One Hell of a Conversation

Sudhir Venkatesh, last seen here as University of Chicago graduate student in Gang Leader for a Day, has been spending a lot of time talking to sex workers. There is a hierarchy, he says, and one of Spitzer's mistakes may have been not spending enough on his "dates."

In fact, $4,300 is not an altogether alarming sum of money in the high-end sex market. Spitzer got a bargain—and that may have been his downfall.

In many so-called global cities, like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, sex is part of a lucrative service sector that has developed for those with expendable income. Soliciting a prostitute can be as pricey as hiring a personal chef or finding a private school for your kids. In New York, it's not hard to find sex workers who charge $10,000 per "session," which can last for 15 minutes or two hours (jokes aside)...

At the lucrative end of the market, I have found it useful to think of three tiers of women (men constitute only about 10 percent of high-end prostitutes). Spitzer was paying for "Tier 1" sex workers: Fees usually range from $2,000 to $5,000 per session; women come in all ages and ethnic stripes; they rigorously guard their health and watch for STDs; and most have a high-school degree but have limited work experience. They can promise you discretion, but most work through escort services that are routinely under surveillance. In practice, this means buyer beware.

The highest end sex workers, says Venkatesh, are independent contractors, unlike the agency employees used by Spitzer, and typically have small and select client lists. They get a lot less scrutiny from the law.

What high-end clients pay for may surprise you. For example, according to my ongoing interviews of several hundred sex workers, approximately 40 percent of trades in New York's sex economy fail to include a physical act beyond light petting or kissing. No intercourse, no oral stimulation, etc. That's one helluva conversation. But it's what many clients want. Flush with cash, these elite men routinely turn their prostitute into a second partner or spouse. Over the course of a year, they will sometimes persuade the woman to take on a new identity, replete with a fake name, a fake job, a fake life history, and so on. They may want to have sex or they may simply want to be treated like King for a Day.

I sometimes wonder what Venkatesh's evening conversations with his wife sound like.

"How was your day dear?"

"Same old, same old. Chatting up $10,000/hr prostitutes all day."