really be referred to as whores.  There are an awful lot of whores who don’t sell sex - many of them wearing suits and ties. And I am a language slut.

As far as I’m concerned, a “slut” is someone who shamelessly engfages in a vice…

But here in the USA at any rate, we don’t use that word to cover just about any “vice,” not even ones of a fleshy nature. And we do use it to attack women, for behavior that rationally speaking men who consider their own sexual urges healthy ought to applaud, or at any rate be grateful for.

This is why it works for women to reclaim the word if they can, because what it really means is “woman who enjoys sex.”

The mean, nasty subtext is, of course, “A) woman who won’t enjoy sex with me but lost her chastity protection field when she dared enjoy it with someone else; or B) woman who has enjoyed sex with me in the past and therefore deserves my contempt now as I have new worlds to conquer and she’s damaged, devalued goods.”

I really think your definition is counterproductive in this context PiaToR, as it emphasizes the bad aspect of the word—sexual gratification is a “vice,” eh?—and abstracts away from the association with women, in flagrant contradiction to actual usage, both on the tongues of choads and progressives.

Because euphony, like orgasm, is basically a good thing, even if overindulgence might lead to less fortunate outcomes in other respects.

In fact, when you get out of the class of the super-rich, you see that dating is on the rise across the board, so apparently non-wealthy men do not shrug off the need for the erotic connection so easily.

Odd, I find that when I can pay my bills, I am more likely to be interested in “dating.”

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, but I’m not comfortable with labeling the mistresses of rich men, mistresses who receive “gifts” and “allowances” as prostitutes. (I’m also not comfortable with labeling the wives of rich men, wives who also receive “gifts” and “allowances” as prostitutes, either.)

Prostitution, to me, implies that the exchange is one of sex for money. A guy could be a great lover, a good conversationalist, and love animals, but if he hasn’t got the money, she hasn’t got the time.

Some of these mistresses may very well feel that way about their rich “lovers”. But just because a man is rich and old and a woman is young and pretty doesn’t mean she’s doing it for the money. Some of these women probably love their lovers, many of them are could very well be attracted to an older, established father figure that satisfies an emotional need for security and approval. Certainly, there have been plenty of mistresses who have taken in their lovers when times suddenly got hard, and I just don’t think you can assume that you know what these women would do if the money suddenly dried up.

Either “prostitute” is a pejorative or it’s a descriptive. Amanda insists that she does not mean it in the pejorative, that she’s not verbally attacking these women for being adulterers. Fine. But if it’s a descriptive, we have to admit that we simply cannot use it here because we do not have enough information about the 100+ mistresses in this account to say, one way or another, whether they are prostitutes. In the same way that we don’t know if these women are all blonds (the article doesn’t say), we also don’t know if these women are all prostitutes.

Any insistence that they all/most are prostitutes and that they TOTES wouldn’t be with their lovers if the money dried up smells suspiciously of slut-shaming of mistresses. (Which is hard for anyone to give up, even feminists, because we’d all like to believe that our husbands wouldn’t stray and it’s easier to believe that if there weren’t so many female enablers out there. But that doesn’t mean that they are prostitutes, the descriptive.)

My two cents. I’ll try to shut up now.

I’m going to bet that the differences in the rich people’s budget lines have a lot to do with the different employment opportunities for the kind of young, attractive men and women who decide to be paramours. If most of the women are actress/waitress/model types, their incomes won’t necessarily change visible due to the recession. If most of the men are sales-and-marketing types with a smattering of model/actors, theirs probably will.

I’m not comfortable with labeling the mistresses of rich men, mistresses who receive “gifts” and “allowances” as prostitutes. (I’m also not comfortable with labeling the wives of rich men, wives who also receive “gifts” and “allowances” as prostitutes, either.)

I think the distinction is pretty simple.  As I said above, the line should be drawn at “prid pro quo”.  If I wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole if it weren’t for the fact that you give me money, I’m a prostitute.  This is not a value judgment, any more than it is a value judgment for me to say that if I wouldn’t clean your house if you weren’t paying me to do so, I’m a housecleaner. 

It only really gets complicated when you start to realize that, for most of human existence, a wife has not been a companion life-partner you chose via romantic love, but a mercenary and quid-pro-quo domestic/genetic/economic arrangement.  Until the Enlightenment (at the very soonest), marriage was prostitution - the only difference between a wife and a whore was the long term vs. short term nature of the agreement.  We like to pretend things never were that way, so vestigial reminders of the wife/whore continuum revolt us.

As I said above, the line should be drawn at “prid pro quo”.  If I wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole if it weren’t for the fact that you give me money, I’m a prostitute.

And I basically said just that: “if he hasn’t got the money, she hasn’t got the time.”

However, my point is not that these women aren’t prostitutes, my point is that we don’t know that they are prostitutes, and assuming that they are is (at best) jumping to conclusions and (at worst) casting aspersions (since most of us probably believe that sex for love is more admirable than sex for money).

Too much pigeon holing of people with labels.
One can be a mistress, a whore, a slut, and a prostitute.
In any combination.

Why argue semantics?

The core is, does society push women of wealth in the same general direction it pushed woman in other area?  Do they reduce payments for <insert term here> less frequently because they are more empathetic?  Because men of the same status view women as interchangeable?  Because men are privileged to allow for more frequent partners or <insert term here>?  Are women of wealth pushed to accept the same stigmatism of having multiple sex partners?

Call quid pro quo what you want, but in the end question whether social norms keeps people from being equitable between sexes?

Cynickal,

The thoughts run the gamut, but here are a few possibilities.

1. Someone mentioned the possibility of blackmail. Maybe women are more incentivized to keep their lovers happy (and quiet) than men. Socially, it’s much less acceptable for a woman to cheat than for a man to cheat.

2. Maybe women are more loving and give their men more money. But, conversely, maybe women are more horny and place a higher value on their lovers than men do. (I.e., “I can cut that Netflix subscription, but I’m NOT cutting Friday nights with Randy.”)

3. Maybe men value their lovers less and are more willing to cut on their gifts and allowances. Or, conversely, maybe these men have cultivated enough of a relationship with their mistresses that they can be confident that a reduction in gifts for a good reason (economic distress) won’t send them running, because the women are getting more out of it than just cash.

4. Maybe the female lovers, if they ARE in it for the money, have fewer alternative options than the male lovers, if they ARE in it for the money. However, this would require that the men and women who are/aren’t cutting costs would realize the minimum amount their lover can garner and are adjusting their “wages” according to the competitive rates available on the market. Somehow, I doubt this.

I think scattershot surveys are not worthwhile for drawing conclusions. Each of the evo psych conclusions have converses that work just as well (e.g. women are horny, not sentimental AND rich men cultivate love, where rich women only cultivate sex).

To: Mark Foxwell
Re: Mark Foxwell on 02/13 at 08:40 AM:

Pedantry slut!  Pedantry slut!

(Pot calling kettle black alert, mind….)

“But just because a man is rich and old and a woman is young and pretty doesn’t mean she’s doing it for the money. “

True, Essie, true.  She could also be doing it for the fabulous prizes and the chance to move on to the bonus round!

Opoponax:

If the issue is whether or not a ten-foot pole is used, is not the proper latin maxim thus “prod pro quo”?

I’m also a yakkity slut.

And a dialectical slut, which is why in my long, rambling posts (see my latest BSG thing, which by the way is half its original length, truncated to fit the word limit!) I often wind up contradicting myself.

And committing grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and typos.

“I am large; I contain multitudes!”

Most of whom get their cultural foundations from Warner Brothers cartoons and Star Trek.

On a certain level you have to pretend at least that there’s some emotion or mutual affection, that you don’t have that much power over your lover, and that you’re not really that financially empowered over a man’s life.

Opop-
There’s also a similar, but opposite, social pressure on men to at least pretend that there is not some emotional bond or mutual affection in such a relationship; especially if there is financial power involved, they’re expected to deny any real feelings for her.  I’m guessing this is particularly true of Wall Street “master of the universe” types who aren’t exactly known for sensitivity or respect for women or for anyone else who works for a living. 

The point is, when asked by an interviewer even anonymously, I suspect rich men will be more likely than rich women to express a willingness to let their (mistress/kept woman/personal prostitute/whatever) go or cut her expenses even if it isn’t true.  That is, to treat her more directly as an employee rather than as a mate, even a pretend mate- regardless of how they might actually feel about her. 

On the terminology issue-

I’m reminded of one of the greatest lines on television, when Jay Mohr as producer Peter Dragon on “Action” patiently explained to his male assistant who’d referred to call girl Iliana Douglas as his whore: “No, she’s my prostitute.  You’re my whore.”  And naturally, he quickly promoted her above the assistant- made her an executive producer or something. 

No wonder that show only lasted one season.

(Sorry about off-topic TV nostalgia, but I’m boycotting the BSG threads- waiting for DVD release- and need an outlet.  I do love me some Iliana Douglas.)

I think scattershot surveys are not worthwhile for drawing conclusions. Each of the evo psych conclusions have converses that work just as well (e.g. women are horny, not sentimental AND rich men cultivate love, where rich women only cultivate sex).

You have to understand that those who believe in evo psych theories are saving face here - according to evolutionary psychology women prefer older men with power and money - men prefer younger women for their youth and beauty. The existence of women who pay (younger) men for sex goes contrary to the very foundation of the EP view of the world. They have to find SOME way to argue that women are still less interested in sex for sex’s sake than men - especially in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Maybe it’s because women are not trained to bargain the way men are. 

Women tend not to negotiate on salary or perks nearly as much as men do. 

Also, in a traditional family, women are more likely to buy things that have fixed prices (groceries) while men are usually more involved in bigger purchases (car, house) with a price that can be negotiated.

That’s not to say women can’t negotiate and be good at it.  Just that it’s a cultural thing.