Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities

Dank, Meredith; Khan, Badiuddin A.; Downey, P.M.; Kotonias, C.; Mayer, David; Owens, Christopher L.; Pacifici, Leonardo; Yu, Li

doi:10.1037/e508162014-001

Cited by 141 publications

(94 citation statements)

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“…18 Lower costs (e.g., proximate male clients leading to lower advertising and other costs, and immigrant female workers with massage and sex work skills leading to lower costs of finding new employees) may make delivering sex services less expensive than if these businesses were located elsewhere. 25 Additionally, in California, proximity to approved massage therapy schools may enable massage parlors to reduce their operational risk by making it easier for workers to get professional massage certification.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Sexually Oriented Massage Parlors Cluster in Specific Neighborhoods? A Spatial Analysis of Indoor Sex Work in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California

et al. 2015

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Objective. Social determinants of health may be substantially affected by spatial factors, which together may explain the persistence of health inequities. Clustering of possible sources of negative health and social outcomes points to a spatial focus for future interventions. We analyzed the spatial clustering of sex work businesses in Southern California to examine where and why they cluster. We explored economic and legal factors as possible explanations of clustering.Methods. We manually coded data from a website used by paying members to post reviews of female massage parlor workers. We identified clusters of sexually oriented massage parlor businesses using spatial autocorrelation tests. We conducted spatial regression using census tract data to identify predictors of clustering.Results. A total of 889 venues were identified. Clusters of tracts having higherthan-expected numbers of sexually oriented massage parlors ("hot spots") were located outside downtowns. These hot spots were characterized by a higher proportion of adult males, a higher proportion of households below the federal poverty level, and a smaller average household size.Conclusion. Sexually oriented massage parlors in Los Angeles and Orange counties cluster in particular neighborhoods. More research is needed to ascertain the causal factors of such clusters and how interventions can be designed to leverage these spatial factors.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Sexually Oriented Massage Parlors Cluster in Specific Neighborhoods? A Spatial Analysis of Indoor Sex Work in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California

et al. 2015

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“…Third, as an online aggregator, online platforms tend to offer a broader variety of products and services compared to the physical stores. Compared to the traditional prostitution market in which the ethnicity of the sex worker is highly dependent on the location where the service is offered (Dank et al 2014), the workers operating on the Craigslist platform are not limited to a specific ethnicity. Moreover, as reported in Milrod and Monto (2012), online platforms are likely to host a variety of sex workers by which a broad assortment of paid sexual services may be solicited, including unique and niche sexual services that may be difficult to locate in the traditional prostitution market.…”

Section: Rational Choice Theory and Prostitutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Digital Sin City: An Empirical Study of Craigslist’s Impact on Prostitution Trends

Chan

Mojumder

Ghose

2019

Information Systems Research

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Online prostitution has flourished due to presence of online intermediaries. Despite the illegality of selling sexual services online, the Section 230 of Communications Decency Act shields websites from liability for unlawful postings by third parties. Consequently, the websites like Craigslist have become a haven for prostitution-related ads. In this paper, we quantify the economic impact of Craigslist's entry on prostitution incidence, and identify potential pathways in which the website affects the sex industry. Using a national panel data for 1,796 U.S. counties from 1999 to 2008, our results suggest that entry of Craigslist to a county is related to 26.61 percent increase in prostitution cases. In addition, our analyses investigates four key market mechanisms, namely the relationship to commercial vice, geographical trends, spillover effects, and enhanced policing efficacy. Our results contributes broadly to the emerging literature that researches the societal challenges associated with online intermediaries and Internet penetration.

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“…In San Francisco, a study of adults in prostitution discovered that 82 percent had been physically assaulted, 83 percent had been threatened with a weapon, and 68 percent had been raped by a john or pimp (Ashley, 2008). In a study of prostitutes in seven cities in the U.S., 58 percent reported experiencing violence, while 36 reported having abusive clients (Dank, 2014). Even Amnesty cites studies showing an industry fraught with sexual and physical violence, economic deprivation, and marginalization (Amnesty 2016a; Amnesty, 2016b).…”

Section: Prostitution -Commercial Sex Abusementioning

confidence: 99%

Amnesty International's Empty Promises: Decriminalization, Prostituted Women, and Sex Trafficking

Geist¹

2016

Dignity

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Through a close examination of Amnesty International's (Amnesty) own arguments and sources, this paper demonstrates that Amnesty's proposal to decriminalize prostitution or "sex work" will harm those it claims to help. It concludes that the best available evidence indicates that decriminalization of prostitution would: increase sex trafficking, leave prostituted women or "sex workers" more vulnerable to violence, and reduce access to healthcare, protection, and services. Prostituted women primarily enter the industry at a young age, often suffering from a history of sexual and physical abuse, coming from marginalized and vulnerable communities, and driven by emotional and economic desperation. It is in this context that prostituted women "consent" to sell themselves in the extremely risky and dangerous sex industry. But instead of helping victims of sexual exploitation, Amnesty's proposal will mostly benefit their abusers-the mostly male consumers and organizers of the sex industry. Amnesty reaches its flawed conclusion by consistently misreading the evidence, engaging in selective skepticism, and ignoring the troubling legal and practical implications of its own policy. Amnesty rejects decades of scholarly research on the basis of few sources-in one case from close to half a century ago-and sometimes misreads the reports they rely on. Amnesty consulted primarily with those most likely to support its position-the "sex workers"-rather than the sex trafficking victims, adult survivors of prostitution and the child victims of commercial sexual exploitation who are the most harmed by the sex industry.

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Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities

Cited by 141 publications

References 0 publications

Do Sexually Oriented Massage Parlors Cluster in Specific Neighborhoods? A Spatial Analysis of Indoor Sex Work in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California

Do Sexually Oriented Massage Parlors Cluster in Specific Neighborhoods? A Spatial Analysis of Indoor Sex Work in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California

The Digital Sin City: An Empirical Study of Craigslist’s Impact on Prostitution Trends

Amnesty International's Empty Promises: Decriminalization, Prostituted Women, and Sex Trafficking

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