[ExI] highly profitable sexual practices

[Aleksei Riikonen]

On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 5:51 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Ironically, the publicity may create a huge new supply, bringing
> down the price sharply for premium harlots.  Could this be the end
> of extreme high cost prostitution?

Most definitely not.

Consider the high prices of some designer clothing and such. People
being willing to pay those prices has nothing to do with the
"objective quality" of the product. ("Objective quality" meaning, that
if you gave the most expensive handbags or whatever to someone who
didn't know they were that expensive, that person would be unable to
distinguish a difference in quality between the very expensive product
and some other, more reasonably priced products.)

People pay huge sums for high-end luxury goods because of status games
and such. If the products weren't so very expensive and exclusive,
people wouldn't find nearly as much satisfaction in purchasing them.

> Perhaps I was just three sigma naïve (entirely possible.)
> How many ExI-chat readers were aware before last week
> that harlotry could be this lucrative?

I for one am surprised that some are surprised by this. A couple of
thousand for an hour most probably isn't even among the most expensive
sexual services. I would assume many celebrities and such have made an
order of magnitude or two more from selling their short-term sexual
services.

An interesting question is, when will we see the first incidence of
someone *publicly* selling short-term sexual services for $10k or
$100k? (Or even millions, when talking about the biggest celebrities.)
It becomes an ever better way to cash out on fame, as values become
more and more socially liberal.

-- 
Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei