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How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

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Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#51

Post by cglee »

lukesandberg wrote: post #32
cglee wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point in that example was that articles that seek to glorify something that supports human trafficking, sex slavery, and forced rape - all of which millions are currently victims - should be based on more than conjecture and assumptions.

what particular pieces of conjecture and assumptions are you referring to? Unless i read it wrong (which is always a possibility) the article was one half empirical description of the market for prostitution and one half case study of how a particular prostitute discovered a lucrative market niche.

Didn't read the article, just saying what I thought the parent poster was trying to say.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#52

Post by yason »

jacquesm wrote: post #23
tome wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pressure does not come from being stigmatized but from the fact that a single person income is not enough to feed a family of four in plenty of places. Is this true? Surely the cost of living has decreased over the last 100 years, so it must be easier for a single breadwinner to feed a family than it was back then.

Not where I live and this is a pretty rich country. Between your rent/mortgage, your energy bill, public transportation costs, taxes, mandatory health insurance and food a single person income is not enough to make ends meet. And that's when you don't own a car. Typically a single person income is about 1700 euros net take home, and your costs will be slightly above that (for the above mentioned family of four). The…

Which country is that? 1700€ net monthly isn't necessarily that little money.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#53

Post by roel_v »

loewenskind wrote: post #31
tome wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pressure does not come from being stigmatized but from the fact that a single person income is not enough to feed a family of four in plenty of places. Is this true? Surely the cost of living has decreased over the last 100 years, so it must be easier for a single breadwinner to feed a family than it was back then.

This is what people somehow don't get. If cost of living goes down, so do the salaries. How do you think those decreases are paid for? For most any business you can name the biggest item in the budget will be human resources. If you want to cut prices this is where you have to cut to have any real effect.

In absolute terms the cost of living (when comparing with a constant standard of living though!) has decreased significantly vis-a-vis median salaries over the last 30 years. Most of the gains were made in increased production efficiencies. I think you severely underestimate the amount of gains that have been made there over that time. Total food budget is 5 to 10% of middle class household income in most of the West; it was a multiple of that only 100 years ago!

What I'm saying is that (inflation-adjusted) cost of living has been going down for the last couple of decades, and that salaries have gone up in absolute inflation-adjusted terms. You can argue that this trend won't hold for the future for a myriad of reasons but I wouldn't support such a view.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#54

Post by jacquesm »

yason wrote: post #52
jacquesm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not where I live and this is a pretty rich country. Between your rent/mortgage, your energy bill, public transportation costs, taxes, mandatory health insurance and food a single person income is not enough to make ends meet. And that's when you don't own a car. Typically a single person income is about 1700 euros net take home, and your costs will be slightly above that (for the above mentioned family of four). The…

Which country is that? 1700€ net monthly isn't necessarily that little money.

Netherlands.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#55

Post by yason »

ab9 wrote: post #49

Allie is not "earning far more by actually working far less." That implies that working less causes her to make more money. Rather, she's earning more by charging more , and she was able to do that because she had complementary skills that she didn't know to market until price experimentation attracted a different kind of customer. As a side effect, her higher hourly rate gives her the freedom of working less. Perhap…

The point wasn't that she was underpricing herself: it was that by charging more she gradually found herself offering quite different services.

For $300/hour her clients were still wishing to physically get the most out of her (and, apparently, themselves) during the one hour; for $500/hour she started to find clients who were more interested in high-class flirtation, having a wife replacement for the evening, and the sex portion was reduced to a lot less.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#57

Post by dublinclontarf »

roel_v wrote: post #56
dublinclontarf wrote: post #12

Hmmmf, $500 is a little less than what I get for one month full time as an English teacher :-/

Well I guess that the comparison is meaningless with someone who lives in a 2nd tier Chinese city...

It's got me thinking on changing professions.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#58

Post by gaius »

jacobolus wrote: post #39
lionhearted wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, to me that's a reason not to read the essay, because it sounds quite like a naturalistic fallacy to care whether someone had offspring. I think you'll find it a thought-provoking essay regardless of your personal ethics. It's well-written, has lots of numbers, and brings up a lot of counterintuitive/counter-cultural points. I found it through Hacker News originally, actually.

Frankly life is pretty shitty for (e.g.) rural peasants of both genders, and while in general in the past men had more independence and ability to choose their life direction, etc., I’ve always been pretty skeptical of attempts to rank the two in any absolute way. Men got killed in high numbers in war. Women got raped by invading armies. Men worked extremely physically demanding jobs that made their muscles and bones…

Men worked extremely physically demanding jobs that made their muscles and bones give out by age 40

Yes, this is kinda the little secret of Feminism. They see that men have "good" jobs like CEOs and want some of that for themselves, and who wouldn't? But they overlook that men are also collecting the garbage, working in the mines, and generally doing all of society's dirty, dangerous jobs. Where're the calls for "equality" in those industries?

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#59

Post by ZeroGravitas »

lionhearted wrote: post #14

Problems with the article: > Throughout history, it has invariably been easier to be male than female. Yes, this is an overgeneralisation and yes, there are exceptions, but by any important measure, women have had it rougher than men. This one is a PC-friendly thing to say, the opposite point of view is not. If you haven't read it, I must urge you to check out the excellent "Is There Anything Good About Men?" essay b…

As the risk of being controversial, I'll say I firmly don't understand why a man would give up these apparently non-traditional pursuits of being a good husband and father in order to be an excellent scientist, architect, artist, or entrepreneur, and I have no idea why a man would rather be a low level middle manager or a clerk instead of being a husband, father, and active member of the community. Fatherhood seems to me like it'd be more enjoyable and more rewarding than all but the most satisfying and self-actualizing of professions.

All of that, but particularly the last line certainly applies to me, and I feel I'm fairly well along the line of self-actualizing professions.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#60

Post by caf »

todayiamme wrote: post #50
lionhearted wrote: post #14

Problems with the article: > Throughout history, it has invariably been easier to be male than female. Yes, this is an overgeneralisation and yes, there are exceptions, but by any important measure, women have had it rougher than men. This one is a PC-friendly thing to say, the opposite point of view is not. If you haven't read it, I must urge you to check out the excellent "Is There Anything Good About Men?" essay b…

>>>but I'm hoping society will adjust to a point where traditional femininity can peacefully coexist as a respected choice for women on how to live their lives, because I think it can be a suitable, powerful, happy, and meaningful for choice for many women That's the linchpin you see. The truth is that femininity and masculinity are a continuous spectrum of variation and almost all such statements tend to prescribe s…

Aye - being a stay-at-home husband and father ought to be as equally socially acceptable as wife & mother.
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