The latest round of moral posturing by politicians has accomplished great things: more sex workers now use Facebook to communicate with prospective clients, fewer are using Craigslist. Success?
A study by sociology professor Sudhir Venkatesh on trends in the world’s oldest profession, published by Wired, estimated that 25 percent of hookers’ regular clients came through Facebook compared to only three per cent through Craigslist.
Five years before that, in 2003, nine per cent of the prostitutes regular clients came through Craiglist and none through the then infant Facebook.
“Even before the crackdown on [Craigslist’s] adult-services section, sex workers were turning to Facebook: 83 per cent have a Facebook page, and I estimate that by the end of 2011, Facebook will be the leading on-line recruitment space,” Venkatesh writes.
Venkatesh says that there’s another key indicator for those who frequently hire prostitutes:
Curiously, he found one of the three main ways a sex worker can boost her earning potential is not to get a boob job but to buy a BlackBerry. “This symbol of professional life suggests the worker is drug- and disease-free,” Venkatesh explains.
Of prostitutes that own a smartphone, 70 per cent have BlackBerries while just 11 per cent own iPhones. Feel free to write your own hilarious jokes using that information.
