I happened upon this data after reading an NYT article on how the global recession is affecting demand for Czech prostitutes. The brothel profiled allows guys to pay an entrance fee and have sex with the women there, who get paid wages plus commission per act. They're filmed for an internet audience, whose subscription fees provide the brothel's revenue. Here is their website's list of girls. From this list, we get the following distribution of ages:
The average girl here is 24 (median 23.5), and the distribution is highly skewed (skewness is +2.96 S.E.). That is, most of the girls are in the lower end, with just a few in the upper end. No surprise there: younger is better, even when almost everyone is under 35. And look at how many are 18 -- about 11%. If you imagine what the graph would look like with ages 15 to 17 included to the left, it's obvious that those bars would not have negligible height -- and certainly not zero height. There is clearly a big demand for girls that age. After all, that's why there are laws against under-18 prostitutes: finding no minors at all among prostitutes is not a situation that would happen naturally in a libertarian society.
In fact, for 16 and 17 year-olds the bars would probably stand taller than those of the over-30 women. I'm going to sell motivational posters for over-30 women who are still "exploring their options" on the dating market: it'll be a stern-faced picture of me, and under it, "You were hotter in high school. So settle already." Take a lesson from your treasured retailers and think up some sort of "buy one, get one free" offer involving your enabler -- er, best friend -- to make sure you get married to someone before your assets evaporate.
Lastly, it's interesting that the beauty pageant winners are quite a bit younger than porn stars and prostitutes. One misgiving I have about chasing teenagers is that, as tight as their skin is, and despite their indefatigable energy level, their asses can't compete with those of a girl who's about 23 to 24. These girls have more raw fuckdoll appeal than the younger ones, who specialize more in being cute and enchanting.
A girl who's 23 is at or near the age when the average woman would've had her first child in most places and times for our species. So, she's the one you want a one-night stand with: she's decided to have a kid, and all you need to do is be there and leave some other guy to raise it. To get her for a greater length of her salad days, like before 23 as well as during her mid-20s, you have to invest more in her, since she's not quite as promiscuous as she'll be in a few years. Because guys would rather not invest anything, they must be tricked and manipulated into doing so -- and youthful charm, plus super-firm flesh, is one of the few weapons that young girls have to get past a guy's resistance to commitment.
(Again, a note to any women planning to go husband-hunting after 30: it's like trying to rob a bank with water gun.)
While I don't think it disproves your point, it should be noted that prostitutes, and porn stars, lie about their age. A lot. As long as they're not actually barely legal it's pretty safe to assume they're a lot older than they claim to be.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the reason they do this is that placing an ad selling sex claiming to be 35 isn't going to work as well as claiming to be 25.
I think a much more interesting counter-point to your general "young girls are hotter than women" argument is the fairly high prevalence of MILF-type porn as well as the extraordinary rates fairly old porn stars can command as escorts (advertised rates are typically in the 1600-3000 range).
/JohnF
Porn stars and legal prostitutes have to have their ages verified, so they're trustworthy. Anyhow, a 35 y.o. could not pass herself off as a 25 y.o.
ReplyDeleteGo to any type of porn site -- database of titles, online rental, whatever -- and search for "barely legal," "teens," etc., and then search for "milf," "mature," etc.
Teens beat milfs every time, hands down.
No, verification does not mean they are at all trustworthy with regards to the age they *advertise*, it just means they're sure to be over 18, or whatever the legal age is. The controlling authorities do not give out actual ages as a consumer service.
ReplyDeleteI've known more than a few prostitutes of all price ranges and classes and one common factor is that they universally lie about their age if they perceive it to be a negative. A 25-year old will claim to be 20, or 18, if she's petite and a 35 year old will claim to be 28.
If I were to make a bet for actual ages on the site you refered to I'd guess that the average actual age, compared to the advertised one, would be something like 3 years higher. And that might be optimistic.
So I'm just making the subtle point that apparently the age that sex advertisers think sells the best is 23 to 24, not arguing against your thesis as a whole.
As for the MILF-stuff I don't think the interesting part is that it proves that women of all ages are equally attractive, or something like that, but that it exists at all.
And it is not a marginal market, if you ask any actual pornographers they will tell you that MILF-titles brought in a lot of cash in the last few years.
That stuff like MILF-porn, femdom homosexuality, etc happen at all is a very interesting challenge to evpsych and much more relevant to respond to than feminism, queer theory or gender studies which are so far removed from actual science as to be pretty much strawmen.
Another way to asses a woman's peak attractiveness is to use rape statistics. Most women who are raped are aged between 12-30. There are few females below 12 and few females above 30. The fear older women have of being raped is irrational. And even in the 12-30 year range, most rapes are concentrated in the 16-24 years range, so it's fair to say that women are the most attractive for the average men during the midd to late teens and early twenties. Using rape statistics gives you the data to the left.
ReplyDeleteJohnF:
ReplyDeleteSo I'm just making the subtle point that apparently the age that sex advertisers think sells the best is 23 to 24, not arguing against your thesis as a whole.
Are you sure the effects aren't entirely local?
Just looking at the chart (without any data to back this up), the spikes and dips around key ages look mighty suspicious. Do prostitutes really take "gap years" when they are 19 and 20?
Do prostitutes really take "gap years" when they are 19 and 20?
ReplyDeleteWho says they aren't simply fired by the brothel owners, and replaced with new girls?
Women may misrepresent their ages as individuals, but it is firms who are giving the data here. If I were a porn manager or brothel owner, I'd be hyperparanoid about lying about *anyone's* age, because it would raise the authorities' suspicions, I'd have to deal with a painful audit, etc.
Gannon, or agnostic -- do you have a cite on the rape. I read it before somewhere (gnxp?) but I can't seem to find the original reference.
ReplyDeleteI mean age-rape statistics, of course.
ReplyDeleteI'll agree with a prior comment and express a lot of suspicion about these age claims. Many years ago, in Mayflower Madam, Sydney Biddle Barrows admitted that her high-end escort agency would tell little white lies about their hookers, including lies concerning their ages. Tricks seldom complained, and it's not as if they could ask to see the hookers' licenses to verify their ages. I really doubt if anything has changed since then. No, an escort agency may not be able to pass off a 35-year-old as 21, but they certainly could pass off a 25-year-old as 21.
ReplyDeleteSorry Agnostic, I have to go with Anonymous (comment #1) and Peter. The idea that "Gosh, the proprietors wouldn't let them lie" is naive (shows *your* youth, heh). Nobody's going to show ID to a customer, so there's nothing to prevent a little puffery. If you disagree, try carding a girl at any ogley emporium. Unless you're flashing a badge, they'll look at you like you're crazy. Those girls do not want clients even knowing their *names*, let alone where they live.
ReplyDeleteIMHO this armchair philosophical proof is strong, but if you need more, take a good look at "Dominika BS" at the left in the first row. "BS" indeed. No way is she 18. http://www.bigsisterlive.com/free/girls.php
You don't understand -- it is not the individual females who are or are not lying. You're thinking of a street-corner prostitute interacting with a john, or a hooker putting an ad on craigslist.
ReplyDeleteHere, it is the firm that provides their ages -- LA Direct Models and Big Sister. Firms do not behave like individuals -- you can't get angry at them in an attempt to shame them.
Therefore, it doesn't matter whether an individual female would or wouldn't lie, as with a streetwalker. We ask instead: would it be worth it for the firm to lie -- in public, documented on the internet?
The answer is obviously "no." Here's what the board of managers are thinking:
"We are compelled to keep age records for all women, available for inspection at all times. If we lie about a 28 year-old, the authorities will think we're lying about other girls as well -- in particular, the ones most worth lying about: the ones we claim are 18. At that point, we get the audit to end all audits. And what is our benefit -- that some guys think they're banging 24 year-olds instead of 28 year-olds? BFD for our profits. So, it's not worth making public, documented lies about our women's ages."
Every so often there'll be something in the paper about another massage parlor getting busted, and it usually seems as if the women are much older than you'd expect - often in their 40's.
ReplyDelete[i](Again, a note to any women planning to go husband-hunting after 30: it's like trying to rob a bank with water gun.)[/i]
ReplyDeleteIMHO, 30 is a little low for a cut off age there. I would be highly surprised if a good-looking 30-year-old struggled to find a spouse her age or older. Obviously the average 24-year-old male would likely be playing younger, unless he prefers an older woman, which is possible but obviously rare.
Agnostic,
ReplyDeleteLA Direct or Big Sister aside, the relevant point for your data here is that this is a brothel in the Czech Republic. Not the U.S. I live here and have had a lot of professional interactions with Czech businessmen of a wide variety of sorts. They are cunning bastards. If you honestly believe that they would not lie on a website about their whores' ages, would have any compunction about making false statements, any fears of being audited, or any knowledge of or interest in obeying *American* laws on age verification (which are irrelevant as concerns lowering the ages of legal whores to lower, but still legal numbers, anyway), you are honestly beyond naive. Your conclusion is perfectly good, if banal, but your "data" is nowhere near as iron clad as you seem to believe. Quit defending it.
homosexuality: if a gene makes a man love to bonk women, it'll make him have lots of kids. so a gene to make you bonk women could be favored to pass itself on through the men even if it makes the women with it do the occasional muff-dive. male homosexuality is harder to explain using this theory.
ReplyDeletefemdom: a lot of men with low self-esteem might want the woman to take the initiative. there are also doubtless genes controlling a person's natural inclination towards dominance and submission. get too many submissive genes and this is what you get.