I wonder if the changing sexual landscape is connected to the obvious fact that the human race is not in danger of becoming extinct. There are more humans today than at any time in history, and according to science there is a bell curve in any species where at it's peak the success of a species is reflected in a reduction in the rate of reproduction.
The highest birth rates are in cultures where babies have the lowest chance of surviving to age 5. The instinct of the mother is to keep trying. The lowest birth rates are in cultures which have the highest standard of living and the least survival stressors.
So what happens when reproduction becomes less necessary to a population? Perhaps we are seeing this in culture today. The individual sex drive has not diminished, evolution does not happen that quickly. Much of what we do is not strictly determined by individual drives but by group behavior. Perhaps the devaluation of sexual reproduction is what we are seeing in women and men and perhaps it is perfectly natural. Maybe we should accept it.
What are men good for? Oh, creating tech, running things, politics, writing, winning awards, getting promotions, fighting wars, getting paid more for sport, getting more respect, working in construction, mining, being in a band etc, making up new sports, being taken seriously. If women don't need men's protection why do we have a culture that still shows men as doing all the stuff and women needing protection 99% of the time? Incredibly myopic interviewer and interviewee.
I think something fundamental to men being men is that they feel that women need them. The modern world kind of takes that away a bit, and women's independence from tradition is a good thing. However there are always negative unintended consequences. It's just something I was thinking of listening to episode. Like when a woman says (usually on tv) 'where have all the real men gone?' I think one response would be: the modern world tells men 'we don't need you', and men have less incentive to grow up, in a way. I know the episode isn't specifically about what I said, but it is very related I think.
Aelia is obviously thoughtful and intelligent--that's not something one can fake. From her account, she also is capable of great empathy. There are men who for reasons touched on in the article are unable to get female company, let alone sexual partners. They have few advocates because men are used to competing with other men and don't spend much time speculating about the losers, and most women are too busy looking for the most desirable partners in a man. Hence, it's not at all a stretch to believe that Aelia, and other sex workers like her, are providing a valuable service, particularly if, as is the case with her, they are capable of sincere empathy and compassion.
All of culture, religion and law is about the regulation of shame. God help us if it ever disappears. It has been abused regularly but do you suppose the gas chambers and stalags could have happened without disregulated shame?
By dis-regulated shame I mean the warped shame that occurs when someone believes they have overcome shame. As long as there is something desired that one is denied there will be shame (aka sorrow, regret, disappointment, discouragement).
This was totally fascinating and I listened to it twice in full before deciding to write. There are two things that I want to raise with you.
First is the way that your guest described her escort work as a kind of therapy session for needy men, and that she found it really fulfilling. I sat there thinking this is totally out to lunch! As a high cost escort she was basically the Lamborghini of prostitutes, and I would hate to hear the career highlights of a street prostitute in LA or Bangkok. I’m sure they wouldn’t be endearing and heartwarming sex positive messages. I know you don’t necessarily agree with everything your guests say, but I thought that without any pushback from you, it put a phony spin on what most people consider an exploitative business. I had a similar reaction when you did that Hoover Institution interview and Niall Ferguson kind of roped you into some of his extreme statements that I don’t think you actually agree with.
The other thing I wanted to mention was about the discussion at the end about shame. Your guest said that shame in society is increasing and being weaponized as a method of control. It sounded to me like you agreed with her. I can understand that a prostitute/pornstar might have a higher shame threshold than I do, but my experience over my adult life is that actually the operation of shame is on the decline in society. Starting with the “no shame in my game” types back in the 90s, society has come to tolerate increasingly crass, dysfunctional behavior of all kinds, with predictable results that, as you point out constantly, no one is allowed to say the real reasons for.
I guess those aren’t really questions, more like comments from a fan. Overall I want to say great work, every article and podcast is interesting, and I look forward to seeing what you do next!
The Q&A about her childhood Christianity was the part which leapt out for me. Christianity had to be defended. In ways which feel eerily similar to today's diversity orthodoxy.
A couple days ago, I listened in as my wife was part of a Zoom meeting held by her company's diversity leader. And the entire meeting was dedicated to "allyship", or, how to be a better ally. There was a built-in assumption that those who did not buy into this, were, in effect, not allies, but enemies.
By making it an "allyship" conversation, there wasn't room for objecting, lest one wanted to be marginalized or fired (and yes, a CEO at that biz was once fired for their political views). One was coerced into to positions because there simply was no chance to speak out without causing great harm to one's career. Much as Aella described her religious upbringing as inherently defensive, the meeting felt very much as she described. Underneath the kind sounding words was a defensiveness that was ever-present. Any pushback against being an ally in the forms the diversity officer suggested was an opportunity for rejection. In other words, your career would get cancelled.
Aella's said her defensiveness of Christianity was "just sort of built very quietly into the background to how I processed information and addressed criticism and concerns." That sort of brainwashing was embedded in the diversity meeting I witnessed.
It is being ingrained, so it becomes built into your thinking. You had better process information and address concerns/criticism "the right way." Its all very cultish. And very disconcerting. And fwiw, I'm a liberal. I support diversity. But I'm not OK with the cult telling people (really requiring people who want a career), how to think.
Bari - I love your work and although I found this (I listened on the podcast) very interesting and enjoyable I happened to coincidentally listen to it after Candace Owen's recent podcast with Tim Ballard who described his non-profit and experience with human trafficking (including the story of how he bought a 2 year old boy and a 3 year old girl at a human trafficking sex shop as part of a sting - he and his wife ended up adopting those two children and he was able to bust that operation b/c of the deal). Anyway, it was heart-wrenching and eye-opening listening to the numbers of enslaved people and children (millions) that are forced into the sex trade. I happened to listen to your podcast interview with Aella soon after (Aella is obviously very smart and I appreciated you bringing things back full circle at the end with her critique of the media, group think, etc) but it made me wonder if you were aware of Tim Ballard or any of the stats on sex trafficking when you did this story. To me it seems like a glaring issue that I could not stop thinking about while listening to Aella, even though I appreciated how intellectual, honest and independent she seems to be.
I enjoyed reading this, and appreciate the deviation from your typical subjects.
One of the many reasons I enjoy reading your work is that you are fiercely independent. The thing that first put you on my radar was your resignation letter. More specifically,
you mentioned something to the effect of Twitters not on the masthead of the NYT but it might ad well be given how much their journalists are influenced by its members.
By the same principle, I encourage you to keep writing about whatever you want and not changing your approach based on user feedback.
It's interesting how many commenters were apparently unable or unwilling to read or understand the article because their moral prejudices got in the way. I don't even necessarily disagree with them about prostitution (I have never, and would never, get involved with it on any level), but there is value in trying to understand points of view that are very different from your own, and Aella and Bari certainly gave us an opportunity to do that.
I could not agree with you more. For those with less of a libertarian appetite who are also traditionalists and sexually squeamish, the message might have been lost.
Getting past all that, the piece was one of her best. At first I was confused about where she was going with it as she took her time with a lot of foreplay. In classic BW style, she brilliantly landed a complex dialogue staying authentic to her values and making me think more than twice! BW Thank You!
Thank you for this illuminating interview. Very brave of you to post this considering some of the comments below. It was lovely to read Aella's perspective on men's needs and loneliness and how she has been able to deliver a sort of healing intimacy to some of them. Human touch is powerful and healing and our shame-based attitudes toward physical intimacy leave many starved for touch.
I was also impressed that you did not shame or denigrate her but listened thoughtfully to her commentary. She has chosen a way of being in the world that many despise or judge. But she does not apologize for it. I am glad of that. It's time to stop shaming women who are openly sexual or freely choose work in the sex trades. Yes, there is violence and problems in this space—related to abuse, coercion, and underage issues, but this woman has found a way to engage with it safely.
If we weren't so squeamish about sex, I'm sure that we could figure out a way to legalize it (regulate it) within some healthy boundaries. We could start by emulating European attitudes toward nudity. In many places nudity is desexualized. Some brave films that have tackled perspectives on human sexuality are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sessions_(film) and also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortbus. American culture simultaneously hypersexualizes and shames bodies. We are very conflicted and prudish and we don't like discussing it. We educate our children very poorly (if at all in some families) on this issue. As if ignorance (and it's concomitant denial) were ever a solution for anything.
We can turn our noses up all we like—sex work is not going away any time soon and society will never control this space. In fact, it appears to be burgeoning. So, why not consider viable paths forward that include keeping sex workers safe, healthy, and give them some legal protections if things go wrong, etc.?
I'm not advocating against families. But, I believe that both healthy family units and sex work can coexist in the same culture. This simply requires exercising a bit of courage and creativity.
Women don't need to be "protected" anymore, but intact couples and families are far better off in terms of health, finances, and outcomes for children--so the need for stable partners will always be there in a functional society. I think Bari and Aella are missing a piece of the puzzle: the fact of government programs gradually taking the place of male partners, both financially and in child-rearing. In the JAMA article, sexual inactivity is higher for low-income men and men with part-time or no employment, and occurs mainly among unmarried men, all of which perhaps fits a "government as spouse" hypothesis, and may partially explain the data.
Conservatives often blame the "government as spouse" spending largesse for the breakdown of families. The logic is that women got paid more if they were single moms, and therefore were incentivized to divorce / not marry / have lots of kids. To me, this hypothesis has some gaps.
Women (indeed, most people) typically want to hold onto their relationships. Usually it's the man who walks out of the family. Why don't conservatives talk about how men are making failing choices, and that it's on them? And that men are failing to be actual men? Rather than focusing the narrative on women having irresponsible sex, government spending, or women pushing men out of their lives? Or blaming men making bad life choices on "feminism"? Particularly since individual responsibility (e.g. impregnating a woman and walking out on your offspring) is such a central value amongst your typical American conservative. This is similar to the left blaming Black academic underachievement on "systemic racism," which is a claim that conservatives debunk (pretty convincingly, in my view).
I wonder if all the women and children in the world who are trafficked to be “sex workers” are happy with their lot. Actually I don’t have to wonder. They are enslaved. This interview sounds like a Pretty Woman scenario. Totally unrealistic.
Traditionalists rarely care about sex workers' well-being. They simply judge sex workers as inferior and wish that they suffer so that their traditionalist worldview is validated.
Traditionalists are often the only ones who do -- and if that's the word you have for people who actually give a shit about women working on what amounts to rape sweatshops in a deeply corrupt and destructive industry, then I'll wear it and proudly.
Legalizing prostitution will do EXACTLY as much good for the hookers as legalizing sweatshops did for the Triangle Shirtwaist girls.
And we don't judge the women, BTW. We judge the JOHNS -- as ambulatory pieces of excrement.
Fascinating article, extremely thoughtful on both sides. On the protection issue, I always felt, in my marriage, that my husband and I were protecting each other--I thought the ways we did so were (perhaps stereotypically) masculine and feminine. Things worked great until he died, thought we both learned to appreciate the wag who called marriage a contract between a man who can't sleep with the window open and a woman who can't sleep with it shut.
I wonder if the changing sexual landscape is connected to the obvious fact that the human race is not in danger of becoming extinct. There are more humans today than at any time in history, and according to science there is a bell curve in any species where at it's peak the success of a species is reflected in a reduction in the rate of reproduction.
The highest birth rates are in cultures where babies have the lowest chance of surviving to age 5. The instinct of the mother is to keep trying. The lowest birth rates are in cultures which have the highest standard of living and the least survival stressors.
So what happens when reproduction becomes less necessary to a population? Perhaps we are seeing this in culture today. The individual sex drive has not diminished, evolution does not happen that quickly. Much of what we do is not strictly determined by individual drives but by group behavior. Perhaps the devaluation of sexual reproduction is what we are seeing in women and men and perhaps it is perfectly natural. Maybe we should accept it.
What are men good for? Oh, creating tech, running things, politics, writing, winning awards, getting promotions, fighting wars, getting paid more for sport, getting more respect, working in construction, mining, being in a band etc, making up new sports, being taken seriously. If women don't need men's protection why do we have a culture that still shows men as doing all the stuff and women needing protection 99% of the time? Incredibly myopic interviewer and interviewee.
I think something fundamental to men being men is that they feel that women need them. The modern world kind of takes that away a bit, and women's independence from tradition is a good thing. However there are always negative unintended consequences. It's just something I was thinking of listening to episode. Like when a woman says (usually on tv) 'where have all the real men gone?' I think one response would be: the modern world tells men 'we don't need you', and men have less incentive to grow up, in a way. I know the episode isn't specifically about what I said, but it is very related I think.
Aelia is obviously thoughtful and intelligent--that's not something one can fake. From her account, she also is capable of great empathy. There are men who for reasons touched on in the article are unable to get female company, let alone sexual partners. They have few advocates because men are used to competing with other men and don't spend much time speculating about the losers, and most women are too busy looking for the most desirable partners in a man. Hence, it's not at all a stretch to believe that Aelia, and other sex workers like her, are providing a valuable service, particularly if, as is the case with her, they are capable of sincere empathy and compassion.
It would be fascinating to learn whether she still has a relationship with her parents, and if so what the relationship is like.
All of culture, religion and law is about the regulation of shame. God help us if it ever disappears. It has been abused regularly but do you suppose the gas chambers and stalags could have happened without disregulated shame?
By dis-regulated shame I mean the warped shame that occurs when someone believes they have overcome shame. As long as there is something desired that one is denied there will be shame (aka sorrow, regret, disappointment, discouragement).
This was totally fascinating and I listened to it twice in full before deciding to write. There are two things that I want to raise with you.
First is the way that your guest described her escort work as a kind of therapy session for needy men, and that she found it really fulfilling. I sat there thinking this is totally out to lunch! As a high cost escort she was basically the Lamborghini of prostitutes, and I would hate to hear the career highlights of a street prostitute in LA or Bangkok. I’m sure they wouldn’t be endearing and heartwarming sex positive messages. I know you don’t necessarily agree with everything your guests say, but I thought that without any pushback from you, it put a phony spin on what most people consider an exploitative business. I had a similar reaction when you did that Hoover Institution interview and Niall Ferguson kind of roped you into some of his extreme statements that I don’t think you actually agree with.
The other thing I wanted to mention was about the discussion at the end about shame. Your guest said that shame in society is increasing and being weaponized as a method of control. It sounded to me like you agreed with her. I can understand that a prostitute/pornstar might have a higher shame threshold than I do, but my experience over my adult life is that actually the operation of shame is on the decline in society. Starting with the “no shame in my game” types back in the 90s, society has come to tolerate increasingly crass, dysfunctional behavior of all kinds, with predictable results that, as you point out constantly, no one is allowed to say the real reasons for.
I guess those aren’t really questions, more like comments from a fan. Overall I want to say great work, every article and podcast is interesting, and I look forward to seeing what you do next!
The Q&A about her childhood Christianity was the part which leapt out for me. Christianity had to be defended. In ways which feel eerily similar to today's diversity orthodoxy.
A couple days ago, I listened in as my wife was part of a Zoom meeting held by her company's diversity leader. And the entire meeting was dedicated to "allyship", or, how to be a better ally. There was a built-in assumption that those who did not buy into this, were, in effect, not allies, but enemies.
By making it an "allyship" conversation, there wasn't room for objecting, lest one wanted to be marginalized or fired (and yes, a CEO at that biz was once fired for their political views). One was coerced into to positions because there simply was no chance to speak out without causing great harm to one's career. Much as Aella described her religious upbringing as inherently defensive, the meeting felt very much as she described. Underneath the kind sounding words was a defensiveness that was ever-present. Any pushback against being an ally in the forms the diversity officer suggested was an opportunity for rejection. In other words, your career would get cancelled.
Aella's said her defensiveness of Christianity was "just sort of built very quietly into the background to how I processed information and addressed criticism and concerns." That sort of brainwashing was embedded in the diversity meeting I witnessed.
It is being ingrained, so it becomes built into your thinking. You had better process information and address concerns/criticism "the right way." Its all very cultish. And very disconcerting. And fwiw, I'm a liberal. I support diversity. But I'm not OK with the cult telling people (really requiring people who want a career), how to think.
Bari - I love your work and although I found this (I listened on the podcast) very interesting and enjoyable I happened to coincidentally listen to it after Candace Owen's recent podcast with Tim Ballard who described his non-profit and experience with human trafficking (including the story of how he bought a 2 year old boy and a 3 year old girl at a human trafficking sex shop as part of a sting - he and his wife ended up adopting those two children and he was able to bust that operation b/c of the deal). Anyway, it was heart-wrenching and eye-opening listening to the numbers of enslaved people and children (millions) that are forced into the sex trade. I happened to listen to your podcast interview with Aella soon after (Aella is obviously very smart and I appreciated you bringing things back full circle at the end with her critique of the media, group think, etc) but it made me wonder if you were aware of Tim Ballard or any of the stats on sex trafficking when you did this story. To me it seems like a glaring issue that I could not stop thinking about while listening to Aella, even though I appreciated how intellectual, honest and independent she seems to be.
I enjoyed reading this, and appreciate the deviation from your typical subjects.
One of the many reasons I enjoy reading your work is that you are fiercely independent. The thing that first put you on my radar was your resignation letter. More specifically,
you mentioned something to the effect of Twitters not on the masthead of the NYT but it might ad well be given how much their journalists are influenced by its members.
By the same principle, I encourage you to keep writing about whatever you want and not changing your approach based on user feedback.
It's interesting how many commenters were apparently unable or unwilling to read or understand the article because their moral prejudices got in the way. I don't even necessarily disagree with them about prostitution (I have never, and would never, get involved with it on any level), but there is value in trying to understand points of view that are very different from your own, and Aella and Bari certainly gave us an opportunity to do that.
Craig
I could not agree with you more. For those with less of a libertarian appetite who are also traditionalists and sexually squeamish, the message might have been lost.
Getting past all that, the piece was one of her best. At first I was confused about where she was going with it as she took her time with a lot of foreplay. In classic BW style, she brilliantly landed a complex dialogue staying authentic to her values and making me think more than twice! BW Thank You!
Thank you for this illuminating interview. Very brave of you to post this considering some of the comments below. It was lovely to read Aella's perspective on men's needs and loneliness and how she has been able to deliver a sort of healing intimacy to some of them. Human touch is powerful and healing and our shame-based attitudes toward physical intimacy leave many starved for touch.
I was also impressed that you did not shame or denigrate her but listened thoughtfully to her commentary. She has chosen a way of being in the world that many despise or judge. But she does not apologize for it. I am glad of that. It's time to stop shaming women who are openly sexual or freely choose work in the sex trades. Yes, there is violence and problems in this space—related to abuse, coercion, and underage issues, but this woman has found a way to engage with it safely.
If we weren't so squeamish about sex, I'm sure that we could figure out a way to legalize it (regulate it) within some healthy boundaries. We could start by emulating European attitudes toward nudity. In many places nudity is desexualized. Some brave films that have tackled perspectives on human sexuality are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sessions_(film) and also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortbus. American culture simultaneously hypersexualizes and shames bodies. We are very conflicted and prudish and we don't like discussing it. We educate our children very poorly (if at all in some families) on this issue. As if ignorance (and it's concomitant denial) were ever a solution for anything.
We can turn our noses up all we like—sex work is not going away any time soon and society will never control this space. In fact, it appears to be burgeoning. So, why not consider viable paths forward that include keeping sex workers safe, healthy, and give them some legal protections if things go wrong, etc.?
I'm not advocating against families. But, I believe that both healthy family units and sex work can coexist in the same culture. This simply requires exercising a bit of courage and creativity.
Women don't need to be "protected" anymore, but intact couples and families are far better off in terms of health, finances, and outcomes for children--so the need for stable partners will always be there in a functional society. I think Bari and Aella are missing a piece of the puzzle: the fact of government programs gradually taking the place of male partners, both financially and in child-rearing. In the JAMA article, sexual inactivity is higher for low-income men and men with part-time or no employment, and occurs mainly among unmarried men, all of which perhaps fits a "government as spouse" hypothesis, and may partially explain the data.
Conservatives often blame the "government as spouse" spending largesse for the breakdown of families. The logic is that women got paid more if they were single moms, and therefore were incentivized to divorce / not marry / have lots of kids. To me, this hypothesis has some gaps.
Women (indeed, most people) typically want to hold onto their relationships. Usually it's the man who walks out of the family. Why don't conservatives talk about how men are making failing choices, and that it's on them? And that men are failing to be actual men? Rather than focusing the narrative on women having irresponsible sex, government spending, or women pushing men out of their lives? Or blaming men making bad life choices on "feminism"? Particularly since individual responsibility (e.g. impregnating a woman and walking out on your offspring) is such a central value amongst your typical American conservative. This is similar to the left blaming Black academic underachievement on "systemic racism," which is a claim that conservatives debunk (pretty convincingly, in my view).
I wonder if all the women and children in the world who are trafficked to be “sex workers” are happy with their lot. Actually I don’t have to wonder. They are enslaved. This interview sounds like a Pretty Woman scenario. Totally unrealistic.
Coercion is immoral, enslavement is evil. Equating the well-being of people acting under coercion to those acting freely is a false equivalence.
Traditionalists rarely care about sex workers' well-being. They simply judge sex workers as inferior and wish that they suffer so that their traditionalist worldview is validated.
Traditionalists are often the only ones who do -- and if that's the word you have for people who actually give a shit about women working on what amounts to rape sweatshops in a deeply corrupt and destructive industry, then I'll wear it and proudly.
Legalizing prostitution will do EXACTLY as much good for the hookers as legalizing sweatshops did for the Triangle Shirtwaist girls.
And we don't judge the women, BTW. We judge the JOHNS -- as ambulatory pieces of excrement.
Clearly indicates that not only are we slouching to Gomorrah, we are like 95% of the way there.
Fascinating article, extremely thoughtful on both sides. On the protection issue, I always felt, in my marriage, that my husband and I were protecting each other--I thought the ways we did so were (perhaps stereotypically) masculine and feminine. Things worked great until he died, thought we both learned to appreciate the wag who called marriage a contract between a man who can't sleep with the window open and a woman who can't sleep with it shut.