Sex trade in New York

Sudhir Venkatesh writes that one of the unintended consequences of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's campaign to clean up Manhattan streets off prostitutes, so as to make the neighbourhoods hospitable for high-end residential development and tourism, in the late nineties was to drive the sex-trade indoors and make the profession much more lucrative.

Women either left their jobs or moved off the streets into strip clubs, escort services, or started their own businesses by advertising on the Internet or cruising hotels and corporate centers to find clients. The result was a proliferation of the high-end sex market, masquerading as part of the growing therapeutic and wellness industry, which attracts people from the technology and financial sectors. Ironically, the financial crisis has brought boom times to the higher end of the sex industry, as battered bankers and professionals seek solace from the turmoil.

A few second stage issues come to mind. What happened to those prostitutes who were driven out of the profession, most of whom were presumably at the lower end and who were more likely to have been driven into selling their bodies due to poverty? Where would the clientele serviced by these low-end street prostitutes find outlets for exercising their desires and pleasures? Have both the providers and their clients left the sex trade? Where and what have they moved into? For example, have they moved into drugs or do they spend the time with their families?

In any case, it is clear that the sex industry (in New York atleast) has moved up-market, servicing the rich and well-off, blurring the boundaries between sex and therapeutic care!

As an afterthought, with the average prices going up, it is possible that the low end customers would now have to shell out more on their sexual escapades, thereby making them explore alternative options, like drug peddling or indulging in thefts and crimes, to raise the additional incomes required! Whether any of these outcomes happened or not is beside the point. As can be seen, the secondary implications of such regulatory actions can be far reaching, and often throw up undesirable consequences. And most often these get overlooked.